RPGs are ... Role Playing Games

[Celebrim]

This seems to move the definition of illusionism beyond "DM actions which invalidate or remove meaningful player choice" and closer to "anything that fulfills a player's desires". Lucking into the vorpal sword Tom always wanted doesn't appear, to me, at least, to deny Tom a meaningful choice, ergo, I wouldn't call it illusionism.

Most players are happy with, "Alright! The DM gave me the sword I always wanted."

However, some players will focus on, "Alright. The DM gave me the sword I always wanted."

Having what you want just drop into your lap because you wanted it blows suspension of disbelief for some players. It also in the opinion of some deprotagonizes them. I don't know if choice is the right word, but they see it as denying them the right to go and win the sword and earn it. Consider three different responses to the player wanting a particular magic item:

a) Roll randomly for treasure according to some table which is supposed to represent the distribution of treasure in the world. Place the sword only if the impartial mechanics of world building say that the sword is there.
b) Allow the player to actively seek out such a weapon. Examine the setting and determine from myth, legend, and history where such a weapon is most likely to be found - even if the location ends up being quite remote from the current setting of the campaign. Allow the player to seek out the item using his character's resources to research and explore the setting. Perhaps ultimately even say, "No.", such an item doesn't exist. You will have to find resources to make it yourself.
c) Place the weapon somewhere in the adventure path that you've planned so that the player can find it and make use of it with minimal disruption to your planned campaign.

Now, I don't want to get into judging the various merits of these plans, nor do I want to suggest that they are completely incompatible. However, they do produce different results.

I think this is where discussions of illusionism frequently break down; over the failure to acknowledge not all choices are equally important. Most of us can agree that rendering individual player choices irrelevant is a bad thing... but not every choice is meaningful, or even rightly considered a choice at all.

Hense my attempt to distinguish between 'hard' and 'soft' illusionism.

Let's say I'm DM'ing and I invent a location, a tavern full of charming grifters called the Inn of the Prancing Phony. It's a place of plot hooks, role-playing opportunities, and cheap, imaginary beer. What it is not is a trap to be avoided or a treasure to be sought, so there's no element of strategy involved. I can't definitively place it in the setting because I'm running a campaign where the player's direct where the plot goes (since they are the plot). So the tavern will be wherever they go.

From my perspective, I'm not forcing anything on the players, I'm just making smart use of my creative output.

I agree. However, the fact remains that you did force the tavern on the players. They couldn't avoid it. Where ever went, there was this tavern lurking, waiting for them. The illusionism is that the players themselves don't see that. The tavern exists where they first find it, and they never knew about all the close brushes that they had when the tavern nearly jumped out and got them in some other town.

And, both as a player and a DM, I'm fine with that - though the thought of the Tavern racing to head the players off at the pass makes me smile.

However, whether or not that is bad isn't really what I want to talk about. I just want to point it out as a technique and label it so that we can talk about it either to condemn or praise it as a technique or whatever. I'm just trying to define the term, and a tavern which doesn't exist anywhere because it exists potentially everywhere until its observed is a sort of illusionism. In the particular case you describe, it doesnt' really deny the players a meaningful choice IMO - in fact, IMO it actually creates choice - but you can through overuse of this technique deny players meaningful choice. And what you have to understand is that players who have had this technique used against them to deny them meaningful choices, or who are otherwise particularly opposed to illusionism - might not agree with your and my assessment of whether this denies them meaningful choice. In point of fact, you did put them on a railroad in the most literal sense of the term. There was nowhere they could go but the Phony Inn.

I should also note that I've already said that planned illusionism like this doesn't bother me. It's only the improvised illusionism that I object to, precisely because I've been burned by it so many times.

I've decided to introduce Patron X into my campaign. He's out to recruit the PC's and is secretly in the employ of a foreign power. Naturally, he's going to be directly in the PC's path, wherever they go.

Really? I don't think you actually mean that. I think you mean that he'll catch up to the players whenever it doesn't break suspension of disbelief. If the players are really trying to hide, escape, evade, or are at the moment in a trap filled tomb in a sea cave the Cursed Lost Skerry of Dread, or if the PC's are currently visiting the locked extradiminsional demiplane of Otto the Mad, then Patron X probably won't be catching up to them in the immediate future.

I mean, where else should he be? He's a fictional character, after all, in a fictional world. He should be where I need him.

I think there is a limit to that. I agree that he can be anywhere you need him, but I think there also ought to be some consideration of whether Patron X has the resources to be there. If Patron X catches up to the PC's while they are in the Fabled City of Brass, it implies certain things about the capabilities of Patron X that ought to be suitable to the character. If you create Patron X, and then the PC's unexpectedly slip off somewhere Patron X as you created him shouldn't be able to go or if PC's 'get lost' and Patron X is less than omniscient, I'm hesistant to thrust Patron X in the players face or rework him so that he's capable of doing what I need him to do. Because at that point, IMO, I'm really not letting the PC's do anything meaningful. All roads led only where I want them to go, I'm just changing the curtains.

Because that's where the interesting and meaningful choice lies.

One problem with this is that if you aren't careful, the only interesting and meaningful choice will be to work for Patron X.

 

[Celebrim]

One quick note. Let me go ahead and define a term for what I think tends to happen when you try to run to far away from illusionism as a DM - "rowboat settings".

A rowboat setting is when the players are dropped into a (metaphorical) rowboat in an extremely broad superficially detailed setting - like say an ocean or the middle of outerspace. The players are then told to row the boat whereever they want. They can head in any direction they want.

They just can't actually ever get anywhere meaningful. Day after day, session after session, they row the boat furiously. And day after day, session after session, they encounter the same drearily similar universe of random meaningless happenstance. Each session is perhaps filled with furious frantic activity, and each day the rowboat is perhaps in a little bit different of a place than it was the day before. The setting is probably realistic, maybe even hyperrealistic, and the players can make whatever choices they want, but precisely because of this they can't actually do anything meaningful because player agency becomes so tightly constrained by character agency. The characters - as with real people - don't really have infinite choices either, because real worlds don't actually provide real people with infinite choices either much less exciting story structured lives.

Now, as with illusionism, I'm not trying to damn the rowboat either. Frankly, being in the rowboat from time to time is alot of fun. I just would like to get out occassionally and 'take a train' so I can actually get somewhere.

 

[Mallus]

Having what you want just drop into your lap because you wanted it blows suspension of disbelief for some players.

Well, I was assuming the player had to overcome an in-game challenge for the sword, that actual game play was involved, but I think I understand your point. It still seems like a strange thing to damage a player's suspension of disbelief -- or, rather, it suggests a person who's mindset is stuck in the conventions of AD&D, rather than in more primary sources, or in the fiction of the game.

If it happened to one of my PC's, they'd think "I was destined to find this sword!", not "this is highly unusual given the treasure distribution guidelines in Appendix IV. I suspect the DM is trying to undercut my sense of accomplishment".

I don't know if choice is the right word, but they see it as denying them the right to go and win the sword and earn it.

Reasonable, but it seems like an argument against valuable random treasure as well. Against any reward the player doesn't specifically and proactively seek.

b) Allow the player to actively seek out such a weapon.

I agree this the best course of action for significant items.

Examine the setting and determine from myth, legend, and history where such a weapon is most likely to be found - even if the location ends up being quite remote from the current setting of the campaign.

In other words, build an adventure out of it -- again, good idea.

Hense my attempt to distinguish between 'hard' and 'soft' illusionism.

I guess what I'm getting at it is 1) hard illusionism is bad and 2) soft illusionism isn't worth defining.

However, the fact remains that you did force the tavern on the players. They couldn't avoid it. Where ever went, there was this tavern lurking, waiting for them. The illusionism is that the players themselves don't see that. The tavern exists where they first find it, and they never knew about all the close brushes that they had when the tavern nearly jumped out and got them in some other town.

This sounds an awful lot like sophistry (though the funny kind --I'm tempting to create the Ambush Tavern and spring it --literally- on my group). Once the players encounter a place it becomes a fixed part of the game world. But before then, what does it matter?

I'm just trying to define the term, and a tavern which doesn't exist anywhere because it exists potentially everywhere until its observed is a sort of illusionism.

This describes the bulk of every campaign world I've ever built... ideas in a state of flux that don't get fixed in place until I share them w/others (ie, the get observed in play). The whole thing is illusionsim.

There was nowhere they could go but the Phony Inn.

Note that wasn't exactly what I said: I meant players would encounter it, not necessarily step inside and engage w/the NPC's.

Really? I don't think you actually mean that. I think you mean that he'll catch up to the players whenever it doesn't break suspension of disbelief.

Yes, in fact I did mean that .

One problem with this is that if you aren't careful, the only interesting and meaningful choice will be to work for Patron X.

Yes, being mindful of the implications surrounding an NPC you create is important, but that in no way implies the need nor desire to force a particular course of action on the PC's who encounter them. There's a leap of logic I'm missing here...

 

[The Shaman]

It still seems like a strange thing to damage a player's suspension of disbelief -- or, rather, it suggests a person who's mindset is stuck in the conventions of AD&D, rather than in more primary sources, or in the fiction of the game.

Perhaps because playing a roleplaying game is a different experience from reading a novel.

Oh look, we're right back to the original post again!

 

[Mallus]

Perhaps because playing a roleplaying game is a different experience from reading a novel.

Oh look, we're right back to the original post again!

Not exactly, TS.

I should have written this "...- or, rather, it suggests a person who's mindset is stuck in the conventions of AD&D, rather than in more primary literary sources, the fiction of the game, or a role-playing game that doesn't rely on random treasure tables as heavily as AD&D..

I mean, it's perfectly reasonable for a player to get the item or power they desire in some RPG's --say like ones with point-buy systems, and it's only particularly unreasonable if you assume something like AD&D.

And of course playing an RPG is different form reading novels... they're just alike enough to share terms, certain techniques, and fan-bases (virtually every gamer I've met came to gaming from reading the associated genre fiction).

 

[The Shaman]

And of course playing an RPG is different form reading novels... they're just alike enough to share terms, certain techniques, and fan-bases (virtually every gamer I've met came to gaming from reading the associated genre fiction).

Or maybe they're less like novels than some gamers want them to be or insist that they be.

Which I believe is Odhanan's premise.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Catering to your player's preferences is quite different from removing their ability to make meaningful choices in-game.

How so? How is it different, other than in degree. The player has made a choice - I want X for my character. You deliberately provide X. That has changed the game so that the player's choice didn't actually matter. He could have chosen Y and he'd find Y or Z or XKCD or whatever. No matter what he chooses, he will receive it. Not easily hopefully, and not immediately, but, he's still going to get it.

This seems to move the definition of illusionism beyond "DM actions which invalidate or remove meaningful player choice" and closer to "anything that fulfills a player's desires". Lucking into the vorpal sword Tom always wanted doesn't appear, to me, at least, to deny Tom a meaningful choice, ergo, I wouldn't call it illusionism.
/snip

But that's the point here. The player didn't "luck" into anything. The DM put it there specifically to be found by THIS party. If no one in the party used a sword, it's very unlikely that that Vorpal Sword would be in the treasure but rather some other item that the player really wants.

---------

Woops, just finished reading the thread so a lot of the above is already covered I think. But, really, I think Celebrim's point works. Take another example, which came up some time ago on the boards, but I'm misremembering the exact details:

The party investigates a semi-ruined tower on a hill. There is a main gate into the tower and a small tunnel in the hill. Upon investigating the small tunnel, the party discovers that it dead ends. As the adventure is originally written, this is true. The tunnel really is just a dead end.

The ... hrm, what's the opposite of illusionism? ... Un-illusionism DM lets the players futz about with the tunnel, spending as much time as they want, perhaps adding a random encounter, before giving up.

An illusionism Dm takes the cues from the players that they would really like to find a secret door here that leads into the tower and takes out his Mark II Editing Pencil and quickly sketches in a small passage leading from the tunnel to another secret door in the tower. Poof, the player's now really have no real choice. The world has been changed to fit within a particular aesthetic.

Or, to give another example, in a Dork Tower comic in Dragon in years back, the party is faced with two doors. Behind one is the dreaded Deadly Marmot Trap. The DM goes nuts waiting for the players to choose the door. When they choose the "wrong" door, he switches the rooms so that they encounter the Deadly Marmot Trap. - Very hard illusionism. And most likely objectionable if the players ever found out.

 

[Wolf1066]

Perhaps it's just me, but I see a world of difference between a player choosing to wish for a sword or a secret tunnel and it being provided by the GM and a GM telling the players "choose between two doors, one of which leads to safety and the other of which leads to (da da da DUM...) Certain Death" then giving them the Certain Death option whichever door they choose.

Each involves an "illusion", to be sure, but the latter is the only one that provides the "illusion of a choice". In the former, the player made a choice - he wants to go to the Dark Tower (chose that objective) and, further, chose that (s)he would rather go there directly. The GM provides the means. The choice was real, the only illusion was that the secret passage already existed in game.

In the latter, no matter what they choose - left, right, smash through the wall in between, run screaming back the way you came - you're going to get Certain Death - the "choice" was already made for the party by the GM, the idea that they had a choice at all was an illusion.

 

[Hussar]

But what is the significant difference? Scale of course, but, besides that. In both cases, you have changed the game purely out of a sense of aesthetics. You have taken upon yourself to alter the parameters under which the players operate and have not informed them of this fact.

Now, I totally agree that at the far end, the Door of Doom, I would certainly find this objectionable as well. It's cheesy. But, that doesn't mean that altering the game to let them find a secret door (or conversely, removing a secret door - is there a difference here?) isn't illusionism as well.

Why did we add or remove the secret door? To make a better game experience hopefully. Why did we switch the Door of Doom? Again, hopefully to make a better game experience. The difference lies in degree, not in substance.

 

[Celebrim]

Perhaps it's just me, but I see a world of difference between a player choosing to wish for a sword or a secret tunnel and it being provided by the GM and a GM telling the players "choose between two doors, one of which leads to safety and the other of which leads to (da da da DUM...) Certain Death" then giving them the Certain Death option whichever door they choose.

LOL. Sure, there is a difference, but it isn't in illusionism.

Look at it this way, what is the difference between the player choosing to wish for a sword and it being provided by the GM and the GM telling the players, choose a door, one of which leads to a magic sword and the other of which leads to (da da da Dum) Certain Doom and then giving them the magic sword option whichever door they choose?

Each involves an "illusion", to be sure, but the latter is the only one that provides the "illusion of a choice".

Yes but the former (or my counter example) also provide the "illusion of choice", but they also provide the "illusion of success", so you are 'ok' with that. In other words, what you mind isn't your choices being taken away from you. You are ok with that as long as you get to appear to win. It's like saying, "I'm ok with you providing choices, just so long as no matter what I do they always lead to what I want."

the idea that they had a choice at all was an illusion.

But, this is true in the former case too, it's just more subtle. We've recently had a poster in the legacy house rules forum whose suffering from a DM who is basically railroading them with success. He's finding out that no matter what he chooses, he wins. You see, the reason most players buy into

"the GM telling the players, choose a door, one of which leads to a magic sword and the other of which leads to (da da da Dum) Certain Doom and then giving them the magic sword option whichever door they choose?"

and not the other is because you want to. You don't question the railroad until it becomes uncomfortable. Most players rebel very quickly at railroaded failure, but it takes most players alot longer to pick up on railroaded success. But reallly if you are going to object to two doors that both lead to certain doom, then in fairness you ought to object to the two doors that both lead to the magic sword. And if you don't, you are giving thumbs up to the illusion.