I have neither said nor implied this.
All I said was that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s example, in which the PC doesn't achieve what the player hoped for, is not a success and hence might be a feasible failure narration.
Players choose what their PCs do . . .
- Thread starter pemerton
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All I said was that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s example, in which the PC doesn't achieve what the player hoped for, is not a success and hence might be a feasible failure narration.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Er...in my example the PC does achieve what she hoped for: she found incriminating evidence against the Duke.
That the evidence didn't take the exact form specified in the action declaration doesn't reduce the success, or turn it into a failure - and that's just my point: a roll of success gives success, but the GM should have some latitude to narrate what form that success takes if something workable other than the player's direct intent suggests itself: sometimes success can take many forms. Ditto for a failure; the GM should have some latitude to narrate what form that failure takes other than just saying 'no'.
However, if a GM turns a success into a failure* or a failure into a success* with her narration she's not respecting the die roll.
* - a both-ways-at-once example would be in the search-the-drawer scenario the GM (on either a success or failure roll) narrates finding some love letters implying the Duke is having an affair; and whether I-as-GM already know those are there to be found or not I'd usually call for a second roll anyway in a situation like this: "While searching, do you happen to stumble onto anything else of interest?".
Why?
In a relatively traditional RPG a GM gets to establish a lot of fiction: much of the setting; many of the NPCs; the framing of many situations; the narration of failures; maybe other stuff too that I'm not thinking of at present.
What is the function of successful checks if the GM also gets to establish what happens there too?
I was just responding to what you posted:
In what you posted, the player declares an intent for his PC to find financial records containing information in the desk drawer. The GM narrates that the PC fails to find any such thing. I don't see how that counts as a success.
If the action declaration had been I search the drawer for something that might incriminate the Duke then obviously we'd be having a different conversation.
In some RPG systems certain actions declared by players automatically trigger checks. Insofar as players can declare those actions, they can thereby trigger the checks. Examples would include Classic Traveller, Rolemaster and PbtA games.
In some RPG systems the GM can say "yes" to an action declaration but otherwise - assuming that the action declaration isn't of something that violates the logic of the system or the genre r the fictional positioning - is obliged to call for a check. Examples include Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic.
I don't know of any RPG system in which the GM has the power to refuse to countenance an action declaration, although the declaration violates neither system nor genre nor fictional positioning, by both refusing to say "yes" and refusing to permit a check. In such a system, what is the function of the players?
The PCs in a RPG don't really exist. They are elements in a fiction. That fiction is authored. Therefore whether or not the PCs are challenged is a result of authorship decisions taken in the real world. This is a significant difference from actual people in our actual world, who - subject to some theological speculation that I'll put to one side - are not authored entities "living" within an authored world.
Of course those authorship decisions which give rise to the fiction aren't typically part of the fiction. (Over the Edge is one RPG which is an exception to this - it allows for breaking the 4th wall. Maybe there are others too that I'm not familiar with.) So if we are talking about the imagined in-fiction causation then they don't figure. But if we're talking about what actually causes the fiction to have the content that it does, then we can't do that except by referring to those authorship decisions.
Which brings us to the role of mechanics. I can't do any better on this than to quote 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 might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.
Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.
If the GM suggests that, as a result of the maiden winking, my PC is in love with her; and if I suggest that this is not so; then we have a disagrement as to what is actually true in the fiction. How do we resolve it? Via system. One possible system is the GM is always right. Another possible system is the player is always right. A third possible system is they toss for it. Rolling dice (be it a saving throw rolled by the player, a wink test rolled by the GM, or something else) is a more sophisticated version of that third possibility.
That's all. It neither increases nor reduces the amount of shared imagination taking place, and hence the amount of roleplaying. It does reduce the player's authorship authority compared to the second possible system. But even if one takes a fairly narrow definition of roleplaying that can hardly be relevant: actors play roles and typically they don't author the characters they are playing.
And for the curious who can't be bothered to follow the link, here is the whole of the Vincent Baker quote without ellision:
[sblock]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.
So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"
What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush?
1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.
2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."
3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!" The thing to notice here is that the mechanics serve the exact same purpose as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2, which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question.
4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this.
(Plenty of suggestions at the game table don't get picked up by the group, or get revised and modified by the group before being accepted, all with the same range of time and attention spent negotiating.)
So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.[/sblock]
L
lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
I say, slightly in jest, "I search the Duke's desk for a huge ancient red dragon...."
Less in jest, I ask - what are we more interested in seeing - the players getting exactly what they ask for, or the players getting what they overall want? Because they are not omniscient, and what they ask for may not actually be what they wanted, needed, or could best use.
There is a demonstrable effect in the software industry which generalizes - when you ask someone what their problem is, what they are more likely to tell you is not the problem, but their preferred solution. That solution is generally either 1) the most common solution to similar problems or 2) the first solution that came to them when they had the problem, that's been rattling around in their head, so that their thinking is in a bit of a rut. Neither case is innovative, nor necessarily a *good* solution to the problem at hand.
This is an important part about asking for the player's intent. It isn't usually about asking for the players *detailed* goal, but for their *general* goal. Do you want detailed financial paperwork with which to confront the Duke, or will any incriminating evidence do, such that you could pick the most interesting or effective evidence?
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Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Counter-point: there's nothing preventing the asked for solution from being THE solution in the fiction. This is an important distiction from the real world. In fiction, the solution is whatever we agree it is. The real world, sadly, doesn't work this way. As an engineer working with customer requirements, and the usually horrible state those are in, I see this all the time. I have little interest dragging it into my games.
Then, from there, we need to determine how we arrive at that agreement. Bob Says is a method, as is the player says, or we can use some form of mechanic. This is the large point [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is making.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
For any number of reasons, some that you might like and some you might not:
- to introduce new or unexpected elements to the fiction (whether pre-authored or generated on the fly)
- to give the players (as their PCs) something new or different to think about; or to get them thinking a bit more outside the box
- to, in the specific example given, point out there's more than one way to achieve the same ends
It counts as a success if you leave on the rest of the GM's narration which you conveniently snipped off, where incriminating evidence is found only in a different form than the player had in mind.
Otherwise the GM is very limited in what she can reply with: either yes, you find papers of the sort you're looking for (on success), or no you don't (on failure). The GM can't introduce the seal or other incriminating evidence here on a failed roll as to do so would turn a failure into a success and thus disrespect the roll.
Where I simply look at the bigger goal (to incriminate the Duke) stated in the original declaration and base the success-fail narraton on that. The specifics - papers vs seal - aren't much more than window dressing.
And irrespective of all of this, pretty much any action declaration by a player has to generate a response of some sort, almost always from the GM but occasionally from another player instead e.g. if the action declaration is "As Falstaffe has just been disarmed I try to pass him my spare mace while parrying against my own foe this round" the response would likely come - at some point - from Falstaffe's player.
Easy counter-example here: instead of passing disarmed Falstaffe my spare mace my action declaration instead is "Aha! Falstaffe is disarmed - now's my chance: I run him through while he's distracted searching for his sword". Some GMs (who are not me) would smack this one down in a hurry...
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Quite right, and most often it will be.
My point is simply to say that there's no good reason that it always has to be, hence my example of looking for one thing in the Duke's desk and finding another.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Yes, there is good reason -- to allow the player control over what happens on a success. You may have a different preference, and that's fine, but there is a very good reason. Coming from the D&D mindset, I can easily understand how this doesn't seem workable, but this is based on the thinking that it's the GM's story being uncovered by play. Even in the sandbox play revolves around discovering the GM's built world. So, in this, giving player's reign over what success neans doesnt work because outcomes must match the GM's prepared ideas (or, at least, be compatible with them for some spontenaety).
However, in a system where the player has authority over what success neabs, there are no such GM notes, or they are very malleable and shallow. Play determines where things go. To balance this, GM's have more control over PCs on a failure; control that is anathema to the weak player authority typified by D&D.
Again, I run 5e, 99% by the book. I have a few bolt-ons (mostly downtime tweaks) but they are very minor. I understand how 5e works -- that it is premised on thin action declarations, and so don't break the PC wall. I also exercise the No to some PC actions. This is how that system works, and so I don't fight it. Play is about overcoming external dangers while having opportunities to decide who your character is. But, I do not directly challenge the PC because 5e lacks any way to do this.
When I run BitD, though, who your PC is is as much at stake as the score. I push hard on PCs. Still mostly choices by players, but the occasional challenge makes for surprises all around the table.
Broadly, that would depend upon what other parts of the fiction have already been determined. Sometimes what the players ask for can become THE solution, and sometimes that would not be consistent with things already set in place. I am often for not determining details unless/until you need them, specifically so you can flex for such things, but even if you only set any given detail at the moment it comes up, you eventually have a canon in which the past restricts what will plausibly reach the player's desired end.
So, like, you want to incriminate the Duke. You look for evidence of crooked finances. You have forgotten that we have already determined that the Exchequer is in the Duke's pocket. You can find the evidence of crooked finances, but they will not effectively incriminate the Duke! That's a success on a very specific task, but a failure on the general intent.
Yes. And pemerton *asked* why a GM should have a bit of latitude in narrating results. I am giving one class of reason - because sometimes what the player asks for, and what the player wants to achieve, are not well-aligned.
I mean, if you have been working with engineering requests, you should understand the point of over-specifying: "I want a thing that accomplishes X, and I want that thing to be precisely Y," is a requirement that is often very difficult to fulfill. If we aren't in antagonistic stance between player and GM, then the GM is there in large part to help the player realize their cool stuff. Over-specifying limits the GM's ability to help.
Just as a customer is often well-served to allow an engineer or UX designer to figure out *how* a goal is reached, a player is often well-served to allow the GM to guide the specifics a bit.
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