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

AbdulAlhazred said:

There is simply too little known about the world for it be determinable what is or isn't more or less realistic.

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I just never had this problem. Again, if you are hell bent on deciding this is impossible, fine. I could be equally hell bent on dismissing your playstyle (believe me, at other forums there are hundred page threads with equally strong arguments as the ones you and Pemerton make). But they are just good rhetorical arguments, they do nothing to diminish peoples' actual experience at the table. Here, it isn't about going crazy and literally thinking you are in a different world, it is about giving into the experience of immersion and feeling like you are in a real world where you can interact with the setting. Not only do I know this is possible. It was may very first experience when I first sat down to play an RPG in the mid-80s as a kid. Again realistic and 'feels like a real place' are not the same thing.

That said, I do know plenty of players who do want more intense realism in the game, and they are able to achieve it to the level they desire. It isn't impossible. It is just that you are holding up that expectation against a straw man of people achieving an actual world simulation with a 1-1 connection to the real world. Obviously no one is expecting the GM to be a computer. But they might want a game where their perception of real world causality is important. This is honestly no different than a person who goes to a movie and expects realism or historical accuracy. I think it is the wrong expectation for every movie, but for certain movies it makes sense. And it isn't that hard to achieve (provided the audience isn't needlessly picky about it). A movie where a character falls off a cliff, shatters his femur and walks it off in ten minutes to a full recovery is less realistic than one where he doesn't. You can definitely have a system in an RPG that plays more to that kind of health recovery, and you can also run games when the health recovery is abstract enough in that way (in D&D for example when characters broke their legs, I've had GMs make rulings like '20 of those HP won't recover until the bone heals in X amount of time').

I honestly don't know why it is so important to you that this idea be considered untrue. After a while, in threads where people refuse to acknowledge the merit or even the feasibility of a given palystyle, it begins to look like people feel threatened by that playstyle for some reason. I personally don't even really care about realism all that much. I like settings that feel like living words where genre physics are in play. Sometimes I like historically realistic settings. But I am not particularly perturbed or suspicious if people say they want other things. And if they do say they want those things, I've learned it is much easier to not take my rhetorical knife to their claims, and instead try to see what they are looking for in their own terms. I would argue that people here are allowing their viewpoints on this matter to be imprisoned by playstyle bias and strong rhetoric.

pemerton said:

I guess it could be done - but then why not just play Runequest, which is a great game that already exists, has been around for a long time, and I think just had a successful Kickstarted relaunch!

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I hear that Mythras, Runequest's Pathfinder, is pretty popular nowadays.

pemerton said:

If the GM draws the map already knowing what the relevant answer is in respect of (say) the Fly spell, then this is GM decision-making one way or another;

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As are all setting-related things. I-as-GM don't know if the PCs will ever even visit a particular part of the map, never mind whether they'll choose to use Fly to cover some of the ground and thus force the need to know how far they'll get before it expires. But if-when this happens it's on me to either know the answer ahead of time or (much more likely) figure it out then and there.

and if the GM draws the map not knowing what the relevant answer is, then this is - in effect - a form of random determination.

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The random part is that this particular place is where they happened to decide to use Fly as a means of travel.

So why not just build that into the spell mechanics rather than mediating via at best partially-implemented wargame mechanics?

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In cases where precision isn't important (e.g. they're flying over farmland and it doesn't much matter if they land in this field, that field, or the next field over) then I don't care that much. But where precision is important (e.g. they're flying over some nasty terrain and the spell might or might not last long enough to get them to a safe landing place) then I very much care, and it's on me not only to provide said precision regarding distance but to also factor in such things as wind direction/speed and how it might help/hinder their flight speed.

Bedrockgames said:

this whole conversation wasn't even about realism at all. It was about Pemerton saying that the GM making the determination "Bone Breaking Sect is/is not present" by simply deciding based on what he or she thinks ought to be, is Mother May I play. I said it was no more mother may I than real life. My point was, it wouldn't be mother may I unless the GM was forcing the players to keep asking about locations until they got the one that the GM had originally decided was the right one. But in my scenario, the GM is genuinely considering whether they would be at the tea house or not in good faith. That isn't mother may I.

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But it is clearly more "Mother may I" than is real life. Because where people are in real life doesn't depend on anyone's decision about what is or isn't plausible, what would or wouldn't make for good RPGing, etc. Whereas in your example of play it does depend on such things.

Which is the entirety of my point in the OP.

pemerton said:

But it is clearly more "Mother may I" than is real life. Because where people are in real life doesn't depend on anyone's decision about what is or isn't plausible, what would or wouldn't make for good RPGing, etc. Whereas in your example of play it does depend on such things.

Which is the entirety of my point in the OP.

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Those things you listed might reflect differences between the real world and setting, but to my mind none of those things you listed make it more mother may I. Mother may I is when it becomes a guessing game to figure out the narrow path the GM determines is available to you or your goal. But in this example the GM is honestly considering the merit of the proposed location. If the GM is honestly asking him or herself whether the sect would be present, it isn’t mother may I. Nor is it more mother may I. But I want to point out something here, you are now just shifting your argument to focus on my use of the word ‘more’. And I think it is obvious that is basically the same tactic you used previously to get people to argue about real world process equally emulated worlds. Obviously when I said no more more mother may I than the real world I was speaking casually and pointing to the similarity between the two things, not making a claim they were identical. By your logic, every other possible approach mentioned is also more mother may I than life. I don’t really see the point to what hour are saying. It just seems like a purely rhetorical response at this stage. I get you like debate, and your smart. But you are so missing the point.

Lanefan said:

As are all setting-related things. I-as-GM don't know if the PCs will ever even visit a particular part of the map, never mind whether they'll choose to use Fly to cover some of the ground and thus force the need to know how far they'll get before it expires. But if-when this happens it's on me to either know the answer ahead of time or (much more likely) figure it out then and there.

The random part is that this particular place is where they happened to decide to use Fly as a means of travel.

In cases where precision isn't important (e.g. they're flying over farmland and it doesn't much matter if they land in this field, that field, or the next field over) then I don't care that much. But where precision is important (e.g. they're flying over some nasty terrain and the spell might or might not last long enough to get them to a safe landing place) then I very much care, and it's on me not only to provide said precision regarding distance but to also factor in such things as wind direction/speed and how it might help/hinder their flight speed.

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So, you agree it's random (although you'd prefer to point to specific rationales for that) and you say that, when it's interesting, you'd do oots of other GM decision making to determine the outcome (which still has a random element), but you reject out of habd the idea of building this into the mechanics as a check. Hmm.

I think this is a critical divide: do you use fiction to determine the mechanics or the mechanics to determine the fiction? To expand, the way you're approaching this is to say, "okay, all of these things may impact how this works, so let me figure out what all of these impacts are and how they apply to a check beforehand so I can tailor the check mechanics to best represent the fiction." On the other side, the idea is to use a fixed mechanic and the explain the results in the fiction as appropriate. For example of this, you mentioned headwinds as a complication. As you said, you'd determine the direction and severity and use that as an input to the check or determination (acknowledging that you may decide the outcome outright based on inputs). On the other side, the core resolution mechanics would be used first, and, on a fail, headwinds might be introduced as a cause.

To tie back to the OP, neither of these is more or less "realistic." In both cases, failure is caused by headwinds. The difference is really on if you're using GM determined fictional inputs to the mechanics or providing GM determine fictional outputs from the mechanics. It's worth noting that D&D strongky favors the former, as any given resolution first passes through a yes/no/maybe decision by the GM, and the the exact resolution mechanic and difficulty is determined by the GM. Since choice to use and then choice of mechanic is gated by fictionsl inputs, the first style of play is strongly incentivized by the system choice. Conversely, other systems use universal resolution mechanics that have built-in margins of pass/pass-with-complication/fail and the fiction flows out of the mechanics.

Ovinomancer said:

Sorry, I missed where the game rules say players can create content in X, Y, and Z.

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So did I. Of course, that's not what you asked. What you asked was, "You're defining "not DM facing" by saying that the DM can give players permission to add things. Really?" and that's not my definition. There more involved than the DM just saying, "Hey guys, I give you permission to add things."

I'm pretty sure that you'd argue that even with player content creation the DM retains veto power, right?

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Of course not. That would be silly and wouldn't happen in a player facing fame. The DM is giving up the power and altering how the game is played.

AbdulAlhazred said:

Maybe I'm not making myself clear. How do you justify that it is long odds, and that long odds produce this 'realism' vs short odds? Clearly you must have some objective model-driven basis for this kind of statement, or else it is mere conjecture.

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The DM knows where the cult is based, how many are in the cult, their motives and to a degree what their activities are. The DM will based on what he knows, know if the cult is based in the tea house, is based near the tea house, or is not near the tea house. He will use that knowledge to figure out the odds. I live in a city of millions and I have over the last 30 years, run into friends randomly about 5 times. Obviously the odds will be greater in a smaller city, but even so, they don't have cars like we do to make getting around as easy, so travel happens less frequently.

The discussion here about the tea house has presumed that the cult is neither close to the tea house, nor based inside of it, so they are not close. Some members would probably go occasionally to have tea there, but the odds of one being there just as the PCs arrive would be long. Nobody has yet mentioned that the cult members wouldn't be there wearing their Cults 'R Us robes, so you wouldn't be able to tell who is a cult member anyway.

Maxperson said:

So did I. Of course, that's not what you asked. What you asked was, "You're defining "not DM facing" by saying that the DM can give players permission to add things. Really?" and that's not my definition. There more involved than the DM just saying, "Hey guys, I give you permission to add things."

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Oddly, this forum allows us to scroll up and quote from earlier posts. Here's what you said:

Maxperson said:

Which only makes it DM side, not strongly DM side. D&D is weakly DM side, because all it takes to switch the facing of the game is for the DM to say, "Okay guys, you guys can create contents by doing X, Y and Z. The game is now primarily in your hands." It's that simple. Were it strongly DM side, you'd have to change many rules for that to happen.

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There's nothing else there except the DM giving permission to the players to create content in limited areas. If you have more to your definition, Max, then you haven't shared it with the class.

Please, if you have more, expound.

Of course not. That would be silly and wouldn't happen in a player facing fame. The DM is giving up the power and altering how the game is played.

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I really don't see how you don't see that you saying "The DM is giving up power" is, in any way, NOT the DM giving out permissions, which means the power is the DM's and not the players. This is the opposite of player-facing and is, in fact, the core definitional aspect of DM-facing -- ie, the DM has the power, the players do not.

It's very hard for me to understand how you can say these things and then declare they mean the opposite of what you just said.

Bedrockgames said:

Mother may I is when it becomes a guessing game to figure out the narrow path the GM determines is available to you or your goal.

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No. That's your attempt to define MMI in a way which (you hope) doesn't include your own play because you won't accept other people applying an MMI label.

Bedrockgames said:

But in this example the GM is honestly considering the merit of the proposed location. If the GM is honestly asking him or herself whether the sect would be present, it isn’t mother may I.

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Player asks, but is powerless to invoke any mechanical resolution to ascertain outcome. GM decides. Absolute rock solid Mother May I play happening right there. To argue otherwise is nonsense.

Bedrockgames said:

It just seems like a purely rhetorical response at this stage.

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Again, no. The point is that there are styles which are definitely not Mother May I because, for example, an action resolution system is well enough described that it can answer the question 'Are there sect members at the teahouse?' without the GMs preferences or judgements being part of it.

There are also games which say 'If you can't agree, the table decides'. Which at most tables sees the GM outnumbered by players about 3 or 4 to 1.

There are systems where a player spends a bennie and says 'The sect members are drinking at the teahouse tonight' and it becomes true.

Definitionally, none of the above are Mother May I games.

But one can only discuss such systems honestly if one is also honest about the playstyles which don't feature these properties.

So exactly why are you still participating in a thread which in post 2, page 1, you (falsely) said you weren't going to post in? Is it to learn something?