And yet as people have pointed out the pinball explanation misses the point.
I think you are confusing background, character, elements with "plot".
I'm not
confusing them. I'm asserting that, in a sandbox or some other pre-authored game, the story elements (people, places, things, perhaps even some events like a room in which an ogre is torturing a kobold, or a city that is under siege) are authored by the GM independently of the players' play of their PCs.
The reason [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] used the "pinball" characterisation is because, in this sort of game, he feels no deep connection between his PC and these pre-authored elements of the shared fiction.
I never claimed it was the same as GM pre-authorship... I claimed the results, a campaign world that revolves around the PC's backstory and changes/responds to the player's decisions and actions can be attained in a pre- prepped (you started using pre-authored) campaign...
But you haven't explained how, except by saying that a pre-authored game can approximate a non-preauthored one by bringing the authorship as close as possible in time to player decision-making and action resolution (eg by doing it all between sessions). To me, that just seems to show that if you approximate a technique you'll get approximately similar results.
Upthread, you've said that introducing some fictional element in response to a failed check is just like randomising the introduction of that element. And other posters (eg [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION], I think [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) have talked about randomly determining whether or not an object is dropped while climbing, rather than narrating that as a consequence of failure. To me, these suggestions are like saying that introducing some event (say, PC death) in relation to a failed check (say, in combat) is no different from just rolling a die to see if a PC dies. I think most RPGers would think there's a big difference between actually playing through a combat, in which the players get to make and resolve action declarations for their PCs, and the GM just saying "There's a 30% chance your PC dies in this fight" and rolling the percentile dice. Introducing adverse fictional elements by way of "fail forward" narration is extending this common RPGer intuition to a greater range of story elements and consequences.
the tribe is behaving how the DM wants (and this is actually one of the differences I see in the two approaches) there is no objectivity here such as when using NPC reaction rules from D&D.
But that's the whole point of using "fail forward" - on a success, the fictional situation becomes as the player (and PC) desired, as reflected in the terms of the action declaration; on a failure, the fictional situation becomes in some way contrary to that, as authored by the GM. The player's failure gives the GM licence to introduce some complication.
what I've made the claim is that the DM will be pre-disposed towards and have the power to shape the outcome of the game to produce the story he/she wants. You're example of the Dark Elf... clearly shows that a Dm pre-disposed towards including an element will put it into the "story" and chaochou has shown the DM has the power to totally reverse a situation when improving so I'm not sure what else I need to "prove"?
The reason I was able to introduce the dark elf as I did, or have the mace be with the dark elf; and the reason that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] was able to have the tribe/cult turn on the PC in his game; was because the players declared checks and then failed them! Had those checks succeeded, the players (and PCs) would have got what they wanted: in my game, the PCs would have made it to the ruined tower without any of the waterholes being fouled, and they would have found the mace when they searched for it; in chaochou's game, had the check succeeded the tribe would have done as the PC wanted (and not instead tried to burn her).
Hence the whole idea - as discussed by designers like Robin Laws (in various HeroWars/Quest books), Luke Crane (in BW books), etc - that the game unfolds as a back and forth between success and failure.
But the GM is not producing
the story s/he wants. S/he is not in charge of action declaration; and s/he doesn't decide the outcome of the dice when they are rolled. S/he
is generally in charge of scene-framing, but the basic principle of these games is that scenes should be framed with reference to player signals (expressed via build and play of PCs, and sometimes involving special mechanics like BW Beliefs and Instincts) - which is quite different from the pre-authorship that causes the "pinball" experience [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] referred to upthread.
The story of the dark elf in my game ended with the dark elf being taken prisoner, then tortured and interrogated, then dying as a result of that torture. The dark elf being taken prisoner was a result of a successful player check. The dark elf dying under torture was a result of a failed player check (or maybe more than one - I can't remember the details now). As for the mace, as I recounted already upthread it ended up washing down the stream (a failed check by a player whose PC was trying to recover it from the dark elf's cave) and being recovered by the two PCs who were wanting it (a series of successful checks to intimidate and then burgle some Keep servants).
I didn't
want that story. Nor did I not want it. It hadn't occurred to me that things would unfold like that until they did.
So again a demonstration that you really have no limitations beyond a logical tie to fiction (again where you as DM decide the line that can't be crossed) in controlling and manipulating the story in the spur of the moment... and yet you don't see how a DM's biases, preferences, etc. have just as great if not a greater chance as a DM who pre-preps ending up railroading at improv 'ing the game towards the outcome he as DM wants (whether consciously or subconsciously)
What is the outcome that I pushed the game towards?
I think this is the third, maybe fourth, time that I've cited
this Paul Czege passage in this thread:
There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. . . . Good narrativism [= story now, "fail forward", etc] will . . . [let] the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning).
. . . [A]lthough roleplaying games typically feature scene transition, by "scene framing" we're talking about a subset of scene transition that features a different kind of intentionality. My personal inclination is to call the traditional method "scene extrapolation," because the details of the Point A of scenes initiated using the method are typically arrived at primarily by considering the physics of the game world, what has happened prior to the scene, and the unrevealed actions and aspirations of characters that only the GM knows about.
"Scene framing" is a very different mental process for me. Tim asked if scene transitions were delicate. They aren't. Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently. . . . I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. We've had a group character session, during which it was my job to find out what the player finds interesting about the character. And I know what I find interesting. I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.
The introduction of complications is not
meant to be independent of the GM's inclinations. As [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] said, you play with someone because you like their ideas, and they way they deploy them. But the GM has no capacity to control
outcomes, for the reasons I already stated in this post.
(Notice also that Czege contrasts the use of "secret backstory" with scene-framing/story now/"fail forward"-type techniques.)
1. You pre-prep all the time.
2. It's not actually about pre-prepping for a campaign it's about how/when you introduce the pre-prepped material.
<snip>
Ideas aren't fully statted up NPC's... the whole point of improv is that you don't have to do all that non-play, pointless work
The phrase I have consistently used is "pre-authorship". I have contrasted play based on pre-authorship - and attendent techniques in play like adjudicating consequences by reference to secret backstory, and the players, by the play of their PCs, discovering or exploring the fiction that the GM has pre-authored - with play based on authorship in response to player action declarations.
Writing up stats for an NPC, or drawing a map for an inn or a castle or a cave, or even writing up a possible backstory for an NPC, is not pre-authorship. It does not establish any fictional content. You think there is some contrast between having an idea for an NPC, and writing that NPC up mechanically - I don't feel the force of the contrast myself, especially for a mechanically heavy game like 4e or BW where an idea isn't really fleshed out until it's given mechanical content.
(In 4e, of course, a whole lot of pre-statted stuff is available via the Monster Manuals, the trap/hazard stats in a range of books, etc. BW has less of that, and so I have to build more of my own.)
Someone a
long way upthread - I think [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - already made the point that "fail forward"/scene-framing play isn't about never preparing material, but is about when the fiction is authored. What is of interest to me is when and how the fiction is authored, and how this is related to adjudication of action declarations (very broadly speaking - is it an input, via "secret backstory", or is it an output, via "fail forward?).
Now I thought one of the benefits to improv play was to cut down on the out of game work
<snip>
yet here you are doing it and even less efficiently that many that pre-prep for their games.
That advantage has been cited by [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION]. I haven't referred to it, because I don't have a strong view. Building a campaign world takes time; so does writing up NPC or monster stats. 25 or 30 years ago I had more time available, and so spent more time. Now I have a bit over half-an-hour a day of train rides going to and from work, and often spend that time writing up an NPC or thinking about a monster design, or coming up with possible motivations or backstories for NPCs that might fit into the game given its current state. I don't know whether or not I could write up a campaign world in that time, because I've never tried.
The issue of "efficiency" isn't a big deal for me. Writing these things up improves my knowledge of the system and its moving parts; that in itself, plus the inherent pleasure I get in manipulating RPG build elements, is sufficient justification for doing it. (You could think of it as an alternative to doing crosswords, which is another way I sometimes pass the time on the train.)
