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

For anyone who does not like play that focuses on numbers (whether on the PC sheet or NPC/monster records) I strongly recommend Cthulhu Dark.

Each player's investigator has two properties, neither numerical: a name; and an occupation. There is no list of occupations - you just choose a job for your PC. (When we played, one player chose to be an investigative journalist, another to be a legal secretary, and the third to be a longshoreman.)

There is only one stat - Insanity - which starts at 1 for all PCs and is recorded by way of a die that sits near the player. Resolution is dice-pool based: you get a die if your action falls within your sphere of occupational competence; a die if your action is humanly possible; and a die if you are prepared to risk your sanity to succeed. The highest die in the pool determine the outcome, and there are possible extra complications if you risked your sanity and it is your sanity die that comes up highest.

I think the system could probably be adapted to fantasy RPGing - instead of the sanity die you would use something like an "otherworldliness" or "supernatural" or "ritual" die, which reflects not fading sanity but growing transcendence of the mortal world and mortal concerns.

Ovinomancer said:

Almost every game played doesn't follow your model as presented. The GM as the referee is a common trope, yes, but that's limited by the group dynamic -- the idea that it's the GM's way or the highway is false, and not how it actually worked.

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IME the GM's way or the highway is the only way it's ever been, though tempered with reasonability in most cases (and those cases where it wasn't thus tempered are no longer DMing - good ol' cause and effect in action ).

Players can offer suggestions and give input, but the final decision on anything rules-related and-or setting-related rests with the GM - who is free to accept or ignore any such suggestions and input and who is also free to not even ask for it.

In the game I play in there's some variant rules and setting elements that drive me up the wall...but it's not my game; and though I can (and do!) voice my opinions, in the end I've no right to expect anything to come of doing so.

Take a referee in football, for example. You can make the same arguments you've made, but the reality is different -- if the ref isn't following the rules of the game closely and only making calls where they're allowed the judgement by the social contract, bad things happen. Refs in football are constrained by the rules just as much as the players.

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Agreed. The difference in RPGs is that there's a general acceptance that each GM is free to tweak or kitbash the rules for whatever reasons she likes; there's no over-watching league behind her making sure her game is the same as everyone else's (AL play excepted).

A GM who doesn't even follow her own rules, however, is on thin ice......

I disagree that the right metric is united player opposition -- violation of the social contract is what I'd go with, as that varied from table to table and does not require a full mutiny. As for the rules holding no power unless backed by the players, this is a trivial statement that has little to do with your statements that the GM has all of the authority and the players can just leave if they don't like it. Please tell me you don't really see those two things as synonymous.

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In the end they kind of are synonymous; if the players don't back the rules and instead exercise their option to leave (or depose the GM, same thing in the end) then the GM has no players, and no game.

Ovinomancer said:

The burden, then, is on you to show it, and you've so far offered nothing but your bald assertion.

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Only if I believe either of us has the means to prove his view to the other. Since I don't, it's just a matter of exchanging impressions.

Ovinomancer said:

No, you cannot have the GM as both final and absolute arbiter

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I have made it clear that his power ends where there is sufficient resistance by his player base. That often translates into an enormous amount of leverage.

Ovinomancer said:

The GM as the referee is a common trope, yes, but that's limited by the group dynamic

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That's what I said. Also, I am adding that the GM has enormous amounts of leverage here unless the group is committed to play a certain way. He's the one who has taken the effort to write or buy and read the adventure, he's possibly the one who is thinking up an entire campaign. Possibly, he is also the only one who owns the core rulebook as well, he's the one who has taken the effort of reading that rulebook and is now teaching the players the game's rules through play.

Ovinomancer said:

Huh? I'm not the least vexed, nor have I made an ad hom.

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You have no been addressing the issue at hand but made a statement about me and "how I come across". That was poor form.

I've responded directly to your presented (multiple times) points and challenged them strongly. Do not confuse strong opposition with emotional or insulting opposition. The only thing here that might have crossed a line is a mild bit of derision.

Ovinomancer said:

I've followed just fine,

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I kinda don't think so but I don't have the will to take the time to debate this with you in detail.

pemerton said:

And what happens if the player(s) ignore the GM "continuing the fiction otherwise"?

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If the players do, the session grinds to a screeching halt and cannot continue as normal. If one player does, he is being brought to heel or removed from the game.

pemerton said:

I mean, the GM is welcome to continue playing his/her own solo game, but that is no more RPGing than the players playing their own game.

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Exactly, no doubt. But removing the GM has greater ramifications that removing a player out of a, say, standard 4-man party. So it's completely not equivalent.

pemerton said:

From the pretty trivial point that RPGing depends upon a degree of group cohesion, nothing follows about how RPGing and GMing can and should be done.

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It follows that rules-as-written are meaningless unless backed up by the sufficient will to stick to them. Which was my whole point to begin with. I am invalidating your "The rulebook does not say the GM has the authority to ignore the rules". Or to be precise: I am invalidating it to exactly the same degree that the players are willing to enforce that the GM plays by the rules-as-written. And that goes btw regardless of the game having a Rule 0 in its rulebook or not. Players might be able to force the GM to stick exactly to RAW, ignoring any license a Rule 0 in the rulebook might have given him otherwise.

Anyway, this is dragging on too long. I maintain: the standard model is that players declare intent and GM's determine the outcome of that.
If you disagree, that's fine; I can live with that.

pemerton said:

An analogy: no one analyses how playing chess works by considering the possibility of a player who will tip over the board if s/he finds him-/herself losing.

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If in a casual game an opponent touches a piece, it raises the question of if you're going to enforce that he has to move it or not. If you had agreed that the rule is in effect, he accidentally touches a piece, you insist he moves it but he refuses to - what are you going to do? Swallow it and move on or threaten to quit?
Anyway, I think this analogy is a dead end, let's not pursue it any further.

pemerton said:

You seem to be assuming that there is some notion of playing an RPG which is indepenent of any particular system of rules, techniques, participant roles, etc; and so a group might just sit down and do that (whatever "that" exactly is), with the GM drawing upon rules or mechanics from time to time as s/he thinks worthwhile and consistent with player expectations. But that assumption is in my view untenable in general, and obviously so in the context of this thread which begins with a request for advice on how to approach the game to produce a non-GM-driven experienc.

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I don't think I am the only one in thinking that there is such a notion:
"Rule Zero, also known as GM fiat, is the common RPG rule that the GM has the ultimate say in all rules matters and can thus introduce new rules or exceptions to rules, or abolish old ones at their leisure. [...] It should be noted that while Rule Zero has decades of tradition behind it, it is not universally accepted."
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/102507/what-is-rule-zero

Emphasis mine.

pemerton said:

In your first post in this thread you said "I am confused by the discussion" and in your second post you quoted me discussing action declaration and said "Players don't declare actions, they declare intent." Maybe your assumption that everyone is talking about what you apparently think they should be talking about is one source of your confusion. The OP doesn't specify a system and makes no reference to "average" or "traditional" RPGs. My reply (post 13) to the OP which the OP accepted as offering the most useful response to his query did not reference what you call an "average RPG" - it referenced Burning Wheel and Dungeon World.

Of course it's open to you to stipulate that by "traditional RPG" you mean an RPG in which the GM has unilateral control over all changes in the shared fiction - but you may find that many posters don't find that a very compelling definition, nor a very interesting premise for a discussion about GMing techniques.

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How is the OP relevant if we're not discussing the topic of the thread but are being side-tracked by a quite different question: do players declare actions or intent? (Or differently phrased: if a player declares that his PC is going to do X - is the PC definitely going to do X or does the GM have the power to rule that specific, unusual circumstances prevent the character from even trying?) The post I replied to in the above specifically referenced AD&D, you responded to my reply by quoting from the PHB and DMG. So I feel very safe in claiming that the immediate context of my remarks was not Dungeon World.

pemerton said:

No. You don't get to unilaterally specify what we are talking about.

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I don't. But I do get to determine unilaterally if this conversation is a waste of my time.

Alexander Kalinowski said:

pemerton said:

And what happens if the player(s) ignore the GM "continuing the fiction otherwise"?

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If the players do, the session grinds to a screeching halt and cannot continue as normal. If one player does, he is being brought to heel or removed from the game.

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I think you're significantly exaggerating things when you say "the session grinds to a screeching halt".

If a player writes stuff on his/her equipment list or treasure list that differs from the fiction that the GM (purports to have) narrated, the game won't grind to a halt.

If two players interact, in character, in ways that presuppose or establish a fiction that differs from the GM's, the game won't grind to a halt. I've played in a game that fitted this description and lasted for months before the GM eventually rebooted things (by transporting the PCs 100 years into the gameworld's future) - the game died not long after (unsurprisingly).

Then there can be more complicated stuff, like Vincent Baker's example of "the smelly chamberlain":


Baker has a long discussion of possible ways this might play out; the short version is that there's no obvious reason why the GM's understanding (ie that the Chamberlain doesn't smell) should prevail.

Alexander Kalinowski said:

removing the GM has greater ramifications that removing a player out of a, say, standard 4-man party. So it's completely not equivalent.

<snip>

rules-as-written are meaningless unless backed up by the sufficient will to stick to them. Which was my whole point to begin with. I am invalidating your "The rulebook does not say the GM has the authority to ignore the rules".

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If the GM leaves, or is removed, maybe one of the players is ready to take up the reins! (I've had this happen in real life.)

But anyway: If A and B play chess together, and A owns the board and pieces, so that if A gets frustrated with play s/he can literally pick them up and go home, does it follow that A's mood is part of the rules of chess, or invalidates the rulebook? I don't think so. I'm making the same point about RPGing - the pertubations of social dynamics don't tell us much about what the rules of the game are, nor who is permitted or required to do what in the course of play. RPGs are no different from chess, or cricket, or any other game, in this respect.

pemerton said:

This feeds directly into the claim from you and [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] that there is no difference, to RPG play, between the GM unilaterally deciding an outcome and the GM calling for a check. That claim is, in my view, rebutted by the following point made by Vincent Baker:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .

Mechanics . . . exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​

We can elaborate a bit: we have to assume that the action declaration and hence "negotiation" is sincere and made in good faith (something I already alluded to above, when I said I'm assuming that the player has not conceded that the action declaration is a try-on); likewise I am assuming that the use of the mechanics is done sincerely and in good faith.

To go back to the example of Streetwise in Classic Traveller, the rules state some example DCs from low "heat" (find an official who readily issues licences) to high "heat" (find a supplier of illicit guns). So everyone at the table already knows that for someone with Streetwise skill at level 1 low heat stuff is fairly easy (throw 4+ on 2d6, an 11 in 12 success rate, to find that official) and even high heat stuff is not too hard (throw 8+ to find the arms dealer, a 5 in 12 success rate); whereas for someone with no skill the low heat stuff is hard (throw 10+ on 2d6 to find the official, a 1 in 6 success rate) and the high heat stuff is impossible (throw 14+ on 2d6 to find the arms dealer).

This knowledge, and the actual play of the game in accordance with it, is what "ease and constrain real-world social negotiation" between player and referee about the outcome of the player's PC's attempt to make contact with shady/criminal elements. The GM is not exercising unilateral control over the content of the shared fiction. What comes next in the shared fiction depends upon the outcome of the dice throw, where the odds have been set in accordance with that prior, mutually understood procedure.

OK. I'm not sure how that bears on what anyone is saying in this thread. Which poster in this thread do you think plays a game "lacking in roleplaying depth"?

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Eh, IMO this is a very weak argument and instead of being applicable to real play (as you like to so often refer to) seems only applicable to some platonic idea where a DM doesn't have bias or preference ro even differences in perception... of course any game should work perfectly if that's the case. A sandbox should be able to constrain the real-world social negotiation between player and referee through the use of random rolls if the tables are created without bias, or preferences. Even GM fiat when applied with foreshadowing, player expectations in mind and neutral biases should be able to constrain the real-world social negotiation between player and referee. In other words, at least IMO, ignoring the things that cause there to have to be social negotiation between player and referee serves no purpose in discussion.

To further expound as long as there is room for a DM to determine what the chances of a player achieving success or failure are... then there is, at leats as it has been defined in this thread, MMI... we are just talking about degrees. No matter what examples are given in the Traveller rulebook no 2 GM's are going to make the rule the same throws for the same actions the each and every time. Same with 4e. These systems don't have checks in place for this like say PbtA games do where, as was pointed out earlier, success and failure are in fact not set by the GM but consistently the same number. You seem to be claiming your MMI is better than others MMI because you have guidelines or examples and for your particular goals I partly agree... where I don't though is that in discussion you ignore the fact that it is in fact a question of at what degree it is no longer MMI for you (a question both I and [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] have continually tried to get you to answer with no success).

pemerton said:

I think you're significantly exaggerating things when you say "the session grinds to a screeching halt".

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The context of this remark was:
'What is a GM going to do if a player insists "I draw my sword" even though the GM has specified that there are no swords in his/her gameworld?'
So if the players insist on there being swords in the gaming world, it is possible that the game would halt. As another example, if I was running ASOIAF RPG and my players would insist on having a revolver each, that would be a deal-breaker for me. If I run Westeros, I wanna run Westeros.

And not Western-os.

pemerton said:

If the GM leaves, or is removed, maybe one of the players is ready to take up the reins! (I've had this happen in real life.)

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It's possible, yes.

pemerton said:

But anyway: If A and B play chess together, and A owns the board and pieces, so that if A gets frustrated with play s/he can literally pick them up and go home, does it follow that A's mood is part of the rules of chess, or invalidates the rulebook? I don't think so. I'm making the same point about RPGing - the pertubations of social dynamics don't tell us much about what the rules of the game are, nor who is permitted or required to do what in the course of play. RPGs are no different from chess, or cricket, or any other game, in this respect.

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Chess has no referee, so the analogy is a bit skewed. But this leads us away from the origins of this side-track: do players declare intent or actions? It's a bit of an artificial question because in most cases intent directly translates into action. I think we can agree that there are games in which the GM can interdict and games in which he cannot. In the latter case this is either because he doesn't even want to or because the players won't let him get away with it. Either possibility in turn can be based on the official rules or it might just be (tacit?) agreement.

I believe the only major difference between us here continues to be how common the two different versions of GM authority are. Might also be cultural/national differences, let's not forget about that. And since I believe neither of us holds anything but anecdotal evidence, there's no resolution of it anyway.

We might as well switch back to the issue of MMI, don't you think?

Alexander Kalinowski said:

But this leads us away from the origins of this side-track: do players declare intent or actions?

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Yes.

Aldarc said:

Yes.

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I do think this is the heart of the split. But I also think the majority of people have generally treated actions as statements of intent in RPGs. Whether the GM is deciding or not, when a player says "I do x" It is rarely assumed to be automatic. If I say "I hit it with my mace", in most games I am probably still going to roll, so it is clearly a statement of intent, not statement that makes the action take place. I can even be more specific and say "I hit the goblin in the face with my mace". Me saying it doesn't make it so. Why would there be an expectation that it is any different when it isn't combat or something not covered by specific rules?

Edit: I do get that there are exceptions and some systems handle this differently. This just seems like it has largely been the norm over time.

Aldarc said:

Yes.

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Exactly.

It depends on the system and it depends upon specific artifacts of the system:

1) Tons (most) systems have various forms of player fiat; “I cast Prestidigitation/Mage Hand and do Fantasia thing x” doesn’t get mediated.

2) Plenty of systems require knowing both action and intent so Failure can be Forward (expresses as a complication of intent).