Players choose what their PCs do . . .

FrogReaver said:

LOL. This is too funny. You say that and then your very next sentence you agree with the premise you just called false.



So am I reading your posts enough?

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Interesting how you cut out the "but" segment of my statement, I think I'm being fundamentally misunderstood.

FrogReaver said:

Just thought I'd read some more of your posts...



On this thread alone there are multiple people who agree with me on quite a bit. Is this another moment where what you say and what you mean are two different things?

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Name them for me.

I allow my players to do whatever they choose, and I don't value certain choices as better or more valid than others. It's a simple as that.

I don't think that I'm the rude one here, maybe you should actually read what I wrote, then pass judgement.

And yes, I am dismissive of rudeness.

FrogReaver said:

Did some more reading,



I'm noticing a trend where you like to tell people to go read things. Is that just your way of being dismissive or do you have a problem?

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Being mean has no purpose here. The only reason I became exasperated is because I've tried to express the very simple point that I like to ask my players why they're doing what they're doing in approximately 0.01 percent of instances, nothing more. I don't police actions or motivations, and I don't constantly ask for justifications, it's a rare thing that I sometimes do out of curiosity, not some rail-roading motive.

"Do I have a problem?"

Well, maybe, but at least I'm not going to stoop to calling names and slinging insults when I don't understand someone.

Best wishes.

I'm going to say something I expect will be controversial here.

If I am playing or running a game that is supposed to be more character focused I absolutely do make aesthetic judgments of other players and I expect the same in kind. We should all be invested in each others' characters - be fans of them. For that to happen players should play their characters as if they were real people with real passions and real relationships. Players should play their characters with integrity and want to find out who they really are. They shouldn't try to drive play to some preferred outcome. Still ultimately their decisions to make, but they have responsibilities to what we are creating together.

Campbell said:

I'm going to say something I expect will be controversial here.

If I am playing or running a game that is supposed to be more character focused I absolutely do make aesthetic judgments of other players and I expect the same in kind. We should all be invested in each others' characters - be fans of them. For that to happen players should play their characters as if they were real people with real passions and real relationships. Players should play their characters with integrity and want to find out who they really are. They shouldn't try to drive play to some preferred outcome. Still ultimately their decisions to make, but they have responsibilities to what we are creating together.

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That's a great post. Normally i wouldn't quote and post just to say that, but in this case I think it's warranted.

Aebir-Toril said:

Being mean has no purpose here. The only reason I became exasperated is because I've tried to express the very simple point

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Now this I have empathy for. That happens to me all the time. If that is what is happening I am truly sorry.

that I like to ask my players why they're doing what they're doing in approximately 0.01 percent of instances, nothing more. I don't police actions or motivations, and I don't constantly ask for justifications, it's a rare thing that I sometimes do out of curiosity, not some rail-roading motive.

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I'm still confused by it, but I'll take your word for it.

Just putting this additional thought out there for you to consider: Some DM's ask "why" as a form of "preemptive policing". That is they realize (maybe not even consciously) that people feel a bit of social pressure when put on the spot to answer a question and know they will want to provide a good and acceptable answer. It's not hard to realize that a particular DM would disapprove of some non-in-character reasoning and so the player that sees such a DM occasionally ask "Why?" gets deterred from doing things not-in-character (or at least lying about it and finding a justification if they are). Not saying that you are doing it for this reason or that it's even having that effect but such does happen.

FrogReaver said:

Now this I have empathy for. That happens to me all the time. If that is what is happening I am truly sorry.



I'm still confused by it, but I'll take your word for it.

Just putting this additional thought out there for you to consider: Some DM's that ask "why" so as a form of "preemptive policing". That is they realize that people feel a bit of social pressure when put on the spot to answer a question and know they will want to provide a good and acceptable answer. It's not hard to realize that a particular DM would disapprove of some non-in-character reasoning and so the player that sees such a DM occasionally ask "Why?" gets deterred from doing things not-in-character (or at least lying about it and finding a justification if they are). Not saying that you are doing it for this reason or that it's even having that effect but such does happen.

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Thanks.

Ovinomancer said:

The choice is what's been presented as the challenge. This is the first instance of the example choice being part of a larger, interconnected story. Even there, I'm not clear on what you think the challenge is, or how the choice leads to success or failure at the challenge rather than just another part of a larger choice tree. I can see choice as part of an actual challenge only if you're making the choice blind or partly blind as to whether or not it will lead to ultimate success at the overarching goal. What I don't see is your duality of challenge being either maintain your purity or get the girl -- this is a naked choice, not a challenge. There's no fail state here, nor is there a success state, it's just a choice between two different states.

To illuminate, swap your goals to a) get the piece of pumpkin pie, and b) get the piece of apple pie. Either way you get a piece of pie and don't get the other, but this isn't a challenge, it's just a choice. For there to be an actual challenge, you have to be able to fail at what you attempt, and there's no attempt here, just a choice between outcomes.

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Why does it have to be limited to a binary pass-fail outcome, is my question.

Having the goals of getting the piece of pumpkin pie and getting the piece of apple pie leads to at least four possible outcomes:

1. You get both.
2. You get apple but not pumpkin.
3. You get pumpkin but not apple.
4. You get neither.

And this is ignoring any nuances and-or repercussions arising from any specific character-testing things you had to do or not do in these pie-acquiring attempts.

I suspect you're using the word 'challenge' to mean something very specific and mechanical that has only two possible outcomes - succeed or fail - but I'm not at all sure everyone else here is using 'challenge' to mean that same thing. I know I'm not: when I refer to a 'challenge' I refer to an obstacle or decision or task the dealing-with of which may have numerous possible outcomes, with straight 'succeed' or straight 'fail' only sometimes being included.

All this isn't to say that the above play isn't fun -- it is. I put hard choices in front of my players all the time. Nor is it to say that you can't have character development using this play -- you clearly can. What it says is that it's not a challenge and you aren't putting your concept of the character at risk with this kind of play. In other words, it's part and parcel of the play where the player declares their intended actions only and the GM decides the results vice being able to make rich action declarations on behalf of the character where both the action and the outcome are determined. In this play, you're staking that action AND outcome and a failure may mean you get both a different action and outcome than you intended, because that's what was at stake.

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If a failure on an attempted action can mean you've instead done (or tried) a completely different action then fair enough, but be aware it might step on the toes of player agency a little.

PC action declaration (in form of attempted actions) is the purview of the player unless unusual circumstances dictate otherwise. Determining the results of said declaraction is often the purview of game mechanics, and narrating what that determined result looks like in the fiction is (usually) the purview of the GM. Seems simple enough - why mess with it?

When it comes to challenges, My biggest thought is that people face challenging decisions all the time and it's due more to uncertainty that straight out randomness.

In the Excalibur example I presented it as a you for sure get this if you do this etc. There's rarely that kind of certainty, even in an RPG. There's always the risk that whatever path you choose, the result doesn't end up like you envisioned.

Could the knight lose his chastity only to then find out he can't acquire Excalibur because he is now not chaste?
Could the knight remain chaste only to fail his people by not acquiring the sword he needs to help them?
Could the knight refuse to lose his chastity and acquire the sword another way and succeed on all accounts?

Whether or not it was stated, those are the kinds of challenges said knight is facing. In any case this is a challenge, far more akin to the kind people face in real life than the kind some here insist are the only kinds of challenges worth talking about in RPG's.

Umbran said:

With respect, two things -

1) I was speaking about a challenge *to the core of the character*. You are talking about a challenge to *you*, the player. You don't get to change th referent, and then asses my statement against the new referent.

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I'm not changing anything. I AM the character, including its core. When I am in a roleplaying challenge, I'm viewing it from the point of view of my character and making a decision that my character would. The challenge is to the core of the character. I'm just making the decision, because I'm the one that best knows the circumstances and the PC himself.

2) I was also pretty clear about what I was talking about when I spoke of challenge in this context. If Chris Claremont writes a comic book about a conflict between Professor X and Magneto, there is no actual challenge to Professor X - only the illusion of one.

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This isn't the same, though. I'm not proposing that I set up both the challenge and the solution. Unlike the comic book writer, I have a DM who is going to throw things at me that I don't expect and will challenge my character's character.

2a) You, the player/author may feel anxiety, uncertainty, angst, or other emotions over making a decision - but in the sense I defined it, this is not a "challenge", for the simple reason that there is no success or failure to be had. Mr. Claremont does not "succeed" if Professor X wins the comic book fight. You don't "fail" if the knight chooses chastity over Excalibur. The choice *isn't a test!*

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Challenges are not a dichotomy, so there doesn't to be a success/fail condition. There can be two(or more) hard choices that challenge the PC, neither of which are win/lose.