D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

[I'm A Banana]

Sure, I recognise that there are some players for whom immersion is the only form of roleplaying - I'm just saying they're wrong. Not as in "they are wrong that immersion is a form of roleplaying" - it's a perfectly good form - but wrong in believing that it is the only form of roleplaying.

It may be the only type of roleplaying any particular group or person is interested in, though. I'm not personally into meta-gaming. For me, it's not fun. Not interesting. So I'm not interested. It disrupts the kind of immersive fun I do want to have.

If the GM makes up the entire world outside the characters' minds, when are you ever "exploring anything other than the DM's state of mind" at the time they made up this particular bit of world?

Because the world doesn't conform on the spot to what the DM thinks is cool in that moment. If what you're looking for in a game is an objective accomplishment, there's no way to measure that against the subjective ever-changing world of the DM's whims. If the world has some independent existence, there's some objectivity to the progress you make.

It's a different 'flavour' of "discovery", but I have had some genuine moments of wonder while exploring a world that the play group are making up as they go along. It works similarly to the "immersion in character" idea authors and rpg players sometimes talk about, where all of a sudden they just know what the character would do next. Once you get immersed in exploring ( in the sense of making up bits of) a world, a similar thing can happen - you find yourselves suddenly "on the same wavelength", looking at each other thinking "yes, of course that's how this works!"

That's not objective discovery, that's creative surprise. These are two different emotions, two different reactions, two different things.

In short, I kind-of see what you mean, but I don't think it's as clear-cut as that.

People who study the mind generally see it as that clear-cut.

OK, but every sentient being has a model in their mind of how the world around them works. This model is inaccurate to some degree, unavoidably - but if it is inaccurate in a way that is demonstrated to them and they don't change it, then they are generally said to be insane, to some degree.

In other words, being "in character" must involve taking on, to some extent, the character's model of how his or her world works. If the world demonstrably does not work according to that model, then either you are totally jarred out of character (because you were envisioning the character's world model wrongly), or the character should be going through some sort of mental crisis (because they suddenly seem to be insane, or at least fundamentally wrong in their core beliefs about their own existence).

When I act in the (real) world, I do so with clear expectations about what effect my actions will have. If they have radically different effects, then either I need to know why I was so wrong or I get severely shaken by the experience. That doesn't happen all that often.

You're right. The issue is that an individual's concept of the world they live in isn't informed by external traits applied to them, but rather by actual behavior. Romeo doesn't love Juliet because someone decides that he should be in love with Juliet. Rather, Romeo does things that demonstrate his feelings and we derive the information that he's in love with Juliet from those actions. It is not the external description that creates the play, it is the personal action that creates the play.

This is "immersive, immediate and un-contextualised" - I'm a super-tough dwarf with a super-big weapon who is faster and stronger than anyone else on the battlefield, and I'm using that advantage to draw all my foes into a bunch around me - where I then proceed to beat the heck out of them.

No, it's not. The issue comes in the moment you dictate the actions of those foes. Drawing them into a bunch around you, you've lost immersion, because you're not describing what you do, you're describing what they do, and that is not under your control. When I'm playing Romeo, I don't control what Juliet does with her performance. I don't say "You're in love with me, so you look deep into my eyes." In our daily lives, we don't control each other like that. I don't control what you think or do.

I have seen this asserted by others too from time to time. But it's an empirical claim, and my own experience doesn't confirm it.

I'd encourage you to read that Ekman book, too. He delves into why emotions are one-at-a-time kinds of things, from a biological perspective, and it applies here. The shorthand version is that the reasons various emotions exist is because they have an evolutionary function, and to get those confused would be, in Darwinian terms, a bit of a disaster: the function of satisfaction and the function of fiero are very different from each other. So they don't overlap, though they might flow very quickly from one to another, and they are very dynamic.

This is all done thinking in character. The player at all times is speaking as his character, thinking as his character, giving voice to his character's convictions of the Raven Queen's divine power. And the very interesting thing about the 4e mechanics is they don't contradict him.

Sure they do. It says right there on the power: "Until the end of your next turn." No mention of the Raven Queen anywhere. Would've happened on a commoner. Doesn't matter who she used that power on, it would end in a few brief moments.

Note that a process simulation system, as opposed to the fortune-in-the-middle at work in my example, actually can make it quite hard to immerse in a religious PC whose conviction is as strong as what I've just described, because the player knows that it is not his/her divine mistress, but rather the roll for the Fortitude (or whatever) save, that has brought the spell to an end. That is, the system does not vindicate the epistemic expectations of the religious PC

Now I think we're getting somewhere.

At the metagame level, the player wants Orcus to be about somewhere, because they've built that into their PC; and they know that Orcus is going to be about somewhere, because they know the GM is responding to the hooks they've built into their PC

That's precisely the level that blows achievement-based gameplay out of the water. There is no fiero in walking a predetermined path, no benefit for Choice A over Choice B if they both lead to the same mechanical challenge with slightly different set-dressing.

That might not be so bad, if fiero isn't one of the big draw of playing RPGs for you. It delivers a dang fine story, trading fiero for satisfaction, so if that's a trade worth making for a player, it'll be a better experience even with the lesser accomplishment. If that's the right way to play 4e, though, I'm not particularly interested in it. I'll stick to writing or acting when I want to feel that creative satisfaction. It'll take it as a cherry on the top of my D&D, but not its central purpose.

But "discovery" is surely not limited to learning what is on the dungeon map and key. After all, in a classic random hexcrawl the contents of the gameworld aren't predetermined by map and key - they are settled on the fly by rolling on a table. Scene framing is contrived rather than random, but is no different in its temporal aspect from on-the-fly random rolling, which has typically never been regarded as inimical to exploratory play. (But is inimical to skillful use of detection magic.)

The key here is that it is something external to the participants at the table. A map and key, a random table, even a vague outline, as long as there is some objective criteria. The contrivance undercuts the "discovery" I'm talking about because then it's not a revelation of a secret, but rather a spontaneous creation. Which can be fun, but is not the same kind of fun -- and not the fun I look for in my D&D. Again, it's creativity trumping accomplishment, and I'm not exactly interested in D&D primarily as a vessel for displaying creativity. It happens - it's necessary! - but it's not what I play the game for.

I agree that there is a difference between wonderment and excitement (cue the "Halls of Moria" music from Howard Shore's score to the Fellowship of the Ring!). But I don't think it is at all related to the degree of GM prep vs improv.

It is related to the autonomous existence of the thing, though. It is less about the time spent away from the table, and more about the idea that the challenge is objective, existing externally to the players at the table, and thus mediated by, rather than invented by, the DM.

 

[pemerton]

No, it's not. The issue comes in the moment you dictate the actions of those foes. Drawing them into a bunch around you, you've lost immersion, because you're not describing what you do, you're describing what they do, and that is not under your control.

This isn't true in general.

For instance, a player says (speaking as his PC): "I walk down the corridor." Is that a failure of immersion, because it dictates not only the actions of the PC but the enduring existence of the corridor?

A player says, when the GM describes an NPC approaching in a friendly manner, hand outstretched: "I take her hand and shake it." Is that a faiure of immersion, because it dictates the continued existence and action of the NPC?

My view is that the answer to both question is "no", and that your analysis of immersion and its requirements does not reflect the typical experience of playing an RPG - and certainly not my experience - but rather is based on the a priori application of logical categories (part of the PC vs external to the PC) which are untenable in actual play.

Ron Edwards has discussed this issue:

I'm pretty sure you are used to putting narrational authority (how it happens, what happens), plot authority (now is the time for a revelation!), and situational authority (who's there, what's going on) together into one basket. I'm trying to help you tease them apart a little. . .

Narrational authority - how it happens, what happens - I'm suggesting here that this is best understood as a feature of resolution (including the entirety of IIEE), and not to mistake it for describing what the castle looks like, for instance; I also suggest it's far more shared in application than most role-players realize​

All the time players describe actions and outcomes for their PCs that presuppose, and also determine, the state of external features of the gameworld. This is not remotely inconsistent with immersive play.

When I'm playing Romeo, I don't control what Juliet does with her performance. I don't say "You're in love with me, so you look deep into my eyes." In our daily lives, we don't control each other like that. I don't control what you think or do.

This is actually not true. For instance, because I speak English and have reasonably good hearing, if you were to enter my room and utter the words "What are you doing?" you could make me wonder how to describe what I'm doing, and whether or not I should tell you about it.

Also, because I have reasonably good vision, you could hold a coloured object up in front of my open eyes and make me believe that an object of a certain shape and colour is before me.

Making me look deep into your eyes can be trickier, though the beter salespeople, cousellors and hypnotists have that ability also.

But in any event, the causal impact of A's behaviour on B's mental contents and subsequent actions is secondary, because we're talking about an RPG, not the real world.

In a "rules-lite" game the player of Conan might say "I want to scare off the rabble - I charge at them". The GM might roll a die (perhaps in the open, perhaps in secret), pretend to roll a die, or not roll a die at all - depending on the procedures of the game - and then say "The rabble flee." This is the player's narration of his/her PC's actions having a direct consequence for the GM's narration of the outcome. I don't believe that that is remotely a burden on immersion.

emotions are one-at-a-time kinds of things, from a biological perspective, and it applies here. The shorthand version is that the reasons various emotions exist is because they have an evolutionary function, and to get those confused would be, in Darwinian terms, a bit of a disaster: the function of satisfaction and the function of fiero are very different from each other. So they don't overlap, though they might flow very quickly from one to another, and they are very dynamic.

Whether this sort of treatment of the emotions is true it has (in my view) relatively little application to the point at hand. (At the purely logical level your argument doesn't go through, as mental states are characterised in part by their objects, and so there need to be no general tendency to confuse love of X with hatred of Y even if experienced at the same time, just as I can simultaneously believe that the sky is blue and the coluds white without fear of conufsion; I therefore assume the argument also has some empirical basis, presumably in brain research.)

When my daughter fell over a year or so ago and cut her head, and I was cradling her trying to find the location of the wound under he hair so as to staunch the bleeding, I was capable of feeling two emotions at once: concern for her, and anxiety about the amount of blood (even though at the intellectual level I know that it's completely normal for head wounds to bleed profusely). Whether my brain was in two states at once, or oscillating betwen them very rapidly, may be interesting for a neurologist to know, but tells me little about my experience.

Sure they do. It says right there on the power: "Until the end of your next turn." No mention of the Raven Queen anywhere. Would've happened on a commoner. Doesn't matter who she used that power on, it would end in a few brief moments.

That's to entirely beg the question against any metagame mechanics, and also against fortune-in-the-middle resolution.

Of course if your read that mechanic as a process simulation of the NPC's spell, you'll reach your conclusion. My point is that the player in my game didn't read it that way, and that in so doing was able to reinforce rather than forfeit immersion. You may not believe that this happened, but I was there and I saw it. You seem to me to be projecting your own dislike of metagame mechanics, and their tendency to disrupte your immersion (as stated in parts of your post that I didn't quote), onto everyone else. My point is that your projection is unsound, and that I know other RPGers can have theirm immersion reinforced by metagame mechanics because I have experienced it happening.

That's precisely the level that blows achievement-based gameplay out of the water. There is no fiero in walking a predetermined path, no benefit for Choice A over Choice B if they both lead to the same mechanical challenge with slightly different set-dressing.

Two things.

First, in Gygaxian D&D I predetermine (some elements of) my path when I choose to play a fighter rather than a magic-user. That doesn't prevent achievement-based gameplay in Gygaxian D&D.

Second, and related, in scene-framing gameplay meeting your nemesis, as determiend by backstory and/or prior play is not an achievement. Just like, when playing S1, finding the skull-shaped hill is not an achievement. Just like, when playing G1, finding the hill giants' steading is not an ahcievement. What is at stake is how you respond to that meeting. Who catches whom by surprise? Who has what advantages to bring to bear? Who is prepared to sacrifice what?

The key here is that it is something external to the participants at the table. A map and key, a random table, even a vague outline, as long as there is some objective criteria.

<snip>

It is related to the autonomous existence of the thing, though. It is less about the time spent away from the table, and more about the idea that the challenge is objective, existing externally to the players at the table, and thus mediated by, rather than invented by, the DM.

If this were so, then there could be no "discovery" in an RPG using random-table based play. Yet there is. It's central to a certain sort of Classic Traveller space exploration game, for instance.

Gygax placed the 12 demigods in Castle Greyhawk to be interesting. That he decides this the day before or the minute before is neither here-nor-there. (Though it will matter for the viability of certain player strategies, like the use of detection spells.)

"The thing" doesn't exist autonomously. There is no Forgotten Realms laid up in Plato's heaven. All that is required for discovery is that the GM exercise authority over backstory to the rqeuisite degree. Which is certainly the case in default 4e, and is also the essential default for standard scene-framing play (as explained here).

It delivers a dang fine story, trading fiero for satisfaction

<snip>

The contrivance undercuts the "discovery" I'm talking about because then it's not a revelation of a secret, but rather a spontaneous creation.

<snip>

it's creativity trumping accomplishment

First, you seem to be conflating the position of the player and the GM. The GM creating things, even spontaneously, doesn't make the player's experience be one of creation.

Second, 4e - like many other modern games - relates accomplishment quite tightly to the action resolution mechanics. The relevant mechanics for discovery-related accomplishment are therefore the skill challenge or the combat mechanics (including skill rolls). And there is nothing in either to preclude discovery. For instance, when a player makes a monster knowledge roll and succeeds, there is an accomplishment in th domain of discovery. It is not relevant that the GM may not have decided the precise parameters for the monster's abilities until the roll necessitated a decision: the GM creates, the player discovers.

This again reinforces tha, in general, it is authoority over backstory that is crucial, not the timing of the GM's creation.

 

[S'mon]

In a "rules-lite" game the player of Conan might say "I want to scare off the rabble - I charge at them".

I agree with your point. Completely contrary to Kamikaze's claim re immersion, I find that if I'm playing a highly skilled, badass character like Conan (Fighter) or Gray Mouser (Rogue) I find it immersion breaking to have to constantly say "I try to..." "I attempt to..." - because the real world does not work like that. IRL the highly competent person often knows they will almost certainly succeed at what they are doing. Furthermore, in an opposed situation like combat or test-of-wills their own self belief is a major component of their likely success! The Don Juan charmer knows when he can make the girl fall for him. The weapon master knows when he can strike the telling blow. Thus the ability to assume success in 4e powers often works very well to aid my immersion. (Off topic - 3e spellcasting often works like this, play the uber-Wizard and you know you can take out that troll with your mind magic or reflex-save fire spell. Sadly, 3e weapons combat rarely works like this, and I've often found it un-immersive in consequence - my 12th level 3e Fighter is supposed to be badass, but it often doesn't feel that way in play. 1e and 4e both do a much better job there IME).

From the internal aspect of the 4e Fighter, he knows when he can use CAGI and likely force the nearby enemies into melee with him. When I play that guy I find it highly immersive. It's the same with other 4e powers. I find the long chain of die rolls and likely failures in 3e combat maneuvers much less immersive.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You're right. The issue is that an individual's concept of the world they live in isn't informed by external traits applied to them, but rather by actual behavior. Romeo doesn't love Juliet because someone decides that he should be in love with Juliet. Rather, Romeo does things that demonstrate his feelings and we derive the information that he's in love with Juliet from those actions. It is not the external description that creates the play, it is the personal action that creates the play.

Oh, rubbish. Romeo fell in love with Juliet because he was an impulsive fourteen year old (trait) helpless romantic (trait) who is in love with the idea of being in love (trait) (see the comments about his crush on Rosalyne). What Romeo then does with that ridiculous collection of traits is what makes the story - but those traits inform and underline the whole thing.

No, it's not. The issue comes in the moment you dictate the actions of those foes.

Maggie: You can't just make someone change their mind.
Parker: You're adorable.
(Source: Leverage: The Second David Job)​

When I'm seriously outplaying someone at chess or a wargame or boardgame I pretty much do dictate their actions. I know what their best moves on the table are, and I know which of them they are going to see and take. And if they, by this stage of the game, take anything other than the strategies I've planned out for them then it's either out of character or a quick route to disaster.

Drawing them into a bunch around you, you've lost immersion, because you're not describing what you do, you're describing what they do, and that is not under your control. When I'm playing Romeo, I don't control what Juliet does with her performance. I don't say "You're in love with me, so you look deep into my eyes." In our daily lives, we don't control each other like that. I don't control what you think or do.

Watch a couple of Derren Brown's shows, then get back to me. In particular his 'Fear and Faith' two parter where in the first he shows just how powerful the placebo effect can be when exploited, and in the second he gives a hard line atheist a religious experience in 15 minutes flat. You can't control everything anyone does, but you absolutely can control a limited range of situations for most people quite easily.

That's precisely the level that blows achievement-based gameplay out of the water. There is no fiero in walking a predetermined path, no benefit for Choice A over Choice B if they both lead to the same mechanical challenge with slightly different set-dressing.

That might not be so bad, if fiero isn't one of the big draw of playing RPGs for you. It delivers a dang fine story, trading fiero for satisfaction, so if that's a trade worth making for a player, it'll be a better experience even with the lesser accomplishment. If that's the right way to play 4e, though, I'm not particularly interested in it. I'll stick to writing or acting when I want to feel that creative satisfaction. It'll take it as a cherry on the top of my D&D, but not its central purpose.

And yet, and I'll go into more detail on the other thread, I find more fiero in 4e than any other edition. The pleasure of 4e combat is almost purely fiero (which is where the legion of accusers that it's a board game come from).

 

[Bedrockgames]

When I'm seriously outplaying someone at chess or a wargame or boardgame I pretty much do dictate their actions. I know what their best moves on the table are, and I know which of them they are going to see and take. And if they, by this stage of the game, take anything other than the strategies I've planned out for them then it's either out of character or a quick route to disaster.

).

That isn't control. its anticipation. you are not really dictating their actions though. You are not making their choices for them, you are simply creating conditions that are more likely to produce particular reactions. You don't have a direct contol of the person's behavior. The guy playing chess against you is still free to react to those moves your making however he wants and in unexpected ways. He could have a burst of insight and counter your move. He could flip the table over in a fit of rage (or concede the game politely because he knows he is beat). He could cheat. He could grow bored and make even more boneheaded moves than you anticipated.

also, his example involved a dwarf drawing people into melee. Effectively controlling their movement. I used to box. I can try to cut omeone movement off and make certain choices better than others, but I can never, and I mean never, force someone to come toward me. I cam back them into a corner, but I can not do anything that will MAKE a bunch of guys come toward me.

 

[Argyle King]

I agree with your point. Completely contrary to Kamikaze's claim re immersion, I find that if I'm playing a highly skilled, badass character like Conan (Fighter) or Gray Mouser (Rogue) I find it immersion breaking to have to constantly say "I try to..." "I attempt to..." - because the real world does not work like that. IRL the highly competent person often knows they will almost certainly succeed at what they are doing. Furthermore, in an opposed situation like combat or test-of-wills their own self belief is a major component of their likely success! The Don Juan charmer knows when he can make the girl fall for him. The weapon master knows when he can strike the telling blow. Thus the ability to assume success in 4e powers often works very well to aid my immersion. (Off topic - 3e spellcasting often works like this, play the uber-Wizard and you know you can take out that troll with your mind magic or reflex-save fire spell. Sadly, 3e weapons combat rarely works like this, and I've often found it un-immersive in consequence - my 12th level 3e Fighter is supposed to be badass, but it often doesn't feel that way in play. 1e and 4e both do a much better job there IME).

From the internal aspect of the 4e Fighter, he knows when he can use CAGI and likely force the nearby enemies into melee with him. When I play that guy I find it highly immersive. It's the same with other 4e powers. I find the long chain of die rolls and likely failures in 3e combat maneuvers much less immersive.

For me, the 4E powers didn't necessarily break my immersion. I didn't really have much problem with them at all in a vacuum, and to some extent I'd say I even agree that they helped me view the narrative.

The broader picture of 4E and how things fit (or didn't fit really) together is where I found issues. I've said elsewhere that I felt I had to learn a second set of reality for 4E. To varying extents, that's true of any game because it's not reality. However, many games still function in a way which is somewhat consistent with how I see the world working -even a world which has magic, elves, dragons, and etc. There are still tactics which seem good or bad given a situation. In 4E, I found that the way the world worked often rewarded actions which I would normally view as bad tactics in virtually any other situation outside of the 4E world. Likewise, things which I would normally view as being good didn't really work in 4E. That by itself wasn't it though.

Something I've touched upon multiple times elsewhere is the different in how PCs interact with the game world and how every other living being in the world interacts with the game world. Having PCs and non-PCs built differently doesn't bother me, and I actually think it's a good thing to not require a full character sheet for non-PCs; even when running GURPS, I have an abbreviated way of writing things up that fits on an index card, and I don't worry about point totals much of the time. Still, I do feel there should be some consistency in how the two sides (PC and non-PC) interact with the game world. It was somewhat strange when I was a player in a game and the party was easily able to literally break through the gates of hell. What made it even more strange was previous encounters in which huge dragons and other such creatures had difficulty in getting past mundane obstacles.

In time, it just became accepted that that was how the game worked, and I viewed my character more like a piece. That's not even necessarily a bad thing. I still roleplayed and I still had a personality for my character. However, when it came time to make decisions for my character, there were a lot of times when it made a lot more sense to do what the game said I should do (based upon how the game worked) than to do what I felt I would do in a situation. Likewise, while I do add personality and my own touches to the narration of using my powers, the actual choosing of what I should use was based more on a thought process that would be similar to deciding what card I should play given a situation in a game of Magic against a friend. There still is a strategy and tactics involved in that decision, but it's based upon what makes sense given the game; not a choice made with thought toward what is going on in the battle between my Platinum Angel and my opponent's Slivers. That's not something I see as inherently bad nor is it something I see as wrong; it still makes for a very fun game, but it's worth mentioning that I came to rpgs and started to play them for reasons which were very different from the reasons why I play card games, video games, and the various other things I do for fun. While I applaud 4E design for thinking outside of the scope of rpgs to find things which can aid to and benefit the hobby, I also feel that a lot of recent D&D design (not 4E) seems to miss that there are things unique to the rpg experience which draw people to it.

There are a lot of 4E parts which I like. However -somehow- when they're put together, they interact with each other in ways that somewhat bug me. Overall, I do enjoy the game, but it took me quite a while to get to a point where I could enjoy the game. Part of that is because I had to learn to look at the game in a way which was different from how I was told I should look at the game. Part of it is also because I needed to take some time to explore other games, and now I have both 4E available to me and other games which better suit the other interests I have when it comes to rpgs.

"...the highly competent person often knows they will almost certainly succeed at what they are doing."

That's actually one of the reasons why I've come to prefer games which use multiple dice and have a bell curve involved with doing things. It's also part of the reason why I've come to enjoy games which have active defenses (meaning I can attempt to parry, dodge, or block an incoming attack rather than just sit there and get hit because the other guy beat my AC.) The highly skilled swordsman should succeed when attempt a sword thrust. However, if he's facing an opponent who is also highly skilled, it makes more sense to me that the two would be able to counter, riposte, and parry each other rather than stab each other over and over again and use powers on each other until one runs out of HP.

Oh, rubbish. Romeo fell in love with Juliet because he was an impulsive fourteen year old (trait) helpless romantic (trait) who is in love with the idea of being in love (trait) (see the comments about his crush on Rosalyne). What Romeo then does with that ridiculous collection of traits is what makes the story - but those traits inform and underline the whole thing.
.

Minor nitpick - Romeo was actually probably closer to mid-20s or even 30 in the story. Juliet was a teenager, but I don't believe Romeo was based upon how he's described and some of the other parts of the narrative which seem to suggest what stage of his life he was in for that time period.

 

[B.T.]

A player says, when the GM describes an NPC approaching in a friendly manner, hand outstretched: "I take her hand and shake it." Is that a faiure of immersion, because it dictates the continued existence and action of the NPC?

No, because the DM has the option to say "the NPC recoils in disgust from your touch" or "the NPC brushes you off" or "the NPC shakes your hand so excitedly that your hand hurts" or, yes, "the NPC fades away from existence as you reach for her hand." With CAGI, there is no option--not without cheating the player out of his resources and weakening his character.

Even on its face, this is not a fair comparison. You're comparing shaking an NPC's hand to forcing a handful of enemies over to you. One is acting on game world and another is dictating the reaction of the game world.

 

[Balesir]

It may be the only type of roleplaying any particular group or person is interested in, though. I'm not personally into meta-gaming. For me, it's not fun. Not interesting. So I'm not interested. It disrupts the kind of immersive fun I do want to have.

Yes, I understand all that, and it's fine - but that doesn't make immersive play the only sort there is. The only language I am fully comfortable conversing in is English, but I don't claim, pretend or even imagine that it's the only language there is. Just because I can't speak a word of Serbo-Croatian doesn't maen that it isn't a perfectly good language. Ditto with roleplaying styles.

Because the world doesn't conform on the spot to what the DM thinks is cool in that moment. If what you're looking for in a game is an objective accomplishment, there's no way to measure that against the subjective ever-changing world of the DM's whims. If the world has some independent existence, there's some objectivity to the progress you make.

If the situation in the game world (because we are talking about situation, here, not setting rules or colour) reflects what the GM thinks is cool (or challenging or appropriate or exciting or interesting) now, how is that so very different from it being what s/he thought was cool (or whatever) yesterday? And how do you tell which of those conditions applies?

The game world doesn't have any independent existence - that's an illusion created in your head by a story you tell yourself. At very best, a game world has "independent existence" as a fragile framework of data points about the world that are congruent among all the players of that game. Other than that, its "existence" is entirely dependent upon the memory, world model and whims (whether conscious or unconscious) of the individual(s) in whose heads it resides.

That's not objective discovery, that's creative surprise. These are two different emotions, two different reactions, two different things.

Given that, in the process of "discovery", you have necessarily to "create" the world model that is described to you in your mind, I don't buy that. Ekman's latest book looks interesting (thanks for the link!), so I'll see if he can convince me - but I'm not holding my breath (because he'll have to explain what is different about building a model based on my own, internally communicated imagined concepts and building a model based on concepts germinated via external communication).

You're right. The issue is that an individual's concept of the world they live in isn't informed by external traits applied to them, but rather by actual behavior.

It's informed by past behaviour, sure - but it's used to make forecasts about the future behaviour of the world. And it's generally pretty accurate, as far as areas wherein the modeller has real expertise and experience, and sophisticated in as much as it may contain uncertainty estimations and 'fuzzy' expected values.

Romeo doesn't love Juliet because someone decides that he should be in love with Juliet.

Um, well, yes, he does - Romeo loves Juliet because Will Shakespeare decided that he should - because Romeo and Juliet is a play, not real life. But we could go with "if Romeo and Juliet were happening in real life, rather than in a play (which begs the question of how likely, in fact, that might be), then we would arguably be able to say...

Rather, Romeo does things that demonstrate his feelings and we derive the information that he's in love with Juliet from those actions.

Right. And, if we have experience and knowledge of people in love, we can make predictions following on from that about what Romeo might do, or how he might react to certain stimuli. That's all part of what we mean by "skill" - which we either possess to some degree or we don't.

It is not the external description that creates the play, it is the personal action that creates the play.

Now I'm confused - so we are talkng about a play? In the play, Romeo loves Juliet because Will says he does - and the actors either succeed or fail in communicating that to the audience.

The rest of the stuff you responded to in this post wasn't written by me - I think you have something missing in your attributions, somewhere.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

"...the highly competent person often knows they will almost certainly succeed at what they are doing."

That's actually one of the reasons why I've come to prefer games which use multiple dice and have a bell curve involved with doing things. It's also part of the reason why I've come to enjoy games which have active defenses (meaning I can attempt to parry, dodge, or block an incoming attack rather than just sit there and get hit because the other guy beat my AC.) The highly skilled swordsman should succeed when attempt a sword thrust. However, if he's facing an opponent who is also highly skilled, it makes more sense to me that the two would be able to counter, riposte, and parry each other rather than stab each other over and over again and use powers on each other until one runs out of HP.

Warning, incoming tangent!

It always bugged me how D&D characters seemed to just stand in place, repetitively stabbing each other until 4e gave everyone a level-based AC bonus. Rolling defense against every attack probably does even more to create the dodge-and-parry feel, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy all those opposed rolls. I don't do opposed skill checks because it tends to slow things down...but maybe after rolling tons of opposed attack rolls, it'd get faster.

 

[Argyle King]

From http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?333362-Fixing-the-Fighter/page45&p=6073774#post6073774

This is an approach to GMing which I got from Pemerton's discussion of how he runs his games. I've used it in my last two 4e campaigns (one ongoing), albeit initially without full awareness of what I was doing. I've been finding that for 4e it seems to work better than the traditional (more gamist-challenge in process-simulated environment) style I use in my other FRPGs such as Pathfinder Beginner Box or Labyrinth Lord.

My idea of GM-led Pemertonian scene-framing:

1)GM sets up scene that derives from prior events but is framed to be interesting - as opposed to process-simulation where scenes are not 'framed' but derive from procedural generation, eg random encounters, d% event tables.
2)Resolution of the scene is left entirely open and up to the players - as opposed to hard railroading where there is a required scene resolution. And
3) Future scenes are largely determined by players' choice/action in past scenes, as opposed to linear AP style play where scenes are pre-written along the set continuum of the adventure. But in looping round to #1 the GM is guided more by what would be a cool/interesting/fun result than by Simulation concerns - though for a D&D world the two may not be hugely different.

I was thinking about this more today and decided to go back to the beginning. I don't think the process as a whole is necessarily 'alien' to me -as I've said before. For the most part, it seems pretty similar to what I already do. However, I'd say that #1 and #3 are hit or miss with my way of thinking.

#1: I think what I do is sometimes a middle ground between what is being described as Pem's way and what is being described as 'process sim.' I look at prior events and use them to inform the future of the game. I do try to 'frame' scenes in a way that is interesting, but I still try to fit that into what I feel makes sense given the situation. I'm also often content to just allow the world to flow as-is without me meddling with it too much; the reason I do that is because part of my thinking is that how the characters forge their paths in the world can be (and should be) just as interesting as any external things I might add.

#2: Seems in line with my way of thinking.

#3: I mostly agree with this, but I lean toward something I said about #1... what's cool/interesting/fun is often already there, and I also often find fun in the internal and personal level interactions of the characters. I certainly can add things to encounters to make them interesting, but those things only last for that encounter. I find that I have greater effect by creating an interesting world which exists beyond the measurement unit of 'encounter.' Doing one doesn't exclude the other.

Looking back over the thread as a whole, I think the thing which I find most 'alien' about how the method has been described by others (notably, not by Pem) is the idea that each scene is a microcosm which exists independently. I find that alien to my way of thinking for much the same reason that I sometimes find fault with the 'encounter' being used as a way to measure the game. The reason being that I like for the lines between 'scenes' to be blurred as much as possible when playing a rpg; if I can erase those lines completely, that's my ideal goal. Certainly there will be times when I zoom in on something, but that does not prevent pieces and parts of scenes which occurred before from still entering.

What do I mean by that?

Well, the easiest example I can think of is a minor villain I had created in one of my campaigns. To be honest, I never expected (or even intended really) for him to become a re-occurring character. The character was "Smash Head." Smash Head was a brutish orc who was the leader of a band of orcs in a dungeon. Originally, he was only given a name in my notes because he had different stats than the rest of the orcs, and he was distinguished in description by a visible depression in his skull.

While the PCs did defeat Smash Head and his band of orcs, Smash Head survived. He survived because one of the party members was badly hurt and the rest of the party needed to quickly get him (the wounded party member) back to town. I suppose (for better context) I should note this wasn't a D&D game; in the system I was using, it was possible for the wounded party member's health to get far worse had they not chosen to make haste back toward town. So, things being what they were, the party left, and Smash Head lived to fight another day.

How this ties into what I'm trying to say comes to fruition later in that same game; Smash Head tracked down the PCs and he interjected himself into situations he was not intended to be part of. For what it's worth -yes, I did as DM require Smash Head to make the skill rolls necessary to be able to track the PCs. I allowed Smash Head's quest for revenge to pan out independent from my own authority as DM; as a piece in the game world, he was allowed to do as he pleased. Those desires were only subject to what I felt he would do given a situation, and, in the event I didn't feel I could be objective, I rolled the dice. This meant there were a lot of times when he didn't show up, but it also meant he did show up in scenes where he wasn't intended to be.

I honestly believe Smash Head became one of my most successful villains, and part of that is because he went from a character who was largely intended to be just another orc to being a villain worthy of the party's disdain. I don't mean that they hated him because he was an annoyance imposed by the DM, but they hated him as an in-game entity. Players via their characters had a dislike for him. A lot of that is because -when he did show up- he complicated scenes -some of which wouldn't have been very complicated without him. Had I limited myself to strict framing and limited what pieces could move into or out of a scene, a lot of that wouldn't have been possible. I also think it's worth noting that I made no conscious decision to design Smash Head as a significant character; he didn't grow out of what I though would be cool or interesting; instead, he grew out of how the world and its pieces evolved and out of legitimate animosity between him and the characters of the players. He thrived because he wasn't kept out of scenes he wasn't written into, and I allowed Smash Head -a piece from a previous scene- to move beyond the borders of the scene he was originally framed into, and I believe his existence felt more alive and natural because I allowed his progress to flow in a manner which was as independent from DM's influence as possible.

edit: Why I sometimes have an issue with using 'encounter' as a measuring unit is because I sometimes feel as though it enforces some limitations on what I can do. While I do find it useful in balancing one particular scene, it can sometimes be difficult to move beyond the idea of encounter. Occasionally, I've felt that the game's insistence upon dividing my story into encounters had as much of an influence on what constituted a scene as I did. While that's not necessarily a bad thing (because it can help newer DMs divide things up,) it means there may be times when it makes sense for the story to keep going, but doing so is difficult because what characters can do is measured in encounters, and it can be difficult to tell a story if you're story isn't one which is neatly divided into encounters. An example which comes to mind is any kind of long drawn out battle.

To be fair, the solutions I found to some of those issues were relatively easy to implement, but -all things being equal- I prefer a style in which 'scenes' begin or end whenever it makes sense for them to rather than when the game says they should. Being that this thread is geared toward 4E, it's more on topic if I address framing in the context of 4E. In that context, it makes sense, and I have some difficulty in seeing 4E not being framed since the rules tend to encourage that style. Truth be told, I think a lot of the difficulty I had in my early 4E DMing attempts is because I didn't have a good grasp on framing in the manner 4E seems to encourage.