You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Nagol]

This is an interesting analysis, but I don't know that I fully agree, for two reasons.

First, both the way D&D (at least pre-4e) is designed, and the way it is typically played, make it less clear that players really are buying into a system of complications and stakes. For instance, Plane Shift has not always had the wording it has in 3E - in AD&D it was unclear whether or not it permitted precision travel, and it seems likely to me that the 3E wording is a result of the desire to eliminate scry-and-buff style pinpoint teleportation than to introduce some systematic complication mechanic.

It may not have existed in all editions and the reason it was included in the edition being played is irrelevant. The players knew that using plane shift to try to get to the goal would leave them likely a few hundred miles away and they didn't make substantive plans to remedy that situation with the potential resources at their disposal -- and there are many in the system. Therefore they accepted that plane shift was going to be only the first step needed to achieve their goal. So the players should expect to be presented a scene where they can pursue their next step and have their next gambit adjudicated.

Second, in complication-driven systems the complication itself should be engaging, so that what is a burden for the PC is not a burden for the player. Being bored at the game table isn't the sort of complication an RPG should be using, in my view. Obviously I can't speak for Hussar, but if the PCs had tried to Plane Shift to City B and instead ended up 250 miles away immediately outside the walls of their mortal enemy's desert palace, I imagine things would have gone differently.

Perhaps, perhaps not. The goal was in the city and Hussar has stated he was fixated on that goal and didn't believe any other object would attract his attention. Invading then enemy's palace would not bring the group closer to the goal. D&D has quite a few (and to many people's belief too many) "fine we do so" abilities.

Part of the problem here is that D&D has no simple mechanic for saying "OK, to cross this desert we'll spend resources X,Y,Z - roll the dice and let's see how it turns out." The closest thing I can think of in 3E is the caster resting and memorising Teleport Without Error, or working for a couple of days to craft a Flying Carpet - but there are features of the system (eg depending how it handles random encounters) that tend to militate against even that sort of solution (which obviously has other well-known issues, like a tendency towards caster dominance of play).

Even walking uses that basic mechanic. The only rolls typicaly necessary are random encounter checks and IIRC the suggested frequency is a few checks per day with low chance of an encounter per check.

Teleport especially combined with Levitate (or a few since you can teleport to a place you can see), Overland Flight, magical flight items, Greater Teleport, Wind Walk, and Shadow Walk, are the basics that spring to mind at about the power level of Plane Shift. And those are from the core books. Including more material (like Binders) means there are a lot more abiliites available. There are also stronger abilities that can be pursued that don't have the imprecision of plane shift if the group was intent on getting to the goal immediately.

If the group wants to achieve the goal immediately, it is incumbent on the group to plan and prepare the necessary resources to do so. The group should not introduce complications it doesn't want to deal with and expect to handwave them because they're not fun. If they're not fun don't put yourself in them to begin with or have prepared solutions to limit the time you are engaged in them.

 

[Celebrim]

Why not?

Because you keep leaving out a key word in the quote you are responding to 'next'.

Is there any evidence that this was actually the case in the situation you're discussing?...Is there any evidence that he wasn't?

Possibly. I feel some clues lead that way. But I'm hestitant to rule against someone - Hussar the DM or anyone else - when I wasn't there and don't have full evidence. Without hearing for more players at the table, including the GM, I'm leaving it indeterminate what was going on. We can invent different scenarios and talk about different responces depending on the situation. But, whether or not in this one scene everyone was engaged or not, the larger issue is that in general we can't take one players lack of engagement as overriding everything else. We need a more nuanced responce than that.

Fair enough. Some other people would assume that, when a GM sets a scene that is obviously at odds with what (one? some?) player(s) want, the GM would rethink and cut to City B, which is where the players want the action to be.

There are some huge assumptions in that. I would assume that there are no right or wrong answers here. There are however, for whatever we choose to do, skillful and unskillful ways to accomplish it. I would in general say the GM's overriding concern is, "Of the options for handling this situation, which one do I think I can use to make this session most fun." That will at times mean, for any number of reasons, overruling what the players want next.

I still don't get this. What has running a playtest/demo of a new system, as a one-session one-off, got to do with what counts as good or bad GMing for Hussar in his ongoing campaign with established PCs and player-defined goals for them (namely, getting to City B)?

It addresses the reoccuring assertion that it is always better GMing to let players frame scenes than to let the GM frame scenes.

I talked about a purely ad hoc of more-or-less process simulation action resolution mechanics.

Yes, but was the poster you were quoting (or rather pointedly not quoting) talking about that?

I guess every instance of bad GMing could in principle be redescribed as a clash of agendas

No. But most table conflict comes down to a clash of agendas.

then I want to know what the evidence is that Hussar is describing an agenda clash, as opposed to just bad GMing.

Haven't you spent most of this thread trying to prove that there was an agenda clash taking place (explatory/simulationist play vs. narrative play)? Now all the sudden providing for a player agenda like exploration ("I want to feel like the world we are sharing in my imagination is real!") isn't merely providing for an agenda, but "just bad GMing"? I hesitate to assert that any bad GMing took place without being there. It's entirely possible that bad GMing took place. It's extremely likely that artful and masterful GMing didn't take place, or we'd be talking about very different stories. But we don't have a lot of evidence that the problem was just bad DMing. There isn't anything enherently wrong with playing out scenes.

I've had crappy GMs who are more interested in running the group through their preconceived scenarios, than in running a game that is actually responsive to and riffs off the players. Hussar's description reminds me of those GMs.

Yeah, this is the 'chip on my shoulder' thing I keep noticing. It's possible that the answer is always 'crappy abusive DM', but I doubt it is always the answer.

And the GM responds by framing scenes at best orthogonal to those concerns: a desert trek; a sequence of job interviews. I'm not seeing an almighty clash of agendas - I'm seeing bad GMing; a GM who has engaged, enthusiastic players and is framing scenes in such a way as to actively kill that off.

That's not what I'm seeing.

[MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] has said above that just because the players want to get to City B, or take revenge on the grell, the players can have no reasonable expectation that the GM will frame those scenes. My question is, why the heck not?

Next. Frame those scenes, next. You are again misquoting people. I think at one point in this thread I discussed about 20 potential reasons, one or more could be in play here. Without knowing what the GM was thinking, I won't judge. There is nothing inherently wrong with framing a complication in the path from A to B. The real question is, as a GM, do you think that you can make the logical or potential complications fun? In general, if you think you can, I'd advise playing those out. The extent that you play them out should be balanced against the amount of fun you think you can get out of them, versus the fun you are forestalling.

Cool. Which leaves me a bit puzzled about why you said upthread that it's a problem to be resolved by GM-as-god.

Which leaves me a bit puzzled with you providing an example of resolving a problem in your role as GM as god.

I don't think those differences are unimportant. My own experience as both GM and player makes me think that there is (for instance) a huge difference in play experience between a game where a GM works out this sort of stuff via a random dice roll, and a game where a GM works out this sort of stuff by following player cues.

Maybe, maybe not. Both paths are fraught with dangers. For any choice presented you, you can say, "No.", "Yes.", or you can roll a dice. None of those answers are inherently better than the others. In different situations, all could be correct. Depending on the details of 'The Order of the Bat', each could have been the right choice. The danger of giving the fiat answer as a DM is falling into the trap of being predictable. Every time the secret sign is given, half a dozen elves flash it back because you think 'that's what the player wants'. Or else, every time the secret sign is given, crickets chirp. Fiat has the danger of falling into the uninteresting trap of "always yes" or "always no". Many DMs, even those who want to be lead by player cues, don't trust their own judgement exclusively. Players can also prefer that, since rolling the dice means, "At least sometimes what I want rather than what the DM wants" without it meaning something that they don't really want, "I always get my way". Sometimes throwing the dice rather than relying on player cues is absolutely the right approach in the vast majority of cases. An example in my game is player requests for divine intervention. This can't be relied on because it leads to unsatisfying 'god in the box' resolutions if it is reliable. But at most tables the rarity of divine intervention always leads to 'no' being the default answer. My game is tweaked to foreground the gods active meddling in mortal affairs as inspired by the Greek myths (it's not unsual to meet a god at 1st level), and as such I always dice for divine intervention. So far in three years of play, the gods have made their presence known via direct intervention three times. It doesn't happen often, but mechanically if you don't pester the gods there is a small chance that reaonable cries for help when in mortal danger recieve responses that aren't totally governed by DM fiat. Why? Because I don't trust relying on fiat in this situation, and I believe that is the skillful decision.

Likewise between a game in which that sort of gap in the background is considered a weakness of prep, and where that sort of gap in the background is a deliberate part of prep.

In play, its largely irrelevant because its not possible to achieve sufficient prep to cover every case. In this case, it wasn't a weakness of prep. In some cases, not prepping is a weakness of prep because it removes resources from players. It would be wrong as seeing preperation as always disempowering players, and frankly, if we want to talk about anything that I'd consider 100% likely to lead to bad GMing it would be treating all prep as disempowerment of players. Little could be further than the truth.

I actually think it's hugely relevant. Hussar's GM had players "opting in", so riled up by their defeat at the beak of the grell that they went out to hire spearcarriers to come back and beat it. And instead of following the players' lead, telling them how much gp to mark of their sheets, and getting back to the action, he brought the game to a halt for 90 minutes.

Not only is a lot of that an assumption, but it such a skewed perspective that I think it rather uninformative. I can't imagine how you'd bring a game to a halt for 90 minutes without at least some player engagement. I gaurantee that the GM didn't go into a 90 minute monologue here (misuse of a summary technique or misuse of exposition as narration). Hiring spearcarriers in 5-10 minutes is virtually impossible to prevent without offering up a different scene (an attack by assassins in the middle of it, or something). If the interviews took 90 minutes, it's because the GM implicitly offered that the players had a choice to either accept the DM's choice regarding mechanical elements or else engage in the scene to get the outcome they wanted and the players - including Hussar - chose 'engage in the scene'. In other words, they prioritized the obtaining the desired mechanical outcome (six fanaticly loyal, capable, cheap, willing to die for a few coins mercenaries) over the risk of hiring NPCs that may or may not have the characteristics they desired. The real question is therefore, is a GM obligated to accept the player's prefered _mechanical choice_ all the time? I personally criticize the GM for deciding to offer interviews and not making those interviews AWESOME, but not over offering the interviews. And I think it ridiculous to criticize the GM for the players prioritizing thier gamist goal (win without complication) over thier narrative goal (revenge on the Grell, however weak of a narrative goal that may be).

That's bad GMing. I mean, suppose the GM has all these wonderful ideas for the personalities and backstories of these NPCs: a good GM would use that material in the fight with the grell. Only a bad GM would think that the time and place for that material, in a context in which the players so overtly want to engage with that bit of the scenario over there, is to bog them down here with 90 minutes of job interviews.

I disagree. Moreover, the GM is going to have a hard time forcing that decision on players. In my experience, 99% of the time if the players suspect the GM has wonderful ideas for the personalities of NPC's, they'll INSIST that material be engaged with in the context of a job interview rather than be sprung on them in the middle of a battle.

 

[Umbran]

In my post I said that the GM who prioritises the "logical barriers" over going to where the action is (in terms of players' emotional investment) isn't a GM I would want to play with.

If the goal in question is, "find lunch," there's not a whole lot of reason to go through the efforts to find lunch in detail.

If, however, the goal is, "assassinate the Duke," you will be hard pressed to convince me that I should just ignore the fact that there's a castle and guard between the players and the Duke, just because the players don't feel like mucking about with them.

 

[pemerton]

If the goal in question is, "find lunch," there's not a whole lot of reason to go through the efforts to find lunch in detail.

If, however, the goal is, "assassinate the Duke," you will be hard pressed to convince me that I should just ignore the fact that there's a castle and guard between the players and the Duke, just because the players don't feel like mucking about with them.

In the case at hand, the goal is something along the lines of "Explore City B to find/learn about X" (Hussar himself can't remember the details).

More generally, I'm not quite sure what you (and [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]) are trying to establish. If it's that there can sometimes, in some games with some groups, be reason for the GM to run the desert scene, then I don't think that's in dispute. I even described an example where I thnk that would be so. And Hussar gave an example or two upthread of groups for which it would be good to run the scene.

But what I'm trying to show is that there is a viable way of RPGing where it is bad GMing to try and run the desert scene.

Here's a quote from Eero Tuovinen that seems on-point:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications.​

Hussar's complaint, as I understand it, is along the lines that the GM in this particular case has not framed a scene according to dramatic needs, which is to say has failed to go where the action is, and has thereby failed to provoke a thematic moment by introducing the complication of the desert.

Is that the only standard by which GMing can be judged? Of course not. Someone who loves world exploration would judge GMing by the skill with which the GM preserves the integrity of the gameworld and shows that off in play.

But I think it is one reasonable standard by which someone can judge GMing.

 

[TwoSix]

If the goal in question is, "find lunch," there's not a whole lot of reason to go through the efforts to find lunch in detail.

If, however, the goal is, "assassinate the Duke," you will be hard pressed to convince me that I should just ignore the fact that there's a castle and guard between the players and the Duke, just because the players don't feel like mucking about with them.

I think there's a strong implication that in a narrative game, it's also imperative for players to frame their goal in a reasonable manner. If you start a narrative game based on Lord of the Rings (as a well-used example), the players wanting to start with the scene on Mount Doom is somewhat counterproductive.

It's an inherent weakness of narrative games that they are much more dependent on having all the players invested in the game's style and play goals. That's why so many nar games are narrowly defined within a certain genre, and that toolkit nar games like FATE Core spend so much time discussing how to come up with an overall campaign concept.

Games that are driven by higher amounts of DM force are probably more suited for your standard mix of player types, "the one power-gamer, the one method actor, and the guy who just brings the beer".

 

[pemerton]

Haven't you spent most of this thread trying to prove that there was an agenda clash taking place

The clash of agendas I've been pointing to is one in this thread. In particular, that the defences of Hussar's GM that are being run rest on a range of assumptions about the nature of RPG play that are not universally shared.

I think at one point in this thread I discussed about 20 potential reasons, one or more could be in play here.

Yes. I replied to that post. The main reasons I remember were "The GM has prepped a whole lot of desert stuff" and "The desert is a grind in preparation for the real action". I'm not a big fan of grind play. The GM prep thing is different, but there are lot of questions that can be asked about the role of GM prep in RPGing, and its relationship to railroading and frustrated players.

At a minimum, if as a GM you're going to prep stuff and run it come what may, it's in my view a mistake to run your game in such a way that the players become emotionally invested in the goal of exploring city B, rather than exploring whatever bit of your gameworld you want to show them this time.

 

[pemerton]

It's an inherent weakness of narrative games that they are much more dependent on having all the players invested in the game's style and play goals.

<snip>

Games that are driven by higher amounts of DM force are probably more suited for your standard mix of player types, "the one power-gamer, the one method actor, and the guy who just brings the beer".

Maybe. But sometimes I think generic light-gamism-with-a-heavy-simulationist-chassis is given a bit of an easy pass. What follows isn't an attack on you (TwoSix) - it's some further thoughts triggered by that particular thought.

************************

I think that as long as the GM is prepared to go where the action is, the players don't have to do much other than signal their desire for some action. I mean, obviously things can go more or less smoothly, but that's equally true when the power gamer starts dominating play in your scenario, or the method actor starts clashing with the GM's vision for the campaign.

Reading The Forge, and Eero Tuovinen, and looking at Paul Czege's games, gives this impression of narrativist RPGing as some avant garde fringe thing. And I guess it can be, but I don't think it has to be. A technique like "going where the action is" is pretty applicable in a D&D game, I think.

It's not as if the issue of how to avoid railroading, and how to reconcile the GM's control over the bulk of the backstory with genuine player choice was just made up by Ron Edwards. It's a real thing, with particular resonance for at least some 2nd ed AD&D players - dungeon play tends to avoid it, I guesss, because dungeon play downplays broader story goals and related character development, so player choice manifests itself in tactics and skilled play rather than in story/plot terms. Though Hussar's grell story shows that even dungeon play can sometimes generate the same sorts of pressures as more expansive, story-style play.

I'm not saying that "going where the action is" is foolproof. Or will stop any GM from having a bad day. And obviously it's not relevant to classic gamist D&D. But for over 30 years now heaps of people have been playing D&D for different purposes (I mean, look at how many people don't use XP rules), and "going where the action is" is a GMing technique that I think hasn't traditionally been set out in D&D books, but that nevertheless can improve at least some D&D games.

 

[Celebrim]

The clash of agendas I've been pointing to is one in this thread. In particular, that the defences of Hussar's GM that are being run rest on a range of assumptions about the nature of RPG play that are not universally shared.

Yes, I know what your agenda in this thread is. And as I've repeatedly tried to demonstrate through dozens of concrete examples from my own play, your assumption of lack of universality is deeply flawed as is your assumption that changing style will necessarily fulfill a particular player agenda or that it is reasonable to assume that everyone at the table has the same agenda all the time. Also, the assumption that the GM can pick up particular subtle player cues all the time is flawed, as is the assumption that the GM can always deliver on what he promises. Heck, the same player can have multiple agendas in complex tension at the same time. Disappointment potentially lies in all directions, especially if you treat the answer as simple. GMing is an art form. It's not something where you can just say, "Do this. Get this outcome."

Yes. I replied to that post. The main reasons I remember were "The GM has prepped a whole lot of desert stuff" and "The desert is a grind in preparation for the real action". I'm not a big fan of grind play.

Yes, I know the totally and completely asinine way you characterize what I said, but that's not what I said. I guess I'll try one more time to provide concrete examples proving I'm not talking about 'grind play' or any other reflexive poison the well phrasing you care to use in this discussion. Really, who is a fan of 'grind play'? What's next, "I'm not really a big fan of torture gaming and player rape." Yeah, like I am? Why not just say 'badwrongfun' and be done with it.

However, I'll have to apologize for throwing the gauntlet down and not immediately responding with a content filled crunchy post because providing reasonable proof that I'm not talking about grind play is going to require an larger block of text than the one above and I don't have time right away. I will give you a teaser though of something I will provide much much more elaboration on later:

Now I didn't want the captain to be a member of the society, because for various reasons (pacing, plus my own sense of what sorts of scenarios I can and can't run well) I wanted to downplay rather than intensify links between the PCs and these elven NPCs.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not saying that "going where the action is" is foolproof. Or will stop any GM from having a bad day. And obviously it's not relevant to classic gamist D&D. But for over 30 years now heaps of people have been playing D&D for different purposes (I mean, look at how many people don't use XP rules), and "going where the action is" is a GMing technique that I think hasn't traditionally been set out in D&D books, but that nevertheless can improve at least some D&D games.

No, I do think it's a great way to play, but I think its weakness is groups that have already assimilated D&D tropes. My own play groups are certainly coloring my perception of what the average play group is looking for, granted. But the trope of "the world should be realistic*, and there should be consequences" is pretty well-embedded within the D&D community. The classic D&D game is predicated on the idea of obstacles shaping the overall narrative, but that the only real driver of these actions is the gaining of tangible (in-game) rewards. That's why there's so much pushback of "If you let players skip challenges, they're just going to skip to the end." It's a natural assumption in a game based on those implicit (and often explicit) goals.

(*) for personal parameters of realistic, of course.

 

[Umbran]

But what I'm trying to show is that there is a viable way of RPGing where it is bad GMing to try and run the desert scene.

My assertion is, basically, that it is difficult or impossible to brand it as "bad GMing" based on style-consideration alone. Aside from Hussar's memory being fragmentary on the topic, he's not exactly an impartial or omniscient observer. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Can you construct a situation in which it is a bad idea to run that scene? Sure. Is that construction equivalent to Hussar's experience? I don't think we can say.

Hussar's complaint, as I understand it, is along the lines that the GM in this particular case has not framed a scene according to dramatic needs, which is to say has failed to go where the action is, and has thereby failed to provoke a thematic moment by introducing the complication of the desert.

Correction - the GM had failed to go where Hussar felt the action should be. Which isn't exactly the same thing. Note, for example that Hussar can't remember why they wanted to go to the city. For all we know, some of what they *really* wanted was in that desert. Maybe the desert was going to be busywork encounters intended to eat through party resources, which is often kind of boring. But, maybe there were bits relevant to their actual goals in that desert. We'll never know, and I'm against flatly calling something bad GMing on that basis.

Is that the only standard by which GMing can be judged? Of course not.

How about the *evidentiary* standard upon which pass judgements? In the vein of my statement above, about how discussions can get polarized, there's a strong tendency to jump to conclusions - we paint with broad brushes, especially in the negative, making for a fast trot to label things as "Bad GMing".