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

pemerton · Feb 2, 2019

[MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION], I'm not going to derail this thread any more. I'll respond in a different thread.

darkbard · Feb 2, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
The GMisnt playing mother may I, the GM is serving as the mechanic to determine the outcome.

Aren't we getting into potato, potahto territory here, by which you're really discussing the same thing but with different built-in preferences?

Bedrockgames · Feb 2, 2019

pemerton said:
In a thread I started a year or two ago, I described this as play where the player goal is to learn the content of the GM's notes. And people got angry about that description too. My experience is that people who play GM-driven games are very easily upset by attempts to describe the actual processes they use.

g a whole layer of threat and drama to this thread that doesn't make any sense to me.

People generally don’t get upset st genuine attempts to describe. They get upset as criticisms couched as description. Especially when they are not particularly accurate descriptions, uncharitable or highly reductive descriptions. Or when the descriptions simply don’t match their experiences. Your description here is the exact opposite of what I want. I came to this style of play because I was frustrated by the style of adventure at the time where I felt like I really might as well just show the players what I had planned because everything was too linear. I’ve found the style of play you are critiquing is the furthest thing from the players just being there to learn the content of the GM’s notes.

You make good arguments penerton. I won’t deny that at all. But your arguments do not match what I see in play at the table.

Bedrockgames · Feb 2, 2019

pemerton said:
[MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION], I'm not going to derail this thread any more. I'll respond in a different thread.

I won’t be joining you. I’ll gladly discuss it here, but not going to field two threads on the topic.

Bedrockgames · Feb 2, 2019

pemerton said:
Wary? Of what - the indie ninjas suddenly jumping into their basements and starting to GM their games?

I play all kinds of games. I don't only play traditional RPGs, and I am not averse to indie RPGs (heck, I am technically an indie RPG publisher myself I think). I just also see the value in the traditional approach, and think it is worth reminding people to be cautious about just accepting a criticism of it as gospel simply because we have an emotionally charged label to attach to it. I've cautioned the same thing about indie games with more traditional players. I think it is better for people to be open minded and understand why people who like different styles gravitate toward them (rather than projecting our assumptions onto them, or projecting our own experiences on to them). I just felt the point of view was getting a bit narrow and wanted to remind people this wasn't the only way to look at it. That the default assumptions taking root in this thread were not necessarily the default assumptions at every table.

Bedrockgames · Feb 2, 2019

darkbard said:
Aren't we getting into potato, potahto territory here, by which you're really discussing the same thing but with different built-in preferences?

I think whether the label Mother May I applies to the whole style, is an important point though. If it is merely describing a bad session or a bad GMing style, rather than a whole type of game, it kind of has use. I certainly wouldn't want my sessions to feel like a game of mother may I. But if it is being applied to a whole type of game I think we really should question the term and why it is being used. I know plenty of people who run games in the traditional way, with systems that have the GM decide these kinds of things. Exactly 0 of those people would describe their style as mother may I. The folks who use the label to describe that style, largely seem to be folk with hostility toward that style. People can say they are merely describing something, till their blue in the face, but if your description of a whole style of play is essentially to use a pejorative (and then to position that pejorative as a simple objective fact), it is all a bit suspect in my view.

Bedrockgames · Feb 2, 2019

Numidius said:
A brief thought on the mechanical side of things: when back in the day we switched from Warhammer 1e to 2e, some character stats were completely missing in the new edition.
Dexterity, Leadership and Coolness had been canceled, and the areas of play they fostered, all of a sudden became almost an inconvenience for the Gm to rule out every time... in Mother May I territory on the Players side.
Not to mention the nearly impossibility to have a decent Dwarf Pc

I am not very familiar with Warhammer, but I had a similar experience but something of the inverse. When I shifted from running 2E Ravenloft to 3E Ravenloft, things felt radically different. The mood, the flow, the sense of immersion was off. I wasn't getting the same level of horror and atmosphere for some reason. When I went back to running it with 2E, things suddenly felt like they had before (in a good way). What it was, was the lack of clear social skills and obvious levers like the extensive skill list. Rather than rolling to see things, the players were leaning more on describing what they were specifically doing or looking for. Because the NWP etiquette was essentially just a knowledge skill, the players were asking NPCs specific questions, rather than being more general or even just saying "I want to roll Persuasion". So in my case, the loss of the those mechanics, ended up being really helpful. The game felt more like the players were interacting with the setting.

Immortal Sun · Feb 2, 2019

innerdude said:
I'm wondering if it would be enough to start saying things like, "Okay, here's what your characters know about the situation, and here's three or four things that are relevant to what's going on, and here's 3 or 4 opportunities that are in front of you to affect what happens next."

Is this enough? Is this too inflexible? Do I need to be more open to player input? Genuinely I have no interest in pre-determining an outcome; I want the player's choices to matter to their fullest, but I do want there to be consequences.

I feel like I'm talking in circles now, so I'll hold my peace and wait for you, my esteemed colleagues, to respond.

I think after reading your post I'm as confused as you are, but I think you're honestly overthinking the situation.

Every action has some kind of reaction, but this isn't physics, that reaction may not be equal, and it may not be opposite. The "consequences" of an action may be positive. It's difficult to determine from your post exactly how you determine consequences of actions already....so I'll talk about myself instead.

Generally speaking whenever there is an opportunity, I will pre-determine some "costs" associated with those. Some of those costs will be able to be learned by appropriate checks by the players (though I may not mention which rolls they may or may not make to determine this). Some costs simply can't be known, they're too far out, they're too vague, they're highly improbable. Usually I'll make some behind the screen rolls as players go about their adventure, and depending on their actions will determine which costs become most apparent and immediate.

There will be an ever-decreasing skill-check possibility to learn of these costs until it effectively hits 0 and that's when those costs smack them in the face.

I'm not really sure how you're seeing this as possibly playing "Mother May I?" to some extent the players always have to ask the DM if something is possible, even if they're doing it via declaration. "DM, is this possible?" is effectively the same "I do the thing, DM tell me how it turns out." The DM must make a determination on if a thing was possible, how possible it was, and how successful, if at all, it was.

You player doesn't know what goes in to running a thieves guild. So he essentially has to ask you, the DM, how difficult it would be to accomplish the task and if accomplished, how effective it was. Perhaps the two of you eschew the dice and narrate your way through this. Perhaps you hold opposed die rolls to determine success or failure.

I don't think any of this is "Mother May I?" That's just a healthy negotiation between players who want as much as possible for as little cost as possible, and DMs who want players to have to work for their supper.

I dunno, maybe I'm as confused as you are.

pemerton · Feb 2, 2019

Immortal Sun said:
to some extent the players always have to ask the DM if something is possible, even if they're doing it via declaration. "DM, is this possible?" is effectively the same "I do the thing, DM tell me how it turns out."

This is very system dependent. In D&D, it's not generally true for the player of a magic-user or wizard declaring that s/he casts a spell, nor for the player of a fighter declaring that s/he draws his/her sword.

In Classic Traveller, if the players are playing a starship crew, and an accurate equipment list indicates that the starship is fully-fuelled, then the players don't need to ask the GM if it is possible to make a jump. They can declare the jump, and then the rules establish how to determine whether a misjump occurs, whether there is some other sort of engine failure, etc.

Many other examples, from a range of more-or-less well known systems, could be given. Or in other words, not all action resolution takes the form of "GM, tell me how this turns out."

Lanefan · Feb 2, 2019

pemerton said:
In this particular sect-in-teahouse example, assuming that the system is more like Gygax's AD&D than the other ones I mentioned, whether or not the player's attempt to find sect members in the teahouse succeeds depends primarily on a decision taken unilaterraly by the GM. So the player's action declaration is, essentialy, GM, will you please decide that there are some sect members in the teahouse for me to make contact with/spy on/whatever it is the player hopes his/her PC will do.

In your eyes, perhaps. To me it says "GM, I'm trying to find out about what goes on in the teahouse, please tell me what I learn".

The player/PC might (rightly or wrongly) have connected the teahouse with a particular sect in his-her own mind, and might be hoping for this connection to be validated. But the GM is - or certainly should be - free to come up with whatever answer suits the situation, be it something made up on the spot or taken from carefully prepped notes (or, most commonly, something in between); and "You learn nothing" is of course also a valid answer should the PC's investigations not go so well.

On a broader scale, pretty much all exploration play - which includes information gathering a la the teahouse example - boils down to "GM, please tell me about this particular bit of the setting that I [as both player and PC] haven't seen before". This could be as simple as narrating what's in the next dungeon passage when the PC peeks around the corner or as complex as broad-brush describing an entire city when the PCs come over the rise and see it laid out before them around the harbour. And calling all exploration play "Mother may I" is really a bit much.