A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

Bedrockgames said:

I think the method can matter.

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I also think the method can matter. Some other posters seem to disagree, though.

Bedrockgames said:

I think though if the GM is frequently having things happen simply because the PCs suggest it, over time, they may start to suspect their ideas are driving the reality of the campaign.

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Lanefan said:

It's when a disproportionate number of purely speculative actions pay off - i.e. coincidence gets stretched too far - that things quickly start becoming less believable. This can happen in a few different ways:
- the players are more or less subtly being led by the nose and don't realize it; or
- the GM says yes far too often, and-or
- the GM is letting the players make up the story and just going with whatever they suggest rather than enforcing setting constraints and-or plausibility.

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Both these posts seem to asssume that there are only two possible resolution systems for determining if the PCs find sect members at the teahouse: the GM decides based on his/her beliefs about the gameworld, or the GM "says 'yes'".

That is, they seem to assume that play will be driven simply by GM decision-making.

I find that to be an odd assumption to make, but unsurprisingly I agree that running a game that way will tend to make for a mediocre play experience.

(One reason I find it an odd assumption: the first RPG system I know of that explicitly deals with the issue of trying to find certain sorts of people in urban situations is Traveller (1977), and it assumes that the outcome of such attempts will be affected by rolls that are affected by skills like Admin, Streetwise and Leadership, with subsequent supplements adding further relevant skills like Carousing and Recruiting. It doesn't say anything about the referee just decding what happens.)

pemerton said:

I find that to be an odd assumption to make, but unsurprisingly I agree that running a game that way will tend to make for a mediocre play experience.

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Permerton, I would really like to have a genuine discussion on this issue with you. But when you do things like this putting words in our mouths and taking things we say to draw conclusions we never asserted or even suggested, it makes it very hard to have a dialogue with you about games. It just doesn't feel like it is being done in good faith.

One quick comment on balance. This comment will be invoking 4e (because that is what has been invoked), but at its heart, its a design question (as an input) and the related product of play (output).

4e's balance often gets invoked as if its (a) some sort of retardent to dynamism and (b) some form of perpetuator of status quo.

That isn't correct for 4e (its actually not even in the realm of correct and the inverse is provably so) and its not correct as a product of design aimed at balance.

4e has balance on 4 different axes:

1) Broad intraparty balance at the site of the encounter.

2) Broad intraparty balance at the site of the adventuring day.

3) Expectant results of a 5 player party (which covers all the Roles) vs unremarkable deployment of a same level encounter budget.

4) Expectant results of an archetypal workday for a 5 player party (which covers all the Roles).


Because these 4 design aims are explicit and were achieved, there seems to be this designation by some (typically those that didn't play it very much or didn't play it at all), that such (achieved) design aims must yield a play culture that stays tightly within the boundaries of (3) and (4). Then, following from that, there is this assumption of my (a) and (b) above (lack of dynamism and boring, uninteresting status quo).

The problem with this is simple. The idea that (3) and (4) are actual play culture fundamentals is absolutely wrong. They are balance calibration features of design. Further, those two as play culture artifacts are completely at at tension as (4) assumes you aren't doing 3! Further still, both DMGs go on at length of how to perturb that balance calibration archetype and what the implications of such perturbance will be...therefore assuming you're going to be doing just that!

Further, further, further, still...

If each Role can be thought of as a different Magic the Gathering deck (and that is exactly how they should be thought of - I guarantee that was a design impetus if not THE design impetus; eg a "Monored Aggro Burn vs Jeskai Midrange"), then significantly varying the exact same encounter budget and using different battlefield qualities (terrain, obstacles, distances, terrain powers, Hazards/Traps) and different objectives (eg "Hold the Line vs Waves", "Escort/Protect the Minion from here to there", "Deal with Interference While Completing/Foiling the Ritual", "Defeat the Enemy Before X Rounds", etc) is going to change the dynamics of the combat significantly and introduce variables that will play to the strengths or to the weaknesses of different character builds and group builds!

Just because the baseline has been calibrated such that the GM can predict the outputs within a reasonable margin-of-error, doesn't mean that there ceases to be variables x, y, and z that can be perturbed to create significant dynamism at the encounter level and for the adventuring day. If anything, it emboldens GMs to perturb that x, y, and z because they can foresee the potential outputs of those inputs within a reasonable margin-of-error.

That is why GMs such as myself appreciate rigorous baseline calibration, especially if a system has a robust range of x, y, and z.

Bedrockgames said:

I think it is fair to say 4E was very balanced (way more than 3E was in my opinion). I don't that is bad. It is just where things were at the time. On the heels of 3E, making a more balanced game made some kind of sense. I did want more balance. I think I didn't realize that I just wanted a tad more balance (less optimized builds, for instance). I think where 3E and 4E are similar is this idea of building encounters around the party's ability (scaling and balancing encounters to the party). this did kind of exist in AD&D but you really had to eye ball it, and it wasn't an assumption at most tables I played at that the encounters were that tailored to the group. I think the issue of 'automated balance and scaling' are a different thing entirely. That is a matter of how much you want the system to play to the conceit of game balance automatically. Personally I like rough edges in games, and I like things that are external to the characters (like magic weapons) to not be automatically assumed. But that does lead to less certain outcomes for the party.

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OK, this is true, I concede that 4e has a tremendous degree more balance between characters than AD&D (or 3e for that matter). In AD&D it is trivial to give the Paladin the Holy Avenger and give the thief NOTHING, or a '+1 ring of protection' or something. In fact, the random treasure tables that figure heavily in 1e, in particular, almost guarantee this if used as designed.

So, 4e has not only balanced builds, but balance in terms of distribution of rewards. In AD&D this is probably something to consider as an ideal, but it isn't ever discussed or articulated (beyond the section in the PHB advocating for equal treasure shares).

I think all editions of D&D assume encounters are built around party ability. AD&D modules all, every single one AFAIK, have a level band printed on them. Clearly TSR assumed that DMs wanted to pit their players PCs against challenges that were well matched for their abilities. It isn't a RULE in the sense that the game can enforce this, but it is only barely more so a rule in 4e, where the DMG tells you what the potency of encounters SHOULD be, and clearly is written around the assumption the DM will run a game based on that, yet the actual mechanics of the game won't be violated by pitting level 3 PCs against a level 9 adventure.

In fact I can easily imagine a DM running a campaign in which the threats are often, even typically of significantly higher level. That would make a different experience in 4e, but it could be quite workable if the participants can work out how to approach play in the right fashion (IE the DM probably needs to also give out items in a different way, use consumables differently, maybe rely differently on allied NPCs, create more 'operational' levels of play that 4e typically affords, etc.).

In relation to my post above regarding balance and 4e, I'm going to invoke Blades in the Dark (seeing as we have a current Blades thread going).

The rigorously calibrated baseline of that game is centered around early Scores (Encounters in 4e parlance) being against Of-Tier Gangs or Tier+1 Gangs.

However, Harper's advice and all of the design (Character progression, Crew progression, Resources, Loadouts, et al) creates an expectation of boldness and the Crew "punching above its weight", even though the baseline calibration is that of Tier equal or Tier +1. Someone who hasn't played Blades much (or has just read the rulebook) would look at going up against Tier +2 Gangs as tantamount to suicide. However, (a) there are so many varying aspects of resolution that players can call upon to increase their prospects (and getting good at that and leveraging the fiction is the "skilled play" Blades analog) and (b) the game expects your scoundrel to struggle...to take Trauma...and to likely change for the worse or life fast/die young. This is fundamental to the premise of the game.

The exact same thing goes for 4e, except the premise is different.

Bedrockgames said:

Permerton, I would really like to have a genuine discussion on this issue with you. But when you do things like this putting words in our mouths and taking things we say to draw conclusions we never asserted or even suggested, it makes it very hard to have a dialogue with you about games. It just doesn't feel like it is being done in good faith.

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How many times have I posted about there being resolution systems besides GM decides - and you keep replying "Yes, I'm aware of that" yet continue to make posts which only make sense on the premise that GM decides is the only resolution option.

If, in fact, you are aware that there are ways of deciding whether or not the PCs find sect members in the teahouse that are neither GM decides based on his/her opinion about the gameworld nor GM says "yes", then why not post something about how those systems - of which Classic Traveller is the earliest example I'm familiar with - affect gameplay.

And if you don't know how they affect gameplay because you've never tried them, well, that's fine - not everyone has done everything - but then maybe a bit of curiosity about new possibilities would make sense?

pemerton said:

How many times have I posted about there being resolution systems besides GM decides - and you keep replying "Yes, I'm aware of that" yet continue to make posts which only make sense on the premise that GM decides is the only resolution option.

If, in fact, you are aware that there are ways of deciding whether or not the PCs find sect members in the teahouse that are neither GM decides based on his/her opinion about the gameworld nor GM says "yes", then why not post something about how those systems - of which Classic Traveller is the earliest example I'm familiar with - affect gameplay.

And if you don't know how they affect gameplay because you've never tried them, well, that's fine - not everyone has done everything - but then maybe a bit of curiosity about new possibilities would make sense?

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Pemerton, I really don't know how to engage you at this point. I don't know how you are getting that from my post. It seems you just keep seeing the conclusions you want in order to belittle people (by labelling them various things). Look even on my end of the discussion where the GM decides I have also repeatedly mentioned the use of other tools. I am not assuming it is just a product of the GM deciding. You are taking small portions of conversation and painting pictures of people to suit your argument. I am not going to suggest my posts are always the best phrased. I certainly don't have the most precise posting style. But it just feels like all you are doing is looking for the angle of attack. This isn't a conversation. This is you trying to embarrass other posters so you can make your point.

pemerton said:

How many times have I posted about there being resolution systems besides GM decides -

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Many, many, many times. So many, it is impossible for me to not be aware of them, even if I walked into the conversation with no knowledge of them and full commitment to remaining ignorant of them.

pemerton said:

Both these posts seem to asssume that there are only two possible resolution systems for determining if the PCs find sect members at the teahouse: the GM decides based on his/her beliefs about the gameworld, or the GM "says 'yes'".

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Here's what's interesting, your Traveler "random dicing" method aside, that is EXACTLY what ALL OTHER METHODS ARE. The 'realism proponents' talk about some sort of 'realistic assessment of what is likely', but I call that unrealistic. That is, I don't think anyone is BSing anyone, deliberately, but I don't think that's EVER what happens in real play in any RPG game which continues on successfully at all. I don't think it is even plausible, or possible.

We simply cannot know enough about the world in which the game is taking place. It is in fact whole cloth made up of nothing BUT our feelings and gut instincts, mixed with a thin bit of basic causal reasoning and 99% "it is this way because it will make it fun."

That is, in all cases, in all games, the Sect is either met in the Inn or not because that is the option which the GM decided was going to be a better game than any other. Heck, I even put paid to the dice here to a large extent. Yeah, GMs 'follow the dice', but they also ignore them, and probably more often in this sort of case than would be admitted by people invested in that as a concept. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] rolled dice to 'find certain kinds of people' in his Traveler game, but did he simply accept every result literally with no interpretation? Of course not. First of all, no chart can give you enough information to run with. You have to fill in a LOT of blanks! This is all done by figuring out what is going to be interesting and 'viable' in play. No GM decides that "Organized Crime" means 50 of your worst enemies show up and pump the party full of lead in an unsurvivable hail of bullets. Maybe its 10 guys, or they show up with derringers "because you can't get anything bigger into town" or whatever 100 other things the GM can say to make it sound logical. Maybe he decides your worst enemies just got a bigger enemy and they let you off the hook if you will take those guys for them. You can make it interesting in a lot of ways, but you will never, ever, in a thousand years, exterminate the party in a hail of lead.

Actually I did once run a Traveler campaign where the premise was a doomed space station. Death was 100% inevitable, but even then it was a device in that it was a stated fact that was made apparent to the characters in the first scene and was known by the players when they agreed to play that game. You CAN do anything, and make anything fun, but not often or all the time. The hail of lead might work too as the very last scene of a campaign that is guaranteed to be coming to an irrevocable end for whatever reason. It won't happen in ongoing play. Certainly not often.

It isn't realism that rules, it is fun, always. Dig far enough down and its all turtles!

Manbearcat said:

Just because the baseline has been calibrated such that the GM can predict the outputs within a reasonable margin-of-error, doesn't mean that there ceases to be variables x, y, and z that can be perturbed to create significant dynamism at the encounter level and for the adventuring day. If anything, it emboldens GMs to perturb that x, y, and z because they can foresee the potential outputs of those inputs within a reasonable margin-of-error.

That is why GMs such as myself appreciate rigorous baseline calibration, especially if a system has a robust range of x, y, and z.

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I took things in a literally direction of dynamism. While 4e's encounter design guidelines, in DMG1, are written with an obvious basic assumption of sort of AD&D-esque 'site based encounters' where the action takes place in a fairly static location with set goals and resources, I quickly found that it was best to greatly expand encounter design in a much more dynamic fashion. Not only was every encounter itself radically different in terms of its trajectory, plot significance, opponents, but they all evolved quickly and it was usually within the players means to make decisions which would affect that trajectory substantially (IE you can set the place on fire, that will create a new situation, or release the giant wasps, that will create a different one).