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

lowkey13 · Feb 25, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Bedrockgames · Feb 25, 2019

chaochou said:
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.

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.

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?

Those are some intense words, but all you are doing is asserting without supporting. I would definitely reject the definition you are using for mother may I as a valid playstyle description. Like Lowkey13 said, it is a pejorative. But even then, when it comes up, it is only useful in describing table disfunction where play starts to resemble the game mother may I in the way I described. Using it pejoratively to describe a large swath of RPGs or play styles, is pretty meaningless I think. Certainly isn't going to illuminate anything. If you see a playstyle you don't like and sum it up as mother may I, you will entirely miss the reason people are engaging it (and you will be lacking the curiosity that Pemerton seemed so concerned people retain when analyzing RPGs). It reeks of bias. It is up there with magic tea party in that respect. That would be like me insisting on referring to games with narrative elements as "story time" systems.

Bedrockgames · Feb 25, 2019

chaochou said:
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?

Well, basically I changed my mind. When this thread started I was pretty ticked off about it (because I felt it was kind of an aggressive and insulting thing to launch a new thread just to attack my post). So that statement was more emotionally charged. But as I followed the discussion, I just found it hard to not weigh in. So I joined back.

No, I am not here to learn something. More generally, I am on this forum to learn something. But in this particular case, I was drawn here by the fact that my post was used in the OP. I don't know, I'd feel kind of weird getting attacked like that, then coming in to meekly learn something from the poster attacking me. I am here because the thread was basically an attack against something I said on another thread, and an attack on a whole style of play. Plus, the OP is one of the more specious arguments I've seen in a long time (for the reasons I gave earlier).

AbdulAlhazred · Feb 26, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
Not sure if you're agreeing or not....

Violently agreeing of course!

Now, please open this crumbling worm-eaten tome bound in what looks like human skin to the indicated page....

AbdulAlhazred · Feb 26, 2019

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.

Hmmmm, what game prevents this? I mean, maybe you would find it unusual to do this in a game like Paranoia perhaps, but in a mechanical sense it is no more in favor of GM power than D&D is. The real difference is tone and genre. Paranoia expects the GM to screw over the PCs. Clearly this means putting content and story on the player side would mean having the players betray their own characters. Its possible, and might even be an amusing variation of an already rather whimsical game!

I would classify 'classic' D&D (everything previous to 3e) as a hard DM-centered game. The DM makes up all content, the DM adjudicates all actions and is expected to deny them based purely on his own judgment and in accordance with his own pre-generated fiction if he wishes. OD&D even recommended that the players be denied access to their own hit point totals! There is no point in D&D where it is assumed that players will invent content, and the VERY few places where Gygax advises that they might make up something it is explicitly stated that this is entirely under the DM's aegis and the player is only exercising some delegated authority at the convenience of the DM.

I understand it won't always be played this way, but that just goes to show that NO RPG can really enforce a certain mode of play. It is likely possible to craft a game that has mechanics which really are unworkable and nonsensical if the players are granted any access to the GM's prerogatives, and maybe such a game DOES exist. It would be 'harder' than D&D, but I have never seen it, and thus if I had to put D&D on a scale it would be a 9 in the 'DM is in charge' scale.

AbdulAlhazred · Feb 26, 2019

Lanefan said:
Raises hand.

If the situation is such that I (or the player) need to know precise distances, if I don't already have the requisite map to hand I very soon will; even if it means drawing out then and there a more detailed version of a general map I already have. (even better if it's a shoreline or marine setting; I've about a 6-inch-thick stack of old marine navigation charts of the coast here and if really stuck I'll just pull out one of those that looks close, tell the players to ignore any names of features or places, and use that. )

IMHO this doesn't really change what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is saying. After the player decided his PC would use Fly, then you came up with a distance which needed to be covered. Either you made that distance within what the PC could achieve, or you didn't. Either way it was your choice and thus the time element of the spell is simply a hook upon which you chose whether or not the action could succeed. It explains the success/failure within the fiction, but a game which did this without reference to explicit values of time and distance would produce the same results. Thus time/distance is effectively 'color'. This is a common situation in 'wilderness' type play where completely systematic maps and keys are almost always lacking.

Fair enough, and sometimes that's all you need in any case. But if there's a reason to go more detailed then why not make a more detailed map for that area?

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You can, but is it likely that you do this in all cases? Often players choose to follow courses of action which take them 'off the map'. This is (almost) impossible in the dungeon environment, but quite easy in 'wilderness' settings. You MIGHT have made such a map for the case depicted in Pemerton's post, and then maybe you wouldn't have considered Fly, and thus the deciding factor there COULD be effectively 'time as a resource'. Its just not consistently a resource, not in the way 'gold' is a resource, where there is in principle a completely specified system for determining how much gold you have, and how much you can acquire by various activities.

A hard-and-fast rule here wouldn't be all that much use, really, as every situation is different. One BBEG might be in a situation where there's a large pool of potential new recruits around her while another might not have access to any and a third can only "recruit" what she generates herself via Animate Dead. And even then for me it'd come down to some sort of die roll just to inform me what actual recruitment was achieved vs. the best-case scenario for the BBEG.

That said, recruiting or "restocking" is something a DM ought to keep in mind if the PCs leave the area for any length of time.

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Of course, but what that 'rate' is will be entirely at the DM's discretion. Nobody else in the game has either the authority nor the access to whatever (however meager it might be) information which would make such a judgment possible. In effect it is "whatever the DM says it is." and usually its a choice made for dramatic reasons of some sort.

Decide, or roll for, whatever; yes - and again a hard-and-fast overall rule would tend to get in the way of this kind of fluidity. A guideline in a specific module, however, where the BBEG's potential recruit pool is known and noted in the write-up, can be of great help.

Click to expand...

Why wouldn't it make sense to have a detailed list of recruits for a BBEG in a module? Heck, detail exactly what lair each one came from, and when and by what route they travel to the place where they're inducted into the ranks of the bad guys! I think we know the answer, it is just not important to have all this numerical precision, because the idea is to come up with fun numbers, not objectively sensible ones. Its also a waste of precious space in the module where it is, again, a lot more fun to add additional encounters and other goodies.

AbdulAlhazred · Feb 26, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
I'm not following you, here. Are you mocking my post? Because there was a lot of non-violent conflict resolution with samurai, gun fighters, and 15th century Italian Nobles. Politeness in all those cases was strongly emphasized. A correlation doesn't mean that idiots and hotheads suddenly stopped existing, but the culture that existed around all of those was highly structured with many conflict de-emphasizing rituals and rules of behavior.

And, yes, of course there are multiple factors -- nothing in social interactions ever boils down to one factor. Pointing out an interesting article that found and explained an interesting correlation isn't an argument for, "this is it, guys, the answer to all society's ills!"

Or did I misread you and owe you an apology?

heh, my comment was mostly just tongue-in-cheek. It is true though, and you note it yourself here, that there are a lot of factors. Sure, Samurai were fairly often polite, but they were also VERY often murderous and uncontrollable. Our histories of late Feudal Japan are replete with tales of murderous rampages and endless blood feuds. Heck, Musashi killed at least 100 people in duels, and 100's more in street fights and assassination attempts (reputedly 42 in a single incident in a garden!).

Honestly, though it is aside from the topic here, the notion of the 'gentleman's peace' where everyone is armed and they're all peaceful is so much bollocks. Martial Arts may be different for various reasons, and I'm willing to believe it may well BE different, but I think it isn't really the fighting ability of its practitioners which makes it so. I would venture to guess that disciplined people are disciplined in all areas of their lives. This is really an example of 'Nicomachean Ethics'. "We are good not because of who we are, but because we have practiced goodness constantly."

AbdulAlhazred · Feb 26, 2019

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."

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.

Let me explain, for AD&D 1e, why I would call it DM-driven to the Nth degree. There is, AFAIK, TWO places in 1e where a player is explicitly pointed to as potentially generating some fiction:

1) when creating a new spell via spell research - The DM is then admonished to adjust the parameters of the spell as he sees fit, and then decide what level it is (IE how much it costs or if it is even possible to create). Or the DM can simply rule such a spell impossible, in which case he's admonished to let the player TRY to research it until he finally gives up in despair!

2) when a player's character establishes a stronghold - The DM is admonished to let the player submit designs, maps, etc. (based on existing information, just adding detail). Again, these are to be reviewed by the DM, who is to alter them as he sees fit, at least in terms of the initial conditions upon which building/clearing/etc. is to take place. In effect the DM is pretty free to veto a given stronghold entirely by simply putting too many obstacles in the way, though I accept that this would verge into 'bad DMing' at some point. Still, the DM's authority is entirely intact here even with good DMing.

This is pretty much it. I don't know of another example in 1e where the player is suggested as a source of fiction. Even 2e doesn't really relax this, and even makes some things more explicitly DM adjudicated, like magic item creation.

Maxperson · Feb 26, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
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.

Oddly, your scroll up just confirmed what I said. At no time was it simply the DM giving permission. The DM in my example also gave rules. Those rules removed his authority to override the players and set up a player facing game.

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.

Giving out a permission is saying, "Hey Tommy, you can go ahead and build the town your PC is from." That's permission to add content while still keeping it a DM facing game. Actually altering the game rules to make it a player facing game involves the DM being unable to give out permission. Or put another way, it's no different than the DM just saying, "Hey, let's play <insert player facing game here> today instead of D&D."

Maxperson · Feb 26, 2019

AbdulAlhazred said:
Hmmmm, what game prevents this? I mean, maybe you would find it unusual to do this in a game like Paranoia perhaps, but in a mechanical sense it is no more in favor of GM power than D&D is. The real difference is tone and genre. Paranoia expects the GM to screw over the PCs. Clearly this means putting content and story on the player side would mean having the players betray their own characters. Its possible, and might even be an amusing variation of an already rather whimsical game!

I would classify 'classic' D&D (everything previous to 3e) as a hard DM-centered game. The DM makes up all content, the DM adjudicates all actions and is expected to deny them based purely on his own judgment and in accordance with his own pre-generated fiction if he wishes. OD&D even recommended that the players be denied access to their own hit point totals! There is no point in D&D where it is assumed that players will invent content, and the VERY few places where Gygax advises that they might make up something it is explicitly stated that this is entirely under the DM's aegis and the player is only exercising some delegated authority at the convenience of the DM.

I understand it won't always be played this way, but that just goes to show that NO RPG can really enforce a certain mode of play. It is likely possible to craft a game that has mechanics which really are unworkable and nonsensical if the players are granted any access to the GM's prerogatives, and maybe such a game DOES exist. It would be 'harder' than D&D, but I have never seen it, and thus if I had to put D&D on a scale it would be a 9 in the 'DM is in charge' scale.

No RPG can enforce a certain mode of play, but how the game is constructed can make it more trouble than it's worth to retool it. 4e was like that for me. I found myself having to re-write so many rules to make it playable by me that I just gave up and went back to 3e. D&D is only mildly DM facing, because it's very, very easy to retool it to fit just about any playstyle.