Something, I think, Every GM/DM Should Read

[billd91]

Possibly. And, you are of course right that there are a number of points in between. But, this sidesteps my question:

Why is it ok for the DM to be the sole arbiter of what is "believable"?

Because final rule interpretation and administration, from an impartial perspective, are among the jobs of the game master, not the players who can be expected to be partisan and, from time to time, divided in their opinions. Additionally, only the GM is in a position to apply those interpretations to elements of the campaign as yet unseen and unexperienced by the PCs. If the GM is swayed by the player's (or players') arguments, that's fine. But if he's not, how is the deadlock broken without recognizing that one vision must prevail? Some final arbitrator is needed and that job is the GM's.

 

[pemerton]

That said, the GM has the perogative of throwing unexpected, and perhaps suspension-of-disbelief-bending, things at the players because that is part of the job description.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that your player cried foul over a creature being in the wrong terrain instead of his character being incredibly curious about a wyvern being so far from home? I mean where's the sense of adventure and discovery. Is the minutia of the rules that much more important than the story being told?

I tend to agree with what RC says here, but Crispy Critter's comment does suggest some limitations on RC's general proposition.

For example, if a player has signed up to play (let's say) a Dragonlance campaign, with the expectation not that s/he would be exploring an unknown wilderness and making sense of it, but rather reliving the epic tale of Tanis et al (though perhaps with his/her own PC in a GM-authored pastiche), then the Manticore may well be just an error on the part of the GM. And it is completely clear why such a player wouldn't be all that interested in why the Manticore is so far from home - because s/he didn't sign up to play Pet Detective.

Given the range of reasons and aesthetic experiences for which people play RPGs - especially commercially mainstream ones like D&D - I think it helps to be careful and even sympathetic, rather than judgemental, in imputing motivations to the range of responses that participants have to ingame situations.

the GM has the perogative to adjust the rules as needed to maintain the fiction because that is also part of the job description.

This is a proposition of which I am, over the years, becoming more and more sceptical - at least as a general claim.

In a certain sort of simulationist game, in which everyone at the table understands that the purpose and logic of the rules is to reflect ingame causal logic, than this may be true - although even then, some groups may expect that responsibility for preserving the integrity of the fiction by way of rules adjustments is a distributed responsibility rather than solely the GM's prerogative.

But if the rule in question works in a different way - for example, if its function is to confer a certain sort of narrative authority on the player who has used it - then it seems to me that the GM doesn't have any special privilege of suspending or altering the rule. The whole point of this rule, after all, is to confer on the player a privilege that, in a mainstream game, tends to default to the GM. For the GM to purport to take that privilege back at the precise moment the player in question uses the rule looks to me at least prima facie like an unjustified breaking of the rules.

To flesh this out with a concrete example: some event, narrated by the GM and resolved and adjudicated in the usual fashion results in the death of a PC. The player of that PC then declares "I'm spending my last Fate Point to save my PC's life". The GM says "There's no way anyone could have survived that!" The player then gives some contrived and or improbable, but by no means impossible within the fictional context, explanation of the PC's survival. Should the GM nevertheless be able to veto because s/he doesn't like the story? Doesn't look like it to me. If you GM a game with Fate Points, you've agreed to cede narrative authority at certain key points to your players. Part of playing the game, then, is putting up with their Fate Point usages and incorporating them into the overall shared fiction.

In my view, knocking a snake prone in 4e is like this. 4e powers are, in part, rules for distributing narrative authority among participants. When a 4e player uses his/her "knock prone" power on a snake, s/he has, in effect, played a Fate Point which says "However hard it is to grap this snake by the tail and flip it onto its back, my PC has just done it!"

Adjudicating the typical skill use, and the related issue of adjudicating page 42, are different matters. The rules make it clear that feasibility is meant to be a constraint (although not the only one) on the GM setting DCs. But a player using his/her powers is not invoking page 42. I've got no objection to the GM inviting the player (and/or the rest of the table) to help work out exactly what happened in the fiction. But as this thread has shown, and in my own experience GMing, finding some story to tell shouldn't normally be that hard.

I therefore agree with this:

I have no issue with tripping a snake tripping someone's sensibilities, but once reasonable explanations have been put forth, there is no need for the DM to dismiss the imaginative vision of the player and trump the players abilities.

Now if the GM has ruled that this particular snake cannot be knocked prone, because it is bearing a magical "tatoo of ventral righting" or whatever, that is a different matter. The setting of monster traits is the GM's prerogative in 4e, as in many other fantasy RPGs. But according to the 4e DMG, in such a situation the GM is obliged to inform the player that there is a reason the "knock prone" attempt failed - perhaps "As you try to flip the snake over, you see a sigil drawn on its belly flash with arcane power. This snake cannot be knocked prone."

EDIT:

Because final rule interpretation and administration, from an impartial perspective, are among the jobs of the game master, not the players who can be expected to be partisan

The whole purpose of a Fate Point mechanic is for the player to be partisan in how s/he uses it. Likewise for a "knock prone" power in 4e. It produces stories about how awesome, or lucky, or whatever, the PC controlled by that player is.

This is only a concern if you're worried that such partisanship, and the ensuing tale of luck/awesomeness is going to not only alter but derail the shared fiction. But I haven't seen any practical evidence that this is a genuine threat.

 

[pemerton]

As a player in a role-playing game, I am here to play my role -- not to play God with the whole world!

<snip>

The "trip a snake" problem is fundamentally the problem of putting the manipulation of an abstract mathematical game first and last, reducing role-playing to a superficial "skinning" of the real game.

<snip>

The emerging 4e philosophy is more often to emphasize a "pure game" at the potential expense of role playing.

In a story telling game, on the other hand, I am indeed here to stage-manage the secondary world, whether collaboratively (vs. only the game system) or competitively (vs. other participants' preferred plot lines). I do not want to be confined to interacting with the world via any given persona.

we should be concerned with the actual physical process undertaken and its consequences for the snake.

The emerging 4e philosophy objects that the real game now is in the selection of powers for 'builds' and their interaction in the mathematical ideal. That involves critical choices among limited options, and what matters is not the imagined processes in the secondary world but the cost:benefit relationships in how often an investment in Power 54(b) lets a player "get his way". The characteristics of characters, snakes, space, etc., are not in fact being specifically modeled, and so a critique on the basis of fidelity or lack thereof is to miss the real purpose that is balance of the abstract game. References to such phenomena are just decoration, like images of sheep or grain on Settlers of Catan cards that do not really particularly model the behavior of sheep or grain.

No, the only reason you have this problem at all is because you insist on interactions that "arise from the mechanics" instead of just the opposite (which has been the mainstay of RPGs from the start).

While these posts make some interesting points, in my view they draw too sharp a dichotomy between so-called "roleplaying games" and so-called "storytelling games".

The 1st ed AD&D DMG indicates that a saving throw is always permitted - no matter how absurd the prospects for survival might look to the GM - and that, if the save is made and the PC survives, the story as to how this happened - a last-moment hiding behind a shield, or in a cleft in the rocks, or an unexpected divine intervention - can be worked out afterwords.

Hit points are stated to work in a similar manner, although (in my view) the discussion of hit points is not as clear as the discussion of saving throws.

So for over 30 years D&D has had at least that much storytelling gaming as part of it. I don't think it suddenly transforms the game from an RPG to a storytelling game to give the players this sort of capacity for narrative stipulation outside the context of saving throws, and to extend it to certain attacks also. The PC is still the locus of the non-GM participants engagment with the game, and the PC's capacity to stipulate the fiction is still linked, in various ways, to his/her PC (just as is the saving throw description in AD&D).

As for the claim that references to the fiction in 4e are decoration, like references to sheep in Settlers, that is manifestly not so. It is clearly not so when page 42 is in play, or when a skill challenge is being resolved, but it is not true even in a combat when an ordinary power is used. For example, if a snake has been knocked prone - which is to say, that it has been flipped over onto it's back - and a PC is then trying to see what colour the markings are on its back, the Perception check will be more difficult than if the snake were not prone and on its front. Or, to move beyond the Case of the Prone Snake, if a power results in forced movement, which then pushes two PCs apart, it will then become more difficult for one PC to whisper something to another without using a power like Ghost Sound, even though there are no express mechanics governing the relationship between whispering and adjacency.

Any number of other examples of the way in which 4e fiction governs 4e action resolution could be given. But anyway, the takehome lesson from the Snake Case is not that 4e is a board game or a storytelling game but that it is an RPG which (i) confers narrative authority on players more liberally than did AD&D, (ii) is unconcerned about some aspects of the fiction - like facing in combat - but not others - like position, just as an RPG like Rolemaster is concerned about facing in combat but less concerned about position, and (iii) combines these two features in a way that irritates some RPGers (as in the case of the player narrating the proneness of the snake by invoking those aspects of the fiction - like the snake being on its back or front, or coiled or uncoiled, or whatever - that the mechanics, by default, tend to pay little attention to).

 

[Neonchameleon]

did we switch scenarios? if the player uses a power and the dm decides it doesnt work, then the player should either try something else, or figure out why it didnt work by a means that doesn't involve quoting a rule book he shouldn't have access to, or throwing his pencil or slamming a door.

If the player uses a power the DM decided can't work, then the DM has the responsibility of at least cluing the player as to why it didn't work.

Certainly, the player should not be able to add details after an unfavorable ruling...

And this is complete rubbish. If you do something with the expectation that it will work you can go light on the details because you already have the shared narrative to flesh out details. Adding additional details is an attempt to line up your narrative with the DM's.

The DM -- in old D&D, if not in 4e -- not only can but should consider relevant situations. If you're trying to swing your sword at a troll that is simply out of reach,

If you are trying to swing your sword at a troll that is out of reach then the fault is almost entirely with the DM; your character will know the length of his sword and you had reasonable cause to believe that the troll was in reach or your character would not have swung. Therefore it is the DM's fault for not aligning the narratives properly.

intangible,

If the DM says you "miss" because the troll is intangible then the DM sucks. You don't miss. Your sword passes through the troll without touching anything. A completely different story.

Trying to petrify what is already stone, to knock down something already as low as it can go, to blind the sightless, to "turn undead" that are not really that, or any other such thing, may likewise be ruled simply futile.

You shouldn't be ruling them simply futile. There's a world of difference between futile and not working for a reason. Not working for a reason provides information. For instance if the reason the Cleric failed to turn the undead is that they are in fact Scooby Doo Zombies (i.e. living people with makeup), the Turn attempt provides information. There was nothing there that could be turned. Which means it's not something that is simply futile - it's a clue rather than an attack. And you haven't disempowered the PCs by having the turn attempt do nothing - the turn attempt has done something. Just not the something expected.

That's no accident, either. Your problem, if you are really having it, is quite obviously either (a) misunderstanding as to what is being attempted or (b) disagreement over what is feasible in the imagined situation. If not for that, pray tell, on what would you base disagreement over the proposed rule?

But apparently (at least according to TheUltramark), "Certainly, the player should not be able to add details after an unfavorable ruling." If it's a misunderstanding you aren't allowed to try to clear it up? Or if you do you'll at least be badged as "whiny"?

If you are continually arguing with the DM, then you are in the wrong place. Go start your own game, do the work of a DM, and show 'em "how it's done". If you get more players, then you can brag.

This is ENWorld. If I remember the survey accurately something like 2/3 of ENWorld regular posters do DM. Myself included. And Hussar. And Pmerton. And I think every other person on our side of this thread.

The DM and players are engaged in a a collaboratively imagined game world, but that doesn't mean that the players have equal power with the DM over the details.

Oh, indeed. The DM has a lot more power than the players. Which gives the DM a lot more responsibility.

Disallowing effects of powers in situations where they don't make sense does not dismiss the imagination and creativity of the other 3-5 brains around the table

It explicitely tells the player you're dismissing their visualisation of the gameworld. It says "I'm the DM. You're a player. I'm big. You're little. I'm right. You're wrong." If they didn't believe they could do something, they wouldn't have done it. And you have the power to overrule them because you are the DM. But doing so means that you have ed up badly. You've failed to communicate your vision of the gameworld to them, and you've weakened their experience and their faith in the world by making them feel as if the laws of physics have changed.

Depending on the approach taken, disallowing the effects of a power may be based on quite a bit more creativity than simply allowing the rules to play out as written. There's most definitely a middle ground in there, a mix of creative application of the rules and creative negation of them.

Oh, indeed. There can be more creativity in disallowing rather than allowing. But (to take an extreme example) there is more creativity in having someone framed for murder than letting them walk around free. Creativity is of itself not an inherent good unless it is applied to an end. And sharing the gameworld is far more useful for immersion, and for handling challenges, than negating their contribution.

Additionally, only the GM is in a position to apply those interpretations to elements of the campaign as yet unseen and unexperienced by the PCs.

Indeed. But that doesn't mean that except in incredibly rare situations you negate what the PC did. Having a sword swing straight through an illusion is not negating the actions of the PC. It's allowing them and giving them a reward for doing so - just not the one they expected.

If the GM is swayed by the player's (or players') arguments, that's fine. But if he's not, how is the deadlock broken without recognizing that one vision must prevail? Some final arbitrator is needed and that job is the GM's.

If it needs to go to arbitration then something's got ed up down the line. The DM has the right to arbitrate like this. But every time he does so, and does so against the explicit rules, it is a failure as a DM that let it get that far.

(Note that to make things clear pre-existing house rules count as the rules for the game. I don't think anyone is arguing that house rules made clear in advance are something that shouldn't exist.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

It explicitely tells the player you're dismissing their visualisation of the gameworld. It says "I'm the DM. You're a player. I'm big. You're little. I'm right. You're wrong."

No.

And I am sorry that your gaming experience has led you to believe this.

Mine certainly has not.


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

But if the rule in question works in a different way - for example, if its function is to confer a certain sort of narrative authority on the player who has used it - then it seems to me that the GM doesn't have any special privilege of suspending or altering the rule. The whole point of this rule, after all, is to confer on the player a privilege that, in a mainstream game, tends to default to the GM. For the GM to purport to take that privilege back at the precise moment the player in question uses the rule looks to me at least prima facie like an unjustified breaking of the rules.

Can't XP you at the moment, but just an excellent post full of excellent points.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No.

And I am sorry that your gaming experience has led you to believe this.

Mine certainly has not.


RC

Then what does it say?

The two times I've had a common call of "you can't do that" other than utter absurdity have been either that from the worst DM (or rather Storyteller) I've ever had the misfortune to have or the DM (or whatever it is in Cybergeneration) saying that "I can't handle that ability". The cybergeneration case we were all teenagers. I had a low level telepathic power - and every NPC had a device to prevent surface thought detection. Without exception. (After two sessions I forget which of us suggested I do a new character). The second was a "This is my story" WoD storyteller who inflicted one DMPC on the party per PC (and I mean DMPC in the worst way). Oh, and inflicted my PC with the backstory of having been responsible for what was going wrong in a way that moved him way, way OOC - and then gave him amnesia (I lasted three sessions - that's only the tip of the iceberg).

 

[JamesonCourage]

Well, let me begin by stating that the point of this thread has shifted to something I think is much more clear than knocking a snake prone. That is, whether or not the game is one of a shared narrative, and how good or bad it is if it is/isn't.

Personally, I subscribe to no social contract, implied or not, that says that the game world is a shared narrative. It is not. The players have no place in it. As a GM, I feel I have very little place in it. I will react to player actions, telling them how their proactive interactions with the game world transpire. I do not allow them to ever dictate how something occurs, in any situation, but merely how they attempt to achieve something. The huge majority of the time, there is no issue, and they perfectly achieve what they attempted (I'm going to the inn, I'm trying to make a swing at one of its legs, I'm trying to push it back, etc.). However, when they achieve something, they do not at all detail how it is done, unless I ask them to.

Sometimes, someone says "I want to do X. [fill in fluff text here]" I'll respond with, "Okay, go ahead (and roll if appropriate). [more fluff]" If the situation warrants it, I'll ask "how exactly did you do what you wanted to?" and they'll let me know. We move on.

Other times, I say the attempt succeeded in a certain way. Or that it failed in a certain way. Or that it simply failed, with no explanation (if none is due, such as a player casting an enchantment at an animated suit of plate armor).

This way of play is the expected social interaction with my group. And with the other gamers I've run across (which is admittedly small, as I have an exceptional group where mutual tastes, free time, and friendship are concerned). There is no expectation of players being able to dictate the results of anything. They can dictate any attempt they wish. They even state it as "I do X" and that's fine with me. I don't mention anything unless something specifically interferes or foils their attempt.

The main reason we play this way? Immersion. You know what is exceptionally fulfilling for me, but is not immersive? GMing. I'm constantly dealing with the gears behind the scene, making things fit into a neat little presentation for my players. It is constant reminder of the fact I'm running a game, that sheets I may need to reference (too many NPC names...) are only a few feet away, in a binder in my house.

The players, however, do not have to deal with the meta-mechanics as often (even though they obviously do). As such, they have much more opportunity to be immersed in the game world (at least with my group).

I do admit, if a discussion took place that interrupted any particular encounter, than it would be immersion killing. Thus, the less those discussions take place, the better. One way to do that is to give the players more narrative control over their characters. Another way to do that (and my preferred way) is to give the say to one member of the table (the impartial one, if played the way we do), and simply accept his decisions. That way, no big disagreements occur, the game moves on, and people remain immersed.

Mutants and Masterminds is a great game. I love playing it, and I do semi-regularly when our group needs to scratch the superhero itch, via one-shots. It's given players some measure of narrative control (albeit not as far as it could go by any means). It makes for an incredibly fun game. It's not immersive, though, and it doesn't scratch the role playing itch we have. For that, we turn to my game, where I will act as arbiter, and they will interact with the world displayed before them, forgetting all the gears behind the scene for a time.

Personally, I don't want to play a narrative game. I strongly, strongly dislike the mindset. Why? It's not as immersive for me. It's preference, plain and simple. I know other people like it, and that's cool. One of my players likes it quite a bit. Do we argue about it? Nope. We know it's preference. We're content to play things however we like, only play the games we enjoy, and get along.

But, if anyone is interested in listening to a narrative approach to gaming, here's a link I found a little while ago: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S86mSEIqQcg&feature=channel_video_title]YouTube - John Wick Reddit Interview (1)[/ame] . I disagree with a lot of what he says, even if it is somewhat interesting seeing what other people enjoy in their game. However, he does much prefer a narrative approach to his game, and some of what he says is intriguing (even if it's usually something I would not want to do).

At the end of the day, it comes down to why people play the game. When we play M&M, we have a blast for pretty much the entire night. It's trumped, however, by the immersion the players feel in our regular game. So, we play for that. We play to explore bits and pieces of our mind through the game. Or for simple escapism. Or to overcome challenges not meant to be tilted in the favor of the PCs. It varies from player to player.

Which, of course, leads me conveniently to: play what you like

 

[Kerranin]

Because final rule interpretation and administration, from an impartial perspective, are among the jobs of the game master, not the players who can be expected to be partisan and, from time to time, divided in their opinions. Additionally, only the GM is in a position to apply those interpretations to elements of the campaign as yet unseen and unexperienced by the PCs. If the GM is swayed by the player's (or players') arguments, that's fine. But if he's not, how is the deadlock broken without recognizing that one vision must prevail? Some final arbitrator is needed and that job is the GM's.

I agree it is the GM's remit to act as final arbitrator on in-game issues, but any GM who regards this as carte-blanche to do as they wish without explaining themselves, is a GM who usually finds themselves without players.

RPG games are fundamentally a cooperative endeavour, best solution is usually to explain your thinking, and either get player buy-in, or have them convince you of a reason why it can work.

 

[pemerton]

The main reason we play this way? Immersion.

<snip>

Personally, I don't want to play a narrative game. I strongly, strongly dislike the mindset. Why? It's not as immersive for me.

Ron Edwards, in The Forge :: GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory, Chapter 3, offers these thoughts on immersion:

Immersion is another difficult issue . . . The most substantive definition that I have seen is that immersion is the sense of being "possessed" by the character. This phenomenon is not a stance, but a feeling. What kind of role-playing goes with that feeling? The feeling is associated with decision-making that is incompatible with Director or Author stance. Therefore, I suggest that immersion (an internal sensation) is at least highly associated with Actor Stance. Whether some people get into Actor stance and then "immerse," or others "immerse" and thus willy-nilly are in Actor stance, I don't know.
​

This is consistent with the idea that immersion is at odds with player narrative control, because player narrative control requires stepping out of actor stance into author or director stance, as the player decides "what would be cool for his/her PC" (author stance) and manipulates the gameworld appropriately (director stance).

Both as a player and a GM I find engagement with the narrative more important than "immersion" in this sense of being possessed by a character or by the internal logic of the gameworld (which seems to me to be the GM's version of immersion).

Obviously others' preferences vary!