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

innerdude · Feb 11, 2019

Lanefan said:
Party is for whatever reason looking for a particular and unusual comb and has just gone into a bedchamber where such might reasonably be found. Now contrast the following statements, all of which may be seen as action declarations in one form or another:

1. "I search the chamber thoroughly."
2. "I search the chamber thoroughly for the silver fox-head comb."
3. "Starting with the dresser, I search the chamber thoroughly for the silver fox-head comb."
4. "I take the fox-head comb from the chamber."

1. leaves things open-ended for the GM by making no stipulations or assumptions; the GM might here ask for something more specific both in terms of search method/order or what is being sought, or just go with it, assigning chances to find the comb (if it's there at all) along with anything else relevant that might be there.

2. forces the GM to concentrate on the comb as the search's target (and somewhat assumes the PC is doing likewise) which has the benefit of keeping things focussed and the drawback of making it more difficult for the GM to introduce other things that might be found here without giving away metagame hints. The GM still either has to assume the PC's search method or ask for specifics.

3. here the GM gets both method specifics and a focus; her job has been made easier unless she's using the comb as a red herring so the PCs will (maybe) find something else.

4. and here the outcome of any search is assumed, and if the GM doesn't agree with this she's forced to back things up and say "wait a minute" - hardly desireable. The player has (let's hope mistakenly) declared result instead of intent, the same as saying "I hit it" rather than "I swing at it". So why do players keep doing this?

Well, to answer the last question first, in my experience players generally will try to bend the fiction in their favor because they think it will either be A) fun in the moment, or B) have a future payoff of more fun later in the process.

Going back to the start, this is an interesting way of breaking out what is essentially four different actions all based around the same intent. To me there are hidden assumptions lying within each form of declaration that are revealing about the player's expectations vis-a-vis to the GM's approach----Is the GM likely to intervene with my action declaration? Meaning, if I say something that doesn't fit with the GM's perceived fiction, is my action declaration going to be nullified at the source? Or if not nullified at the source, can it be nullified at a different phase or level? Is making an action declaration that's too specific going to hose me over, because I didn't specify something else?

And if you're the GM adjudicating this scene, has it been predetermined that the comb isn't there in the first place? Why or why not? Do you make the players go through a series of procedural steps just to ensure that they've "done their due diligence" even if the comb isn't there? Is the goal to make the players doubt their findings if they roll poorly and don't find the comb? To me, "MMI?" starts happening if/when the GM starts forcing the players to follow their specific, pre-determined procedures for success, and is made even more egregious if the GM is making the players do it even if there's nothing narratively at stake.

As a maxim, I might begin to say something like, "Mother-may-I? play happens when a GM insists that players follow his pre-determined procedures for successfully overcoming scene-level obstacles, while simultaneously denying players the option to introduce new elements at any level that pertain to the current in-fiction stakes."

I'm having more thoughts, but will have to come back to further cogitate later.

Lanefan · Feb 11, 2019

innerdude said:
Well, to answer the last question first, in my experience players generally will try to bend the fiction in their favor because they think it will either be A) fun in the moment, or B) have a future payoff of more fun later in the process.

Or C), and far more common IME, because they perceive some in-fiction advantage in it for them.

Going back to the start, this is an interesting way of breaking out what is essentially four different actions all based around the same intent. To me there are hidden assumptions lying within each form of declaration that are revealing about the player's expectations vis-a-vis to the GM's approach----Is the GM likely to intervene with my action declaration? Meaning, if I say something that doesn't fit with the GM's perceived fiction, is my action declaration going to be nullified at the source? Or if not nullified at the source, can it be nullified at a different phase or level? Is making an action declaration that's too specific going to hose me over, because I didn't specify something else?

Well, as any action declaration is really only a statement of intent then it naturally follows that anything can be interrupted or throw off-course by external in-fiction events (e.g. you just get started searching for the comb and a guard walks in). Also...

And if you're the GM adjudicating this scene, has it been predetermined that the comb isn't there in the first place? Why or why not?

In my case, assuming the comb has any relevance beyond just being more treasure, they yes I-as-GM will already know where it is (or who is carrying it). If it's in that chamber then they've a chance of finding it; if it isn't then they won't...but as neither players nor PCs know this...

Do you make the players go through a series of procedural steps just to ensure that they've "done their due diligence" even if the comb isn't there?

...then yes, they - and I - have to treat each search the same.

Is the goal to make the players doubt their findings if they roll poorly and don't find the comb?

Well, to start with they don't roll; I do. Again this is to keep player knowledge and character knowledge as level as I can: if they don't find the comb they don't know whether it's because it's not there to be found or if they simply missed it - just like real life.

To me, "MMI?" starts happening if/when the GM starts forcing the players to follow their specific, pre-determined procedures for success, and is made even more egregious if the GM is making the players do it even if there's nothing narratively at stake.

I don't see this as MMI at all. It's just a mirror of how it'd work in reality - you're searching for this comb with no pre-knowledge of where it is, and for each likely location I want to know on some level what's going into the search. This also informs me what the odds are of them finding anything else that might be there.

If there's lots of places to search and things start getting repetitive I've no objection to their coming up with a SOP in the name of at-the-table efficiency.

pemerton · Feb 11, 2019

The notion of "trad" RPGs is interesting and in my view somewhat contestable. Here are two examples to explain why I think that.

Pre-2nd ed D&D
D&D has its origins as a form of (semi-)cooperative refereed wargame. The "battlefield" is a dungeon which is mapped and detailed, but at the start of play only the referee has access to that map and its details.

Unlike some traditional wargames, much of the play is direct engagement with the fiction with no mechanical mediation (eg I poke the wall with my staff - what does it feel like?). And unlike most/all prior wargames, the players' unit of play is a single figure. And it is this single-figure level of play that feeds into the way the referee reveals the map/details: rather than the bird's/general's eye-view of a traditional wargame, the player has an individual person's eye-view which is narrated by the referee.

The challenges of refereeing this sort of game are obivous and well-known: the focus on the individual figure can encourage players to take the action in all sorts of non-wargaming directions (eg I propose marriage to the trapped princess - what does she say?), which aren't easy to adjudicate in a fair kriegsspiel fashion; even if the action stays focused on wargaming, the GM has to understand and be able to reason about a host of fictional elements, some of which never come up in traditional wargaming (most wargames don't care about the species or colour of grass on the battlefield) but suddenly become salient in a single-figure's eye-view game, especially one in which solving puzzles and beating mazes is an important part of the wargame.

I don't think of this sort of D&D play as "Mother may I" by default, but thinking about the challenges it poses to a referee, it's easy to see how, under pressure, it can drift in that direction. Hence the GMing advice from prominent authors like Tom Moldvay, Mike Carr and (to a lesser extent in this respect) Gary Gygax emphasising the importance of fairness, impartiality, consistency, adhering to ingame logic, rewarrding skilled play, etc.

This wargaming style of D&D can be contrasted with a GM-as-storyteller style which clearly existed from very early in the piece (Lewis Puslipher (@lewpuls) wrote essays analysing and criticising storyteller style in the late 70s) but became very prominent with the DL modules, and has (I would say) gone on to be the predominant mode of D&D play. This sort of D&D preserves some of the wargaming tropes (dungeons, fights against orcs and goblins, collecting treasure, etc) but the wargaming is not the (ostensible) focus of play but rather a series of interludes or (sometimes) transition devices in what is (again, ostensibly at least) a series of plot-related events which give context and meaning to the game.

Because of the continuation of the wargaming tropes in the storyteller style, any given episode of play, or actual play post, or campaign, might lie somewhere on a spectrum and reasonably be considered to fall at least partly under both descriptions. Nevertheless, taken as a whole and considered in their "purist" forms, the two approaches are very different, as Pulsipher was pointing out about 40 years ago.

So they can't both be trad RPGing.

Classic Traveller
Like many early RPGs, Classic Traveller (1977) suffers from some editing shortfalls (though nowhere near as bad as Gygax's OD&D or AD&D) and doesn't really explain how the game is to be played. I understand that its designer (Marc Miller) described it as "D&D in space", and it seems like it could be played as a wargame (it even has minis-readystarshp combat rules).

But it also has many elements which suggest a non-wargame style of play. There is an example of PC creation in which the events that happen during the character creation process are used to establish a backstory for the PC which is certainly richer than any example found in a D&D book of that era. There is a system for random generation of patrons to hire the PCs for missions, and the implication from that table given the range of patrons (which can include Peasants, Playboys and Diplomats as well as Mercenaries, Terrorists and Scouts) is that adventures might focus on tropes and themes that go beyond travelling the galaxy in search of loot. There is also a reference to the GM's responsibility to establish encounters that will "further the cause of the adventure being played". That is the closest I know of a RPG book from this early era canvassing scene-framed play.

Given the potential geographic scope of Traveller play (multiple worlds, complex socieities, etc) the limitations of traditional wargame techniques (maps, square/hex-based movement rules, etc) are obvious. Traveller works around this with a series of clever and (in my view) powerful procedural systems both for generating content and for adjudicating PC travel - the only weakness I have found in recent play experiences is the lack of an effective system for adjudicating onworld non-urban exploration/travel.

There is little in either the Traveller referee advice or the systems the books put forward to suggest the wargame/kriegsspiel approach. Nor is there much to suggest the GM-curated storyline approach that comes to the fore in and after DL. Even when it comes to NPC interaction, there are brief but (again, in my view) powerful systems to handle reactions, dealing with bureaucrats, dealing with the underworld elements, etc which take the system much closer to contemporary scene0framed, conflict resolution play.

Classic Traveller is 1977. Is it a "trad" RPG or not?

Manbearcat · Feb 11, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
The point is that "say yes" is a fundamental of all styles. Questioning it is silly. What you seem to want to ask is "why is 'no' not also valid?" That's an interesting discussion that this thread has been avoiding.

I think that you have to accept that the GM being able to unilaterally say "no" based on their interpretation of the fictional position is MMI-alike. So long as the GM retains said authority to negate, all actions are subject to this and therefor can only occur with permission, explicit or implied. But, this doesn't mean play cannot be prinipled or hella fun. A GM in this concept can apply strict principles in play and communicate them to players in a way that they can understand the avaiable play space and enjoy play well. This takes a huge amount of work, though, and the GM must shoulder a massive workload to make it happen. Not to mention the need for good social skills and the effort to maintain trust. I think that most posters here have only played this kind of game and so are somewhat blind to the level of effort this kind of play demands from GMs.

It's actually much easier to run games that don't allow the GM unilateral negatipn authority. This isn't because it takes less work or is strictly better, but because that overhead is shared out among all players. I've seen a number of posts that are focusing only on GM power and responsibility that don't grok this difference. In "trad" play, the GM has the overhead burden to create and model the world fairly, while the players have little burden to do so, as they are exploring the GM's world. This requires the GM to be able to negate action declarations that violate the fiction, which may often be not fully known to players, but also that the fiction be well established in the GM's understanding so that a consistent world is presented. The player's only duty is to poke and prod the world, and they expect to be negated from time to time.

Non-trad play, though, puts much more of the burden on the players to engage and create a world. It does this by framing, mostly. Negation is removed from the GM's toolbox but replaced by a duty to frame players into danger at all times. This means that, yes, players can declare whatever they want as actions (within the limits of the fiction and theme, again assuming principled play as baseline) but if they don't engage the danger, the GM can pay it off, meaning players are strongly incentivized to engage the danger in a scene and use their tools and effort to do so. This reduces the GM overhead because they're now only responsible for the initial scene framing and then adjudicating outcomes. They don't have to plan or hold the world in their head to develop believable and consistant outcomes; they only need to frame danger and then pay it off if not resolved while adding more dangers on failed checks. Sonce the GM is now following the development of play that the players now have the duty to bring, GM workload is much decreased.

These styles create very different play at the table. The non-trad games accept a looseness of world and a frenetic pace of play which isn't to everyone's taste. Trad games accept GM fiat, but can also provide a feeling of depth to story that non-trad games can lack*. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your playstyles will help you to become better GMs, on either side, because you'll know where the potholes are and can better steer around them.

*I know [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] often puts his play up as rich and detailed as a counter to this point, but that ignores that he has a lot of experience steering around the potholes. There seems to be a lot of players out there that have bounced off of non-trad games because they failed to get the narrative depth they find in trad games. Those play examples shouldn't be ignored. If bad play examples are going to be referenced for trad games, we should also look at where non-trad games fail as well, not just where they succeed. It takes a whole table to carry a mon-trad game (or most of one), but a trad game can be carried by a good GM.

This is a really great post and interestingly timed. On Friday I was thinking about starting a thread titled "The Implications and Utility of 'No' on Play."

Bedrockgames · Feb 11, 2019

pemerton said:
The notion of "trad" RPGs is interesting and in my view somewhat contestable. Here are two examples to explain why I think that.

Pre-2nd ed D&D
D&D has its origins as a form of (semi-)cooperative refereed wargame. The "battlefield" is a dungeon which is mapped and detailed, but at the start of play only the referee has access to that map and its details.

Unlike some traditional wargames, much of the play is direct engagement with the fiction with no mechanical mediation (eg I poke the wall with my staff - what does it feel like?). And unlike most/all prior wargames, the players' unit of play is a single figure. And it is this single-figure level of play that feeds into the way the referee reveals the map/details: rather than the bird's/general's eye-view of a traditional wargame, the player has an individual person's eye-view which is narrated by the referee.

The challenges of refereeing this sort of game are obivous and well-known: the focus on the individual figure can encourage players to take the action in all sorts of non-wargaming directions (eg I propose marriage to the trapped princess - what does she say?), which aren't easy to adjudicate in a fair kriegsspiel fashion; even if the action stays focused on wargaming, the GM has to understand and be able to reason about a host of fictional elements, some of which never come up in traditional wargaming (most wargames don't care about the species or colour of grass on the battlefield) but suddenly become salient in a single-figure's eye-view game, especially one in which solving puzzles and beating mazes is an important part of the wargame.

I don't think of this sort of D&D play as "Mother may I" by default, but thinking about the challenges it poses to a referee, it's easy to see how, under pressure, it can drift in that direction. Hence the GMing advice from prominent authors like Tom Moldvay, Mike Carr and (to a lesser extent in this respect) Gary Gygax emphasising the importance of fairness, impartiality, consistency, adhering to ingame logic, rewarrding skilled play, etc.

This wargaming style of D&D can be contrasted with a GM-as-storyteller style which clearly existed from very early in the piece (Lewis Puslipher (@lewpuls) wrote essays analysing and criticising storyteller style in the late 70s) but became very prominent with the DL modules, and has (I would say) gone on to be the predominant mode of D&D play. This sort of D&D preserves some of the wargaming tropes (dungeons, fights against orcs and goblins, collecting treasure, etc) but the wargaming is not the (ostensible) focus of play but rather a series of interludes or (sometimes) transition devices in what is (again, ostensibly at least) a series of plot-related events which give context and meaning to the game.

Because of the continuation of the wargaming tropes in the storyteller style, any given episode of play, or actual play post, or campaign, might lie somewhere on a spectrum and reasonably be considered to fall at least partly under both descriptions. Nevertheless, taken as a whole and considered in their "purist" forms, the two approaches are very different, as Pulsipher was pointing out about 40 years ago.

So they can't both be trad RPGing.

Classic Traveller
Like many early RPGs, Classic Traveller (1977) suffers from some editing shortfalls (though nowhere near as bad as Gygax's OD&D or AD&D) and doesn't really explain how the game is to be played. I understand that its designer (Marc Miller) described it as "D&D in space", and it seems like it could be played as a wargame (it even has minis-readystarshp combat rules).

But it also has many elements which suggest a non-wargame style of play. There is an example of PC creation in which the events that happen during the character creation process are used to establish a backstory for the PC which is certainly richer than any example found in a D&D book of that era. There is a system for random generation of patrons to hire the PCs for missions, and the implication from that table given the range of patrons (which can include Peasants, Playboys and Diplomats as well as Mercenaries, Terrorists and Scouts) is that adventures might focus on tropes and themes that go beyond travelling the galaxy in search of loot. There is also a reference to the GM's responsibility to establish encounters that will "further the cause of the adventure being played". That is the closest I know of a RPG book from this early era canvassing scene-framed play.

Given the potential geographic scope of Traveller play (multiple worlds, complex socieities, etc) the limitations of traditional wargame techniques (maps, square/hex-based movement rules, etc) are obvious. Traveller works around this with a series of clever and (in my view) powerful procedural systems both for generating content and for adjudicating PC travel - the only weakness I have found in recent play experiences is the lack of an effective system for adjudicating onworld non-urban exploration/travel.

There is little in either the Traveller referee advice or the systems the books put forward to suggest the wargame/kriegsspiel approach. Nor is there much to suggest the GM-curated storyline approach that comes to the fore in and after DL. Even when it comes to NPC interaction, there are brief but (again, in my view) powerful systems to handle reactions, dealing with bureaucrats, dealing with the underworld elements, etc which take the system much closer to contemporary scene0framed, conflict resolution play.

Classic Traveller is 1977. Is it a "trad" RPG or not?

Classic Traveller is most definitely a traditional RPG. It may not be the platonic ideal of a traditional game, but it is definitely in my mind, a traditional RPG (pretty much any RPG from that period, by definition is a traditional RPG). I am not as familiar with running traveler, so I don't know as much about the referee advice and procedures for generating content in play, but I have played in it enough and played in games that were clearly inspired by it. I think the random generation methods are pretty solidly an old school/traditional part of play. Especially the whole backstory thing. Similar to things like HARN. If we are just stepping away from the debate we are having and asking the question is traveller tradition, I think the honest answer must be yes. Also it is a good game. I enjoyed every time I played it.

pemerton · Feb 12, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
Classic Traveller is most definitely a traditional RPG.

<snip>

I think the random generation methods are pretty solidly an old school/traditional part of play. Especially the whole backstory thing. Similar to things like HARN. If we are just stepping away from the debate we are having and asking the question is traveller tradition, I think the honest answer must be yes. Also it is a good game. I enjoyed every time I played it.

I think Classic Traveller is a really first-rate RPG. I've been GMing it quite a bit over the past year or so, which is the first time for a long time, and finding it a very powerful system - remarkably powerful given its relative brevity as a ruleset and the scope of action it covers. I find the contrast with Gygax's AD&D, in particular, really striking in this respect - there's more in AD&D than it reveals at first blush, but so much of it I find so hard to use. For instance, the Traveller social resolution system is more pithy than the one Gygax published in his DMG and yet, in my experience, more workable and powerful in play. (I think it's a pity that Traveller went on to get somewhat GURPSified in MegaTraveller, but maybe that was inevitable given the 1980s trajectory of RPGing.)

My reason for raising the question of whether or not Classic Traveller is "trad" is because, in this and other threads, the "trad" RPG label gets wheeled out to do a lot of work, and to explain and even vinidicate a pretty particular style of play. And I don't think that Classic Traveller really exemplifies that style. It didn't play like that, for me at least, 30 years ago and it's not playing like that now. Of course I'm bringing my own sensibilities to it - I think one has to, given the relative lack of explanatory text in the rulebooks - but I don't think I'm distorting it.

Bedrockgames · Feb 12, 2019

pemerton said:
My reason for raising the question of whether or not Classic Traveller is "trad" is because, in this and other threads, the "trad" RPG label gets wheeled out to do a lot of work, and to explain and even vinidicate a pretty particular style of play. And I don't think that Classic Traveller really exemplifies that style. It didn't play like that, for me at least, 30 years ago and it's not playing like that now. Of course I'm bringing my own sensibilities to it - I think one has to, given the relative lack of explanatory text in the rulebooks - but I don't think I'm distorting it.

One thing people do often overlook is how a lack of internet and rules that were not always 100% clear, meant people ran these games very differently sometimes. I remember a GM in my area who mapped out his game world into an insane level of detail (like truly deeply granular---here is a 30 mile hex, here is a map of each of the ten miles, then 1, then maps of all the little locations). He wasn't doing it wrong, he was just doing it on a level of detail no one I knew engaged in. It was like computer sim level detail. I knew another group that had two GMs. There were often vastly different interpretations of the same rule. Gaming styles were pretty varied from one group to the next. Some people ran concrete linear adventures, some people just let you lose in the game world, etc. Some groups had an adversarial GM approach. Each game group felt like a small island of gaming culture, isolated from others. I had one GM who would just put a map on the table and ask where we wanted to go. I had another GM who planned everything out like a story. At the time, I tended to run more monster of the week type adventures. And in terms of mechanics and system, even for a game like D&D, things were all over the place. Even in the 90s things were not as cut and dry as people often remember. When 2E came out, we still used lots of the 1E material. I had a friend who ran TORG, but half the time he ran it using GURPS (though he retained the Drama Deck).

I think traditional can mean so many different things in those kinds of conversations. Any time you drill down into a term like that, and particularly if you really go back and examine stuff closely, there will be surprises to anyone carrying around a simplified memory of what is going on. This was exactly my experience when I tried 2E again for example. I had a bunch of memories about the system and the era. I remembered it being clunky, I remembered it being heavily about the GM forcing a story on the players, etc. But when I went back and re-read all teh Ravenloft material, all the relevant complete books and core books, I realized I was greatly simplifying the memory. For example, the GM forcing a story on the players, wasn't nearly as cut and dry or as ubiquitous as I recalled (and it really varied a lot from product to product). It was present. It just was definitely not there day 1, and it depended on the product line, the writer, and the year. Some modules were actually quite open and unusual (again, I highly recommend looking at Feast of Goblyns for example, which has some really cool ideas in it). But other modules were guilty of some heavy, heavy railroading. Castles Forlorn had some really interesting stuff in it too. There was one module, which was actually rather good, called The Created (not to be confused with the Van Richter Guide to the Created). That module had a great premise and concept, some really cool scenarios, but included some massive story railroads. There is even one part of the module where the text says flat out that an NPC simply can't die no matter what the PCs do (and if I recall he is basically just a normal man).

Thinking back to other games from that period, many of them don't fit neatly into the concept of 'traditional RPG' people carry in their head. Especially since a lot of other games that came out were a response to D&D, so they often tried to do things very differently.

pemerton · Feb 12, 2019

I've posted it before but I think it's time to post it again - a comment from Ron Edwards at The Forge in 2006, on a thread in which another poster was looking for advice on how to manage scene-framing:

Well, let's look at this [ie the other poster's actual play report] again. Actually, I think it has nothing at all to do with distributed authority, but rather with the group members' shared trust that situational authority [ie decisions about what's going on and which PCs are there when it happens] is going to get exerted for maximal enjoyment among everyone. If, for example, we are playing a game in which I, alone, have full situational authority, and if everyone is confident that I will use that authority to get to stuff they want (for example, taking suggestions), then all is well. Or if we are playing a game in which we do "next person to the left frames each scene," and if that confidence is just as shared, around the table, that each of us will get to the stuff that others want (again, suggestions are accepted), then all is well.

It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the S[hared ]I[maginary ]S[pace] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.

I think this isn't really a problem for wargaming-type D&D, because that sort of play isn't really about situation at all. It's about the maze, the puzzles, the loot, and so rather than engaging situations a good GM needs a clever dungeon.

But this problem used to affect my Traveller games 30 years ago - I would struggle to come up with situations that were "worth anyone's time". Obviously the basic system elements suggest some starting points - hijackers on a starship is a standard one - but they wear thin quickly; and while Book 1 is called Characters and Combat, I think that interpersonal combat is actually not one of the most engaging aspects of Traveller play.

Questions of consequences (which is what the OP asks about), of when to say "yes" and when to push conflict hard, of what sort of control to exercise over scene-framing (which will feed into the fictional positioning that informs action declarations) - these can all be seen as ways of trying to ensure that the situations the GM is framing (assuming a fairly conventional allocation of responsibilities at the table) are "worth anyone's time".

innerdude · Feb 13, 2019

Lanefan said:
I do have a few questions, then. I've asked these of pemerton in the past and am curious as to whether your responses would differ.

1. What effect has scene-framing had on exploration play - the amount of it, and the focus - in your game? Do the players still see self-directed or sandbox-style setting exploration and information gathering as important, or relevant, or even necessary?

2. Do your players ever consider the "gap" between scenes as important enough to stop the next scene and back things up a bit? For example: scene A is in an uptown tavern, where the PCs (for whatever reason) sign themselves on for a sea journey. You then set the next scene as starting when they board the ship. There's a gap there - on you starting that next scene would a player ever say (or even be allowed to say) "Hey, hold on: on our way to the ship I wanted to try and slip away in the darkness for a few minutes and let my temple know where I'm going, as an insurance policy" and thus back you up? Or are the gaps just ignored?

Good questions. Let me see if I can thoughtfully respond.

1. In my experience, scene framing encourages player exploration, most commonly within the context of what's been set up as the "current stakes." It encourages players to seek out advantages through creating NPC relationships, finding out more information about their current locale, investigating rumors that may be applicable to their situation, etc.

In these kinds of explorations, the players also regularly discover unrelated side bits and non-sequiturs, which they are free to explore if they wish, and in some occasions have later become key components of the fiction. But the focus is generally on exploration for the sake of what's at stake.

Now if the players aren't interested in what's at stake, then that's up to me as the GM to determine what they ARE interested in, and shift focus to that. If the players decide that their characters' investment in a given set of stakes is no longer relevant, then that's important. "You know what, we don't really care what happens to the Marquis of Hanover anymore, can we go take out the slave trader ring in the city of Atherun instead?"

As GM, I have to be ready, willing, and able to respond to these kinds of things. I'd hope I've conveyed to my players that they have the freedom to say things like this, and that they know I'll take them where they see the "fun".

2. I don't know that I've ever had this really show up as an issue. As a GM, I feel like I'm generally pretty good about clarifying with my players what they're doing and why, what they expect when they reach the next "scene," and how their characters would prepare ahead of time.

"So, from what you know of the city of Hakadris, it's a run-down, crime-ridden city that's generally ruled by factions with the most money and power. You know about the rumors of the gang that has a grip on the city, and you know that your reputation is likely going to follow you when you arrive. You gathered information on contacts A and B in the city that are if not friendly, at least neutral to your cause. You captured the shipment of Drakassian lizards at the docks, and as a result you've gotten several leads on who sold the gang the Drakassian lizards, and you know you can follow up on those as well.

"From what I understand, your goal in the city is to continue consolidating power and reputation, and make inroads on disrupting the gang's operations. Is there anything else you feel like your characters should know before you arrive in the city? Is there anything else you want to do ahead of time?"

This type of discussion would be a very common interlude to a scene from me as a GM. And I would do absolutely everything within my power to take their responses and suggestions and apply them as inputs into the framing of the next scene (or set of scenes).

Depending on how successful they are at making certain checks, I may also provide them additional information about what they might expect when they arrive, may introduce additional favorable benefits for them to apply in the next scene, etc. For example, if a player had an exceptional success on an "Investigate" check in Savage Worlds, I might on the spot consider the possibility that the scene might include a hidden ally that I hadn't initially considered.

The goal for all of this is to avoid the players having to constantly ask, "Can I do this? What about this? What about this?" If they're asking those things in good faith because the stakes and scene framing are unclear, that's up to me to fix. And I think over time, my players and I have developed a good rapport about this sort of thing, where they know that my only interest is in helping them have fun, and to present them interesting challenges.

In the back of my mind, I do often think about extrapolations of what could/would happen if the players either succeed or fail. "So if the players succeed, I suspect NPC X will do this (if he's still alive), and Faction Z will probably respond this way, but if they fail, it would probably go this way or this way, but that's not set in stone. And there are a million things the party could do between now and then that could change the next set of scenes, and maybe something they do will introduce a new obstacle or grant them an unexpected boon," etc.

My goal is to use principled scene framing play to create an enjoyable play experience, and though Savage Worlds is very much a "traditional" discrete action/resolution style of system, I use the mechanics of "fortune points" and "success with a raise" on player checks to facilitate that play as best I can.

Lanefan · Feb 13, 2019

innerdude said:
1. In my experience, scene framing encourages player exploration, most commonly within the context of what's been set up as the "current stakes." It encourages players to seek out advantages through creating NPC relationships, finding out more information about their current locale, investigating rumors that may be applicable to their situation, etc.

In these kinds of explorations, the players also regularly discover unrelated side bits and non-sequiturs, which they are free to explore if they wish, and in some occasions have later become key components of the fiction. But the focus is generally on exploration for the sake of what's at stake.

Now if the players aren't interested in what's at stake, then that's up to me as the GM to determine what they ARE interested in, and shift focus to that. If the players decide that their characters' investment in a given set of stakes is no longer relevant, then that's important. "You know what, we don't really care what happens to the Marquis of Hanover anymore, can we go take out the slave trader ring in the city of Atherun instead?"

As GM, I have to be ready, willing, and able to respond to these kinds of things. I'd hope I've conveyed to my players that they have the freedom to say things like this, and that they know I'll take them where they see the "fun".

This is cool - you'll allow them to throw curveballs at you and be ready and willing to hit them if-when they do. Nice.

2. I don't know that I've ever had this really show up as an issue. As a GM, I feel like I'm generally pretty good about clarifying with my players what they're doing and why, what they expect when they reach the next "scene," and how their characters would prepare ahead of time.

"So, from what you know of the city of Hakadris, it's a run-down, crime-ridden city that's generally ruled by factions with the most money and power. You know about the rumors of the gang that has a grip on the city, and you know that your reputation is likely going to follow you when you arrive. You gathered information on contacts A and B in the city that are if not friendly, at least neutral to your cause. You captured the shipment of Drakassian lizards at the docks, and as a result you've gotten several leads on who sold the gang the Drakassian lizards, and you know you can follow up on those as well.

"From what I understand, your goal in the city is to continue consolidating power and reputation, and make inroads on disrupting the gang's operations. Is there anything else you feel like your characters should know before you arrive in the city? Is there anything else you want to do ahead of time?"

I don't know how in-depth your table gets when it comes to such things, but my response to this would probably be something like:

"You bet there is! We need to set ourselves up a safe house of some sort, as a place to meet and - if necessary - hide. I'd also like to make contact with [goodly temple xxx] and see if there's any chance of having them watch our backs and-or provide us some cover. And what's the story with Sultan Pashka who runs the town - is he on the take from the gang? In other words, can we count on any support at all from the town guards should we need it? Oh, and we need to pay our ship captain to keep her in dock, ready to sail at any time, in case we need a quick getaway."

And then, were it me playing, I'd want to get into detail about how we set up the safe house, where it is, what special defenses we put into it, what it all costs, and so on (probably to the point of drawing out floor plans on paper); then I'd want to role-play making contact with the temple; and all the while be on the lookout for spies and observers as we walk the streets.

This type of discussion would be a very common interlude to a scene from me as a GM. And I would do absolutely everything within my power to take their responses and suggestions and apply them as inputs into the framing of the next scene (or set of scenes).

Which means you don't have "the next scene" already in mind - good.

Depending on how successful they are at making certain checks, I may also provide them additional information about what they might expect when they arrive, may introduce additional favorable benefits for them to apply in the next scene, etc. For example, if a player had an exceptional success on an "Investigate" check in Savage Worlds, I might on the spot consider the possibility that the scene might include a hidden ally that I hadn't initially considered.

The goal for all of this is to avoid the players having to constantly ask, "Can I do this? What about this? What about this?" If they're asking those things in good faith because the stakes and scene framing are unclear, that's up to me to fix. And I think over time, my players and I have developed a good rapport about this sort of thing, where they know that my only interest is in helping them have fun, and to present them interesting challenges.

Where oftentimes I don't mind them asking "can I do this?", as "this" frequently encompasses something I simply didn't think of. (a simple example would be my "can we hope for any help from the town guard" question above; it's not your fault you didn't think of this in your description, but it's worth knowing from our perspective)

In the back of my mind, I do often think about extrapolations of what could/would happen if the players either succeed or fail. "So if the players succeed, I suspect NPC X will do this (if he's still alive), and Faction Z will probably respond this way, but if they fail, it would probably go this way or this way, but that's not set in stone. And there are a million things the party could do between now and then that could change the next set of scenes, and maybe something they do will introduce a new obstacle or grant them an unexpected boon," etc.

My goal is to use principled scene framing play to create an enjoyable play experience, and though Savage Worlds is very much a "traditional" discrete action/resolution style of system, I use the mechanics of "fortune points" and "success with a raise" on player checks to facilitate that play as best I can.

I also - when I'm doing it right - try to look a few moves ahead and run some what-ifs through my mind, particularly in a case like the city-adventure example we're using where there's potentially a load of moving parts behind the scenes. And the dice will steer me in certain directions too.

(an example from an old game of mine: a party NPC had stolen a bunch of party treasure and fled overseas to another city, not knowing the party had access to both means of vaguely locating her and fast transport to get there. What I'd set up to be a manhunt in a foreign city [as a means of introducing that city as a site for further adventuring] was blown apart when the party arrived at the dock and - due to some exceptionally lucky rolling - ran right into her as soon as they got off the ship! So much for that idea...)

Lan-"and then, inevitably, the PCs do something completely off the wall and make all that thinking redundant"-efan

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

innerdude

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Lanefan

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Manbearcat

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Bedrockgames

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pemerton

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Bedrockgames

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pemerton

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innerdude

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Lanefan

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