You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Celebrim]

Its not my contention that the desert shouldn't be framed as an action scene. Its my contention that "desert as action scene" isn't the only legitimate way to handle it. Some systems expect the desert/badlands to be a transition scene or explicitly hard-code PC resources or flags to "queue transition scene"...I'm just interested in speaking to a how a group/system would see it as a Transition Scene and why. I'm not coming down from Mount Sinai with etched stone tablets reading; "DESERT SCENES, ESPECIALLY THIS ONE, MUST BE TRANSITION SCENES." I'm a big fan of exploration so I wouldn't advocate for using all exploration as transition scenes.

I think we have pretty large agreement. It was never my contention that the 'desert' should be framed as an action scene either. My contention is that a scene framed as an action scene couldn't be reframed by the player as a transition scene without unanimous agreement, or without the IC resources to render the action trivial, or without being in a system that expressedly gave players authorial resources. I'm skeptical even of the claim that Hussar was consciously reframing this as a transition scene in order to advance the narrative. I think Hussar's motives and feelings at the time were probably complicated, and as I've said, knowing only as much as the scenario he was playing I'm sympathetic to what he wanted to do. Even though I personally - for reasons grounded in the rules of the game - would have shot the 'Centipede' plan down, I would very much have not wanted to do so to the point of possibly rewriting his Binder powers on the spot to allow the plan at least in its broad outline (though not in its details) to work. But I don't know what really happened, and it is as you say impossible to speculate.

Where me and Hussar would simply irreconciably butt heads is his insistance on being able to control the outcome of his propositions as a player. And really that is the sole area. We wouldn't but heads over delivering a story keyed off player interests. I'm all for that. I wouldn't be adverse to an episodic format that gets to conclusions fast if everyone at the table was fine with that. And I firmly believe that outcomes should be generally predictable, at least in as much as the stakes are known, but only within the context of the actual resolution mechanics. But I can't reconcile control giving control over how a scene is framed, or control over the setting other than agency derived by backstory authority, or control of the outcome or technique used to resolve a potentially complex series of events to the player with the goal of delivering an exciting dramatic story to the players. As pemerton keeps reminding us in this thread with his links, as a general rule it is not exciting for the same person to introduce the obstacle and its resolution. I know some systems do allow this - neither BW nor 4e are numbered among them - but those systems that do allow it have mechanics for regulating it. D&D is not such a system. I'm not adverse to cutting to the good stuff, but I'm not going to have a player dictate to me how events are going to transpire in the future because that renders my presence as a GM superfluous.

I'm not sure that conflict really is best described in terms of system, techniques, or interests. It seems to me that it transcends that, because Hussar in other situations appears to enjoy either being the DM or player in game systems that I don't really feel have built in support for shared authorial control. I suspect in a GM it requires someone with a primary Recreation/Fellowship agenda of play, where as my GM agenda of play - what I like to get out of GMing as I play - is more Narrative/Exploration/Creativity. Or in short the problem may be more personality than any high notions like system. I just am not the sort to say, "Oh well, whatever, let's just get on with it shall we?" To me asking me to change the cosmology of the world to fit your character concept is reasonable, but asking me to insert colorless 1st level warriors is an offense to the dignity of my setting. Why so serious? Beats me, but if I had to guess its because the former lets me excercise my creativity while the later just does not.

 

[pemerton]

in the D&D tradition, there's a running theme that traveling the planes is *not* just like going to the corner drugstore. It is supposed to be difficult, and is supposed to typically force you to interact with the plane

<sip>

this limitation means that inter-planar scry-buff-planeshift tactics aren't possible.

This "theme" in D&D is confined to 3E. In AD&D there was no rule the Plane Shift wasn't accurate. The 3E auto-inaccuracy feature seems to be a consequences of merging 5th level cleric Plane Shift with the plane-hopping ability of 7th level magic-user Teleport Without Error, plus noting the undesirability of scry-buff-teleport as a tactic.

Given that scry-buff-teleport wasn't in issue in the episode Hussar has described, it is not going to destabilise the balance of the game to (for instance) just free-narrate that the PCs arrive outside the city walls, or (if the dice are rolled) to move throught the travel part pretty quickly.

So why shouldn't that one player take the responsibility and prepare to transition/mitigate scenes he doesn't want to suffer through either through in-game resources or meta-resources?

That's what summoning a huge centipeded would be. That's a pretty clear example of using a player resource (which is also a PC resource) to transition the scene.

I've been ignoring that the group probably can't even find the city without further exploration/interaction with the setting.

If they can cast Plane Shift maybe the can cast Commune, or Divination, or Legend Lore, or have a druid or ranger with decent Intuit Direction.

You've house-ruled out strategic travel as a player consideration.

You're working with a pretty liberal definition of house rule! Can you point me to the page(s) in the 4e rulebook that I'm houseruling out?

I'm still struggling with why the desert shouldn't be framed as an action sene when it was

1. a scene deliberately sought out by the players (they used an ability with this destination as a possible random result without mitigation prepared to continue the transition),
2. the group did not deploy resources to transition (siummoning a centipede engages the scene and presents assets/aspects for the group to use whilst in it -- it is not the equivalent of teleport or other forms for fast non-interceptable travel)

1. The players didn't seek it out. I assume they hoped to avoid it, but the dice came up badly. This is a general feature of a certain sort of ruleset.
   
   As for deploying resources to transition, the summoning of the centipede is precisely that! [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], who summoned the centipede, has expressly told us as much. The difference between the centipede and the teleport in this respect is that the centipede requires a type of GM permission that a teleport spell would not.
   
   Hussar and I are expressing a view on when we want the GM to grant such permission.
   
   

   This made me chuckle in the context of my current game. I'm running Diaspora, which is 'hard' sci-fi.
   
   <snip>
   
   But 'space opera' sci-fi genre conventions are so strong that someone can slip back into Star Trek or Star Wars or Firefly assumptions without anyone even noticing. So I have more of a job watching out for genre conventions in this game simply because it's so easy for it to be missed.

   I don't pay much attention to sci-fi games, but I think I saw a reference to Diaspora recently on an RPGnet thread. I can certainly see how some "genre-policing" would be required.
   
   In my 4e game it generally relates to adjudicating the "gonzo fantasy" factor, and in mechanical terms gets bound up with setting DCs and damage by reference to page 42.
   
   A comment and question relating to this thread: it seems to me that adjudicating action declarations by reference to genre is a different GM role from permission being required as such for the PC to take a move in the gameworld. So, say in relation to the "siege of the city" situation being discussed in this thread, it seems to me their is a difference between the following:
   
   
   Players 1: We wait for the bombardment to start, and then once it does we rush in close to the city walls and try to scale them
   
   Plyaers 2: We wait for the bombardment to start. Once it does, I jump up and grab hold of a boulder flying overhead, and ride it Mighty Thor-style over the city walls.[/iindent]
   
   Of these, only number 2 seems to me to require any sot of GM "permission", in a D&D game, before we move on to action resolution,and that is because it, at least arguably, violates genre constraints.
   
   What's your take?​

 

[pemerton]

I said that my goals are two fold and interrelated. I want everyone to have fun. And I want the resulting play to have a 'novelistic' quality to it. By that I mean, that I want the resulting story to be memorable and powerful in the same ways that a good movie or a good novel are memorable and powerful.

Ostencibly, Luke seems to have the same goals. He certainly explicitly stats that in the foward of BW, and its implied throughout his discussion.

It's not a general part of the goals of BW - or of narrativist play in general - for the resulting output of play to have a 'novelistic' quality to it. "Memorability" isn't particular significant, and if you read the discussions in the Adventure Burner of what's memorable from play - player quips and one-liners, dramatic moments, etc - they're pretty indistinguishable (I would think) from any generic RPG experience.

As I mentioned upthread, the key word in the phrase "story now" is not story, it's now.

I don't think a GM needs to be granted authorial power. Authorial power is pretty much assumed to reside with the GM in any system that has a GM.

I don't know if you read [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s posts a page or three upthread. But they showed an approach to GMing which involves a quite different extent and deployment of authorial power.

There have been other examples of different approaches to GM authorial role and power in this thread too, but that's probably the most striking.

note that this authorial power is granted to the GM and not the player.

<snip>

The player was embellishing the scene.

<snip>

The writer here is the player. The player is telling us that the character is a show off.

<snip>

By the rule that nothing appears in a story unless it is important to the story, if we ignore this establishing scene we are allowing bad writing.

<snip>

Maybe, Rich wanted his character to look cool crossing the bridge. But Rich in fact, like a bad writer, didn't know how to accomplish that and further adopted a character stance that was add odds with his intention - be a heroic protagonist. Instead he acted like the comic sidekick. But, perhaps we should be more fair to Rich. Maybe Rich _knew_ he was adopting the stance of a comic sidekick. Maybe the 'Say Yes' of this scene is exactly 'You fall, but your comrade grabs you just as you are about to tumble to your death'. Could we in fact 'Say Yes' that way? Wouldn't that being 'Failing forward', to use another term of art (the result of failure here is the blow to the characters ego).

The authoring in this paticular scene is shared between player and GM.

The player contributes the element that his PC is capering along the rail of the bridge. The GM contributes "and does so without falling".

The player wants to signal that his PC is a cool acrobat (as I think [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] noted upthread, probably a movie Legolas rip-off). The player's goal is pure colour. The GM is allowing the scene to be resolved as pure colour.

If the GM had misunderstood - if the player wasn't going for pure colour - I'm sure that at Luke Crane's table that would quickly be rectified by out-of-character communication! (Which relates to a comment of Ron Edwards's that I quoted way upthread - the GM is expected to take and to respond to player suggestions.)

Another element relevant in BW play, however, is that skill/stat checks - tests, in BW parlance - are the key to PC advancement. And the GM is under strick instructions neither to permit nor to engage in test-mongering: that is, players aren't to get tests "for free", but only when the stakes are serious. So in the scene described, another relevant consideration would be that, in crossing the bridge, nothing is at stake and hence tests (and advancement) aren't available. It is mere colour.

In GMing 4e a lot of the BW approach could be applied, but this particular aspect of BW play would not be relevant, as PC advancement in 4e isn't a reward in the same way that it is in BW. It is more like a simple aspect of setting (as the PCs advance the setting changes and, in mechanical terms, scales up).

I'm just totally baffled. If this really is an action movie, and this is an important scene than we can be 100% sure that all the protagonists - the hero and the comic sidekick alike - are 100% certain to make it across the narrow ledge.

<snip>

Narrate past this in a single sentence because it is unimportant - no dramatic themes are at stake.

<snip>

The fact that Luke admits in this test that there is a chance of failure, and there is a potential cost here of all places, is 100% admission that we aren't playing inside a movie and there are very very important differences.

And that is not remotely contentious. As I've already mentioned upthread and reiterated in this post, there is no particular connection between narrativist play and "movie-style story as product". (And the comparison that Luke Crane makes to a movie is in terms of emotional response - "it would be like a false note in a bad action movie" - and not in terms of structural composition.)

Worse yet for me, Luke is actually in the process of deciding what is important for entirely subjective reasons

<snip>

Luke is deciding for the players what story is being told, what it means, and what roles the characters will have within it.

<snip>

I'm again struck by how the mechanics of 'Belief' and 'Instinct' are at Luke's table not being used as mechanisms player empowerment, but as mechanisms to limit and restrict player authority over exploration and over even their own character. Instead of being tools to increase the depth of character, they end up being tools of restricting character exploration.

Perhaps the bits of the picture that you're missing aren't in what I quoted, but were in the OP of the BW play advice thread in which you participated - ie that the players author Beliefs and Instincts, in consultation with one another and with the GM, as part of setting up the overall themes and focus of the campaign.

So the fact that the ledge and the lost tomb are things that matter will have been jointly established as part of the preparation for play. That's how the GM (not Luke, by the way, in this particular example) knows that the stakes are high and tests are required.

Becasue Celebrim was following the logic presented by Luke in his critique:

The Say Yes rule is difficult <snippage> grants the GM authorial power

Nowhere is there a mention of player authorial power -- a point Celebrim takes pains to call out. From what I can tell, beliefs aren't a form of authorial power -- they are levers the player can use for resolution and hooks the GM can attach the character to the world.

I didn't post the whole BW rulebook. I posted a page of advice on "say yes" in response to a request from JamesonCourage.

In the other thread on BW play advice I did post more, including on the BW approach to situation framing, "world building" (to the extent that BW contains such a thing), etc.

I also posted, upthread, a quote from Ron Edwards on the use of GMing scene-framing power in narratvist play (the key point being - take suggestions) plus extensive passages from an Eero Tuovinen blog explaining why in narrativist play the GM might be given that authority (namely, to preserve a certain sort of control over backstory and thereby over reveals and related narrative devices), and also the various techniques typical in narrativist play for regulating and governing that authority - in BW, these include Beliefs, Instincts and Traits plus the broader set-up phase.

A BW GM who uses "say yes" to free narrate through scenes that enliven Beliefs, Traits and Instincts while calling for tests when none of those things enlivened is, by the express word of the rulebooks, doing it wrong.

A comparison - maybe it will misfire, who knows, but it seems apposite enough to me: the executive power enjoyed by the President in the US, or by the Prime Minister and Cabinet in Australia, is a direct descedent, in constitutional law and theory, of the pre-1688 power of the British Crown. But to argue that the introduction of electoral democracy makes no difference to the character of the exercise of that authority would strike me as (at least) odd.

looking at your your own example, "Stating a belief for a peasant that 'I'm the true king of this land' does not make it factual in the game.", that means that the player can't really say what the game is about. So yeah, while you can say that the player gets to drive the action and dictate what matters, the truth is not so much. If your belief is, "I'm the true king of this land.", and the GM's belief is, "That's ridiculous.", you may find the game playing out more like Don Quixote when what you really wanted was Morte D'Arthur.

Your first sentence is a non-sequitur. The player has said what the game is about, namely, it's about that player's peasant PC finding out whether or not he is to be king of the land.

If the GM decides, at the start, that "that's ridiculous" then the whole game is a waste of everyone's time. Which is to say, that would be bad GMing, at least as far as BW is concerned. The Character Burner actually has a discussion of a related GMing mistake (the Belief pertained to the resurrection of the PC's dead wife, and the GM let it happen carelessly in the game, almost as mere colour, which completely pulled the rug out from under that player's participation in the game), and cautions new BW GMs against it.

I recently had a player submit a backstory that called for them to be the mortal descendent of a diety that had hitherto in the game univere celibate, and I approved that - essentially altering the mythology around one of the universe's major dieties. And the player had that idea because it's explicitly called out in my rules as a possibility. Beliefs are pathetic in their demands on the universe in comparison.

This has no bearing that I can see on how Beliefs work in BW play.

Beliefs aren't about what's true or false in the backstory. That is negotiated between participants - and elements of it (which Luke Crane calls "the big picture") left up to the GM - prior to starting play. Beliefs are constraints on the GM's framing of scenes.

We can't tell whether your approval of your player's backstory is playing any Belief-liek role until we know how the game in which that player particpated revolved (if at all) around his divine heritage, and it what ways (if any) it did so revolve.

 

[pemerton]

Sure, but these don't bear on the players' goal of engaging the city.Neither does the siege.

I don't understand this. How does a city being under siege not bear on the player goal of engaging that city? As [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has pointed out, it is likely to affect nearly everything going on in the city.

So how is sneaking into the city under cover of bombardment "leveraging the siege to engage the city" when, with no siege, they would simply have walked in?

I don't really understand this, either. Of course if there is no siege and the PCs just walk in, the players are leveraging a different fiction - a city at peace - in pursuit of their goals.

The point is that the fiction is different in each case, and in either case makes a difference to what is happening in the city. The fictional positioning of the PCs is different. Furthermore, I think for many players at least sneaking in under cover of bombardment would be more exciting than walking through gates past bored city guards.

the PC builds and player resources are focused on mutual matters of interest.

Um...no. They are focused on matters of interest to you.

Of course they're matters of interst to me. "Mutual interest" entails interesting to me. If they were not interesting to me, they wouldn't be of mutual interest. The key point is that these things of interest to my players also.

I gather (from upthread) that you don't believe that my players enjoy my game, and that you think I present them with situations that are of no interest to them. Though given that they're 40-something year old adults with jobs and kids and lives, I'm not quite sure what power you think I hold over them so they keep turning up to session after session despite the fact that they find them so horrible, in some cases for over 15 years!

But on this I'm disregarding your opinion, based on zero evidence whatsoever, and going with the evidence of my own experience. My games focus on matters of mutual interest to me an my players. Hence they don't focus on strategic overland travel, which I don't enjoy and (perhaps in part for that reason) don't GM particularly well.

I have one player who would be very happy if wargame-style conflicts were part of the game. In 15 years they haven't been, though, because (again) I don't particularly care for such episodes of play, and actually find them very hard to make work within a RPGing context. Luckily there are a large number of other things that this player also finds interesting, and some of them figure in our game as matters of mutual interest.

The thing is, we can make the desert relevant in the same way, even without the nomads. Like I said, giant sandstorm. There, now it's affecting the trip, and the city inside the town.

Once the PCs are in the town, describing a sandstorm that hits the city strikes me as obviously relevant (though personally I think a siege is more exciting). Indeed, if the players are interested in the city, but the GM for some reason what's to draw the desert to their attention, that might be one way of doing it (a bit like how, in the examples discussed by [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] upthread, various ways of framing the barber shop complication can serve as invitations to the players to engage the street).

But if the players goal is the city, and you start them in the desert with a sandstorm, you haven't suddenly succeeded in giving the desert any interest or relevance by the criteria that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and I are using, which are criteria to do with narrative or thematic weight, not procedural obstacle.[/quote]

a few of us aren't saying "play boring stuff because you didn't have [Resource X]," we're saying "play interesting stuff because you didn't have [Resource X]" and it sounds like we're being told "it's impossible" or "it's too contrived" or the like.

At least by me, you're being told "If I'm invested in the city, the desert isn't interesting."

And that statement of preference has been explained, at some length, both in general terms and by reference to a comparison - the siege.

It seems that you (and some others) don't understand why a desert crossing that has no bearing on the city other than settling the question of whether or not we get there might be uninteresting to a person, yet a siege which is going to both colour all city action and serve as a player resource for engaging the city might not be. That's fine; you're under no obligation to understand anyone else's preferences!

But I hope you can appreciate that your inability to undestand my preferences or the reasons behind them isn't going to persuade me that those preferences aren't real, or lack a rational foundation! Especially when a number of other posters - Hussar, Campbell, Manbearcat, chaochou and jackinthegreen - are pretty clearly able to make sense of them without much trouble.

Perhaps I missed it, but I don't recall it being established that "say yes or roll the dice" was part of the rules in question for the original example. And you will probably have a hard row to hoe if you want to get me to accept that it should *always* be part of the rules, for any and all games anyone ever plays.

I don't see anyone saying that "say yes" should be part of all games. Hussar, in particular, has been quite expicit that he is not trying to tell others how to play.

But I think it's quite reasonable for Hussar and I to say that (i) "say yes" is a tenable and coherent approach to RPGing, and (ii) it's one we prefer, such that GMing that doesn't proceed in that sort of way is not GMing we want to engage in or play under.

But here you are claiming to understand Beliefs, while saying that my explanation, entirely consistent with what BW says in black and white, is not merely inaccurate, but so wrong it's incomprehensible. What a hoot! And I've played Burning Wheel. Run scene-framed games.

But no, apparently the people who play successfully have it all wrong, while you - with nothing on the record to indicate any experience at all - are unquestionably correct merely by virtue of saying so. Rinse and repeat for scene-framing. And player authority.

I share your puzzlement. As is clear from this and other threads, my 4e game is much more trad than the games you run. But I've learned a lot about GMing techniques from the Forge and related games and discussions, and use them to advantage in my 4e game.

Umbran is completely correct that no one is obliged to play that way. But I find it pretty weird being told that the way I do things isn't actually a way that things are, or can, be done. And to be told that all those bits of RPGing advice I'm using, and that make it clear to me why Hussar sees a difference between the desert and the siege, don't actually say anything useful or meaningful - let alone shed any light on what sort of play experience Hussar (and I, and others) are interested in!

 

[JamesonCourage]

At least by me, you're being told "If I'm invested in the city, the desert isn't interesting."

Ah, but this isn't "it's not relevant." I really hope this is all it is. Subjective as it is, it puts so much of the "the siege is relevant to the goal, but the desert isn't" debate to rest in my mind. This really does answer it, for me. Thank you.

It seems that you (and some others) don't understand why a desert crossing that has no bearing on the city other than settling the question of whether or not we get there might be uninteresting to a person, yet a siege which is going to both colour all city action and serve as a player resource for engaging the city might not be. That's fine; you're under no obligation to understand anyone else's preferences!

But I hope you can appreciate that your inability to undestand my preferences or the reasons behind them isn't going to persuade me that those preferences aren't real, or lack a rational foundation! Especially when a number of other posters - Hussar, Campbell, Manbearcat, chaochou and jackinthegreen - are pretty clearly able to make sense of them without much trouble.

Not once have I denied this isn't a real preference, and I've explicitly stated that I accept it is, I just can't see the difference as it's being presented. So, there's that. Go read my posts if you doubt me. As always, play what you like

 

[Jackinthegreen]

So why shouldn't that one player take the responsibility and prepare to transition/mitigate scenes he doesn't want to suffer through either through in-game resources or meta-resources?

(snip)

The players abdicated their ability to shortcut when they arrived without the ability to shortcut.

As mentioned before, players can and do screw up those kinds of things. It would be nice to expect them to fully prepare for such instances, but let's face it: Not everyone is going to be that involved. Hopefully the DM would be able to nudge them towards being better prepared, but eventually the players might very well feel screwed over by the game and the DM if they find themselves at the desert and thinking "let's just pass this" and the DM says that there's no way to resolve handwaving it like the players want to because they don't have some magical ability at that moment.

The point is that sometimes the players should have the ability to just say "screw this, let's move on." Yes, it can sometimes mean abdicating all responsibility and consequences of whatever they choose to bypass. I'm pretty sure @Hussar mentioned it wasn't a decision he took lightly, and one certainly shouldn't expect anyone would take the possibility of giving up all responsibility lightly.

At the end of the day though, it's still a game meant for enjoyment, and, for some people, sometimes having fun means getting away from the consequences and responsibilities.

Basically some people just want a cheat code to get through a particularly crappy part of the game so they can go on and do other stuff that they are interested enough in that they don't want to use a cheat code because it's something they want to engage in.

 

[Nagol]

As mentioned before, players can and do screw up those kinds of things. It would be nice to expect them to fully prepare for such instances, but let's face it: Not everyone is going to be that involved. Hopefully the DM would be able to nudge them towards being better prepared, but eventually the players might very well feel screwed over by the game and the DM if they find themselves at the desert and thinking "let's just pass this" and the DM says that there's no way to resolve handwaving it like the players want to because they don't have some magical ability at that moment.

The point is that sometimes the players should have the ability to just say "screw this, let's move on." Yes, it can sometimes mean abdicating all responsibility and consequences of whatever they choose to bypass. I'm pretty sure @Hussar mentioned it wasn't a decision he took lightly, and one certainly shouldn't expect anyone would take the possibility of giving up all responsibility lightly.

At the end of the day though, it's still a game meant for enjoyment, and, for some people, sometimes having fun means getting away from the consequences and responsibilities.

Basically some people just want a cheat code to get through a particularly crappy part of the game so they can go on and do other stuff that they are interested enough in that they don't want to use a cheat code because it's something they want to engage in.

I'm not suggesting that the players should be perfect analytic machines who never make mistakes. I'm suggesting players bear some responsibility and should hold themselves accountable for predicaments of their own making and not get shirty when they aren't given a pass out of them -- particularly when the predicament can be made interesting (at least to a large subset of the player base) relatively easily with complications that follow the tropes of genres commonly emulated in the game engine.

If the other players agree (including the DM) to move on then obviously the group moves on. But without unanimity, the group should continue normal play. No player should expect to control flow save through the resources the game offers him -- it is a collaborative game after all and people have different agendas and focus of enjoyment. Most games do offer some measure of control --D&D certainly does with in-game resources. Any player can offer signals (the more clear the better) or attempt to negotiate with the table if they situation is less than agreeable, but not all such attempts will be successful.

The alternative is to change the premise of the game and the game engine to remove those types of predicaments. Don't want to deal with weighty decisions? Play a game where they don't come up. Don't want to deal with administration? Play a game where it is minimized. Don't want to deal with exploration/potential NPC agenda/random encounters? D&D wouldn't be my suggested game engine.

 

[Nagol]

This "theme" in D&D is confined to 3E. In AD&D there was no rule the Plane Shift wasn't accurate. The 3E auto-inaccuracy feature seems to be a consequences of merging 5th level cleric Plane Shift with the plane-hopping ability of 7th level magic-user Teleport Without Error, plus noting the undesirability of scry-buff-teleport as a tactic.

Which was the edition being played.

Given that scry-buff-teleport wasn't in issue in the episode Hussar has described, it is not going to destabilise the balance of the game to (for instance) just free-narrate that the PCs arrive outside the city walls, or (if the dice are rolled) to move throught the travel part pretty quickly.

No, if the DM wanted to stipulate the city was close he certainly could have. He chose to roll the dice. Perhaps something was at stake? And apparently according to Celebrim the adventure specifies a specific distance (based on the adventure in play). The PCs ended up in a place sub-optimal to their desires. Time to find out what the next complication is.

That's what summoning a huge centipeded would be. That's a pretty clear example of using a player resource (which is also a PC resource) to transition the scene.

I disagree obviously. To me, summoning a giant centipede engages the scene and applies a modifier to the party's travel, but that travel will continue. Contrast this with Wind Walk, Shadow Walk, Greater Teleport. As a DM, I'd be tempted to negate a transition if a players spends resources in this manner because its a signal he wants to engage.

If they can cast Plane Shift maybe the can cast Commune, or Divination, or Legend Lore, or have a druid or ranger with decent Intuit Direction.

Intuit Direction lets you know which way is north. That can be useful, but not if you don't which direction to travel to begin with. Spells and other abilities can help, sure. So can asking the natives.

You're working with a pretty liberal definition of house rule! Can you point me to the page(s) in the 4e rulebook that I'm houseruling out?

No. I no longer own a copy. I'm taking you at your word that player choice has be curtailed/modified based upon your preferred method of running the table. That's pretty much the definitional purpose of a house rule. "Players need not concern themselves with strategic travel options as the narratives will generally take care of it." is certainly on par with "This campaign will have limited supernatural creatures. The most common enemy will be human".

The players didn't seek it out. I assume they hoped to avoid it, but the dice came up badly. This is a general feature of a certain sort of ruleset.

As for deploying resources to transition, the summoning of the centipede is precisely that! @Hussar , who summoned the centipede, has expressly told us as much. The difference between the centipede and the teleport in this respect is that the centipede requires a type of GM permission that a teleport spell would not.

Hussar and I are expressing a view on when we want the GM to grant such permission.

The players accepted the potential outcome when they used the ability as much as a gambler accepts the possibility of the roulette table coming up black or green when he bets on red. Should the players feel such an outcome was beyond the pale, they should prepare contingencies. Absent of those contingencies, the players should expect to deal with the situation in which they find themselves.

The nature of authorial control is that the entities it lies with make the call. Whomever has the control should be sympathetic and then make the call that seems best for the table and the situation as it is understood. It's the obligation that comes with the position. Others at the table should understand that the sometimes their preferences don't stand. If their is a pattern of preferences being in conflict it's time to re-assess if the group fits well together in this activity.

As for the centipede, I discussed it earlier. As a signal it is at best mixed. As a tactic is is quite limited in the extra evasion it offers an any plane where the main inhabitants teleport at will.

The GM has authorial control. He should certainly be open to hearing the preferences of individual players, but his responsibility is to the table. He has to make the call that seems best for the group and is true to the social contract.

 

[N'raac]

If they can cast Plane Shift maybe the can cast Commune, or Divination, or Legend Lore, or have a druid or ranger with decent Intuit Direction.

So use relevant resources to transition the scene. Summoning the centipede provides a mount, which interacts with the skill rules and the overland travel rules. Expecting the skill and travel rules to be waived, and the centipede to be equipped with a road map system, assumes resources that have not actually been brought to the table.

You're working with a pretty liberal definition of house rule! Can you point me to the page(s) in the 4e rulebook that I'm houseruling out?

IHTBIFOM. Try looking in the index for “travel, overland” or something similar. I assume 4e does have rules for long distance travel.

The players didn't seek it out. I assume they hoped to avoid it, but the dice came up badly. This is a general feature of a certain sort of ruleset.

Again, casting a spell that explicitly says that you always arrive 5 – 500 miles from your desired destination means, or should mean, expecting to have to locate and travel to your desired destination.

A comment and question relating to this thread: it seems to me that adjudicating action declarations by reference to genre is a different GM role from permission being required as such for the PC to take a move in the gameworld. So, say in relation to the "siege of the city" situation being discussed in this thread, it seems to me their is a difference between the following:

Players 1: We wait for the bombardment to start, and then once it does we rush in close to the city walls and try to scale them

Plyaers 2: We wait for the bombardment to start. Once it does, I jump up and grab hold of a boulder flying overhead, and ride it Mighty Thor-style over the city walls.[/iindent]

Of these, only number 2 seems to me to require any sot of GM "permission", in a D&D game, before we move on to action resolution,and that is because it, at least arguably, violates genre constraints.

What's your take?​

Well, since we’re asserting that a siege impacts city life, I think that the city defenders would logically be alert for the besiegers to attempt to enter the city by scaling its walls. And the fact the city is still under siege implies that turning back a force of 4 – 6 people who don’t have scaling ladders or similar siege gear, nor are they coordinating with the besieging force, will be pretty easy. Probably “time to roll up new characters” easy.

Beliefs aren't about what's true or false in the backstory. That is negotiated between participants - and elements of it (which Luke Crane calls "the big picture") left up to the GM - prior to starting play. Beliefs are constraints on the GM's framing of scenes.

Emphasis added – sounds like explicit granting of control to the GM. The player may envision his character being rightful King of All the Land. That is the game he wants to play. However, the GM may consider the veracity of this claim to be part of “the big picture” and decide the character is misguided at best. So the game is about the delusional peasant seeking evidence of s a royal claim that does not really exist.

I don't understand this. How does a city being under siege not bear on the player goal of engaging that city? As @Hussarhas pointed out, it is likely to affect nearly everything going on in the city.

If the city falls through a crack in the earth and disappears, never to be seen again, this affects nearly everything going on in the city. The only bearing it has on the goal of engaging that city is that you can’t – unless you want to start digging. The siege can just as easily prevent engagement with the city.

The point is that the fiction is different in each case, and in either case makes a difference to what is happening in the city. The fictional positioning of the PCs is different. Furthermore, I think for many players at least sneaking in under cover of bombardment would be more exciting than walking through gates past bored city guards.

Hussar has told us he is not interested in activity which delays his engagement with the city, such as travel through the desert. Having to play through the process of bypassing the siege to enter the city delays the actual engagement with the city. So I would have expected Hussar to oppose the siege. That he does not suggests that it is some belief the siege will be interesting and the desert will not. However, it seems either can be made interesting, and link directly to the goals to be achieved within the city, or either can be made dull, boring and unrelated to those goals. You and Hussar keep insisting the siege is automatically interesting and linked, while the desert can’t possibly be either, despite numerous examples to the contrary.

But if the players goal is the city, and you start them in the desert with a sandstorm, you haven't suddenly succeeded in giving the desert any interest or relevance by the criteria that @Hussarand I are using, which are criteria to do with narrative or thematic weight, not procedural obstacle.

Similarly, if the player’s goals are within the city, and you start them outside, behind a besieging force, then the siege is an obstacle to accessing their goals. To achieve goals that require being in the city, the characters must get into the city. Everything between them and the city – siege, desert, city guard, whatever – is an obstacle which must be overcome as a condition precedent o engaging with the city. That a player may find the desert disinteresting and the siege of great interest is a matter of preference, but that preference is not one of “whether we are engaged in the city”. In neither case are you “in the city” yet.

That explanation does not assist in determining what other encounters outside the city might interest the player. That was much easier to determine under Hussar’s blanket statement that the goal is in the city, so he has no interest in anything that delays or distracts from being in the city to pursue his nebulous goal within same. And I am sure we could dream up a host of encounters within the city which would be irrelevant to his goals, and therefore or limited or no interest, as well.

No, if the DM wanted to stipulate the city was close he certainly could have. He chose to roll the dice. Perhaps something was at stake? And apparently according to Celebrim the adventure specifies a specific distance (based on the adventure in play). The PCs ended up in a place sub-optimal to their desires. Time to find out what the next complication is.

Agreed.

The players accepted the potential outcome when they used the ability as much as a gambler accepts the possibility of the roulette table coming up black or green when he bets on red. Should the players feel such an outcome was beyond the pale, they should prepare contingencies. Absent of those contingencies, the players should expect to deal with the situation in which they find themselves.

I think the case is actually stronger. In casting Plane Shift, the players accepted an absolute certainty they would arrive in a presumably unfamiliar location (a different plane rather suggests this) miles from their ultimate destination, in a random direction. Unlike the gambler, who weighed the odds of red, black or green, there was no chance whatsoever that the characters would arrive at the city. They had every reason to know this – the spell text is pretty short and crystal clear. So why would they be surprised to arrive with the need to locate, then travel to, their target? Why would they be expecting anything else?​

 

[pemerton]

I'm taking you at your word that player choice has be curtailed/modified based upon your preferred method of running the table. That's pretty much the definitional purpose of a house rule. "Players need not concern themselves with strategic travel options as the narratives will generally take care of it." is certainly on par with "This campaign will have limited supernatural creatures. The most common enemy will be human".

A 3E player is building a ranger, and asks the GM "I'm tossing up between favoured enemy: orcs and favoured enemy: dragons. Any advice?" The GM replies, "I was planning to run Red Hand of Doom [I hope that's the right adventure] whereas I just sold my copy of Draconomicon. I'd suggest orcs." That's a house rule now?

Anyway, for the record, the only rules on overland travel in 4e specify distance per hour and day of travel. When applicable, I apply those rules.

My game doesn't have house rules for overland travel. It's just not something on which I focus in play. I even pointed out that I use the magic item rules (Basket of Everlasting Provisions) as part of the device for creating the requisite degree of verismilitude. (Upthread [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] mentioned Dark Sun's "survival day" rule as a different device, in his game, for doing much the same thing.)

Try looking in the index for “travel, overland” or something similar. I assume 4e does have rules for long distance travel.

The rules pertain to distance travelled per unit of time. I use them. There are no rules in 4e of the Marsh/Cook Basic or Gygaxian AD&D variety, about mapping, getting lost, periodic encounters, etc. The absence of such rules - the fact that 4e is focused on the scene as the key element of play - is part of its attraction to me as a system.

The nature of authorial control is that the entities it lies with make the call.

Part of what is involved in describing something as bad GMing is saying that the call was wrongly made.

When I criticise the president for the making of an executive order, I'm not typically questioning his authority to have made it. I'm criticising the choice that he made in the exercise of that authority.

Likewise here. Hussar is saying that the GM made the wrong call. Given that I have no testimony but Hussar's as to what happened, and Hussar's testimony is clear and consistent and fits into what is (for me, at least) a well-known style of ordinary-to-bad GMing, I find it very easy to believe.

So use relevant resources to transition the scene.

<snip>

Again, casting a spell that explicitly says that you always arrive 5 – 500 miles from your desired destination means, or should mean, expecting to have to locate and travel to your desired destination.

No one is disputing that the PCs have to travel that distance. What is at stake is how that should be resolved at the table.

Summoning the centipede provides a mount, which interacts with the skill rules and the overland travel rules. Expecting the skill and travel rules to be waived, and the centipede to be equipped with a road map system, assumes resources that have not actually been brought to the table.

The directional issue I'll disregard - for all we know, the PCs cast Commune.

As for the rest - I think it is well within the bounds of normal 3E D&D play to sometimes skip the Ride rules, and to treat the overland travel rules in a fairly cursory fashion. This was even part of normal AD&D play, which has far more detailed overland travel rules (closer to the much-discussed Exploration rules for Next) than does 3E.

Hussar is arguing that this was a time for such skipping.

Well, since we’re asserting that a siege impacts city life, I think that the city defenders would logically be alert for the besiegers to attempt to enter the city by scaling its walls. And the fact the city is still under siege implies that turning back a force of 4 – 6 people who don’t have scaling ladders or similar siege gear, nor are they coordinating with the besieging force, will be pretty easy. Probably “time to roll up new characters” easy.

First, I don't think this is really a counter-example to Hussar's claims upthread that certain GMs have a tendency to treat players' novel suggestions unfavourably.

Second, how do you know the PCs don't have relevant siege gear - for all we know (given they seem capable of casting Plane Shift and summoning a huge centipede at will) they have Fly and Invisibility availabe in sufficient doses, or can Dimension Door through, or just have really good Climb and Hide in Shadows bonuses.

Hussar has told us he is not interested in activity which delays his engagement with the city, such as travel through the desert. Having to play through the process of bypassing the siege to enter the city delays the actual engagement with the city.

To engage the siege is to engage the city. The siege is a (relational) property of the city. That's the whole point. That's why it's different from the desert.

Similarly, if the player’s goals are within the city, and you start them outside, behind a besieging force, then the siege is an obstacle to accessing their goals.

The PCs' goals are in the city. The players' goals are to play a fun RPG which involves pursuit of, and engagement with, their PCs' goals.

The siege is an obstacle to the PCs achieving their goals. But it is not an obstacle to achieving the players' goals. Rather, it is one way of achieving the players' goals. The contrast with the desert crossing is that that does not engage with the PCs' goals, because it is not about the city.

That explanation does not assist in determining what other encounters outside the city might interest the player.

Answer: none. Because the whole significance of the siege is that it is not an encounter outside the city. It is one way of encountering, and dealing with, the city itself.

If you want to GM successfully for Hussar or me, but you don't want to run the siege, the question to ask yourself is, therefore, "What other complications can I come up with that complicate the dealing with the city?"

Ah, but this isn't "it's not relevant." I really hope this is all it is. Subjective as it is, it puts so much of the "the siege is relevant to the goal, but the desert isn't" debate to rest in my mind.

This confuses me. The reason it's not of interest is because it isn't relevant.

Here's yet another stab, using the terminology of metaphysics.

The relationship between the siege and the city is internal - the siege's relationship with the city is essential to the siege being what it is. To engage the siege is, without more, therefore to engage the city. And vice versa, given the impact the siege will have on the city (as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has pointed out).

Whereas the relationship between the desert and the city is not like that. The city is not essential to the desert being what it is, and to engage the desert is not, without more, to engage the city. (Also vice versa.)

When I want to engage the city and the GM makes me engage the desert, that's not relevant to my concern. When I want to engage the city, and the GM tells me it is under siege, that is directly relevant to my concern, and layering it with the sort of complication that is typical - arguably, even emblematic - of a fantasy RPG.

Emphasis added – sounds like explicit granting of control to the GM. The player may envision his character being rightful King of All the Land. That is the game he wants to play. However, the GM may consider the veracity of this claim to be part of “the big picture” and decide the character is misguided at best. So the game is about the delusional peasant seeking evidence of s a royal claim that does not really exist.

Approching the game this way has absolutely nothing to do with Burning Wheel, and would be in direct contradiction to it's crystal clear advice to both GMs and players. (The relevant advice on this particular point was cited upthread by chaochou. More related advice was cited by me on the BW play advice thread.)

Even outside the bounds of BW play, I would have zero interest in being GMed by someone who responds to a player's setting of PC goals in the way that you describe.