In other words, every time we talk about players who are trying to create a bad experience for everyone at the table, we also talk about how easy the solution is.
This is a complete red herring. The player of an enchanter who tries to charm the Chamberlain isn't trying to create a bad experience for everyone at the table. That player is trying to engage the scene and resolve the confrontation.
The solution to players who try to create a bad experience is to exclude them from the group. But I've personally never really seen this come up, because in my experience most people have better things to do with their leisure time than to try and create bad experiences for themselves and others.
I also don't perceive a challenge between the PC's and their desired goals as deliberate obstructionism on the part of the GM, but as part of the challenge, and the fun.
Sure, but that leaves open all the questions being discussed in this thread - what is the basis on which challenges are posed (thematic or procedural) and what is the basis on which action resolution unfolds (GM force or not)?
Long story short, for player-driven play, don't set the scene before the players arrive. I know there's years of orthodoxy that says "Oh, the campaign world totally functions without the PCs, it's like it's really there!" is the defacto best way to play. Player-driven play doesn't give two figs about that. The campaign world is there to be a stage for the PCs to be awesome and interesting.
This - although the awesomeness resides primarily in the struggle - the PCs might lose, but their loss is itself an awesome event.
I think we might have different definitions of what constitutes curtailing protagonism, and some of it likely goes back to game philosophy. It sound to me like you think consequences for PC actions should always come from within the mechanics, not from within the storyline.
As [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] suggested, I don't really feel the force of this contrast. The point of mechanics is to generate the plot, in roughly this way: the GM frames a scene; the players, via their PCs engage it by declaring actions; those actions are resolved; now we have some plot (what happened) plus some new threats/complications/possibilities (the outcomes of resolution + new material injected by the GM) and the process continues.
you do not think NPCs serving as antagonists to the PCs works to make the PCs better protagonists.
Of course NPCs serve as antagonists to the PCs. The key issue is the nature of the antagonism, and how it is overcome. [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]'s example of the Chamberlain is not
just an NPC serving as an antagonist to the PCs. As desribed, (i) it has no prior motivation or thematic heft (contrast: part of the thematic point of the game is to address the degradation of the nobility), and (ii) it is not amenable to being overcome via the players engaging the action resolution mechanics.
(i) and (ii) are the key features of the Chamberlain example that make me (and, I believe, [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]) hostile to it. Not the fact that it is an instance of antagonism.
I do recall when I suggested this a few pages (or more) back, that I was derided for somehow putting down your playstyle.
The way I play is a version of what I characterised way upthread as the "indie" style. At that time I suggested that the various comment that you, [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] and others were making about spellcaster balance were viable for other styles (eg storyteller style) but not for indie style. Nothing in the intevening 100s of posts has changed my mind on that.
You are suffering from a preconceived idea of what others mean and its coloring your interpretation of their words. One does not need to have some "script" being followed to recognize that the play experience is suffering. Maybe even the DM has a "script," if he recognizes its not going well and changes it on the fly so it turns out different, we again alleviate any contradiction.
I see. You are putting a weight on the word "preconceived" that I didn't intend it to bear - a better word might have been "chosen independent of the process of action resolution".
In the sort of game play that I very strongly prefer, the GM has no conception of how the situation will resolve that is independent of the process of action resolution.
If the play experience is suffering, that tells us that we need to do something
outside the context of play to sort it out. That's not something to be addressed from within the game itself. (But as came up in reply to [MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION] upthread, I play a system which reliably produces a desired play experience without the need for GM force.)
I want my player's character to make an impact on the game world, but I want there to be meaningful opposition to their doing so. Being a protagonist does not preclude that someone might not notice the wizard using charm, or the possibility that Diplomacy may not work on everyone.
First, I am talking primarily about player protagonism - whereas your response is framed by reference (I think) to PC protagonism. I don't want to put undue weight on terminological choices, but I think it might have some significance here. In paticular,
player protagonism does require approaching action resolution in a certain way. The player has to have a meaningful chance of determining the outcome of any confrontation.
I like DMing, in part because I like the world-building.
OK. But this sort of world-building tends to be in tension with thematic play (because there is a temptation to resolve the thematic questions already in the world history), and with an absence of pre-planning (because there is a temptation to push on with the pre-established dynamics of the pre-written gameworld) and with player protagonism (because there is a temptation to stop the players running rougshod over and imposing their will upon the gameworld).
For instance, perhaps the DM knows the Chamberlain is suffering from dementia. There are no rules in the rulebook for this, so he makes something up and goes with it, deciding the Chamberlain is going to act childlike and diplomacy is impossible while the Chamberlain is so afflicted.
So there is your problem, from my point of view. First, your action resolution mechanics aren't robust enough to frame a dementia scene withou fiating, which then causes problems like the GM ruling that Diplomacy can't work (fine as far as it goes,if incling a little towards the heavy-handed) but not having the techniques or scope within action resolution to inform the players of what other action resolution options (like Insight + Heal) are open to them.
The idea of curtailing the player by having his/her wizard detected by an NPC scryer is - as presented - an even greater burden on protagonism, because the outcome of the confrontation between PC and NPC is determined by a factor over which the player had essentially no control and no engagement via action resolution.
if you, because of your desire to give your PCs great latitude, choose to ignore parts of the rules which might make things more challenging for your players, then you are doing the exact same thing as someone who is enforcing only those parts of the rules which provide challenge, though in reverse.
Again, to focus on challenge is to focus on something that I think does not differ much over playstyles. The issue about GM force is not about challenge, it's about
resolution. My objection to a Chamberlain who can't be talked to, or can't be charmed without being detected, isn't that these are challenges - it's that they're deprotagonising challenges, because as presented the player has no way to engage the scene and thereby impose his/her will upon the fiction.
Protagonism isn't aways about
successfully imposing one's will - sometimes action resolution mechanics deliver success to the players, sometimes failure - but protagonism requires the
possibility of imposing one's will.
Perhaps the DM actually wants the PCs to see the king, but the story demands, because of ingame events, that they deal with the Chamberlain first and the DM's actions actually hinder his desire to have the players get to the king
And here we have (i) a GM's preconceived plan, and (ii) GM force - in the Chamberlain encounter - to give effect to that plan.
As I said upthread and earlier in this post, in my game
there is not preconceived story. There is no "the story demands" that event (A) occur before event (B). The playes are invited to impose their wills upon every confrotation that is framed.
The Chamberlain is either crazy before the PCs arrive or he is not crazy. A botched roll on the part of the PCs resulting in the Chamberlain being possessed is a foreign sorta concept to me, but seems exactly what I mean by saying the consequences come from within the mechanics (ie. a botched roll) instead of the story-line (a demon trying to take over the kingdom via driving the Chamberlain crazy).
You are drawing a distinction here between fiction and mechanics that is somewhat foreign to the way I play the game.
Why would I, as GM, frame a scene with a crazy Chamberlain? Because it speaks to something that matters to the participants in this game, as expressed through PC build and past play. Upthread I've given the example of the degradation of the nobility.
Suppose I don't frame the Chamberlain as crazy, but have the Chamberlain become possessed in response to a player's failure in action resolution - why would I do that? Because the player is a demon hunter; or, perhaps, a demon summoner whose magic misfired. Why does my actual game feature a lot of undead? Because half the party are Raven Queen devotees.
I challenge you to try to envision a game in which the DM strives both for a thematic sort of framing and resolution and maintains an in-game verisimilitude through the use of NPC reactions (both short and long term) to PC choice.
I didn't say anything about verisimilitude. I said "the causal logic of the gameworld". These are very different things - verisimilitude as a constraint on introducing events into the fiction is barely a constraint at all, because nearly anything can be rendered verisimilitudinous with the right backstory.
But challenging me to envision a game in whicht the GM strives for both thematic and causal-logical-constraind framing is like challenging you to envision a ruler-and-compass process for squaring the circle. It can't be done. If you are going to resolve events by reference to the causal logic of the gameworld you will sacrifice thematic framing. The illustrations are too numerous to list in a single post, but here are two (and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has given more upthread, a page or so above your post, with his discussion of Action vs Transition scenes): (i) causal logic requires that ammunition tracking, and encumbrane, be real constraints on action resolution, but I can imagine almost no game in which these have any thematic weight whatsoever; (ii) causal logic requires attending to the details of travel over great distances on foot, and in a game adjudicated by reference to causal logic the ability to teleport therefore serves as an important way to avoid all those elements of action resolution, whereas in many games overland travel has little to no thematic significance.
Upthread I used the contrast between "prodedural" and "thematic" obstacles to capture this distinction.
Long story short, the idea of player-driven play, where the DM always says "yes," if possible
Not "if posible". Rather, "if nothing thematically interesting presents itself". And a GM who regularly has trouble thinking of thematically interesting challenges is a bad GM for this sort of play. (Likewise their is an onus on players to build PCs who have thematic heft. Luckily 4e mostly - not completely = takes care of this through the story elements that come into play via PC build.)
I think PCs are more awesome and interesting when they do awesome things and make interesting choices, not merely because the mechanics dictate they are awesome.
What does this even mean?
The PCs are fictional constructions within an imagined world. Anything awesome in that fiction only becomes part of the fiction because the participants put it there. What is the basis on which people get to put awesome things into the fiction? Primarily via the mechanics. If you are playing a game in which the mechanics impede rather than engender interesting choices (for instance, because they make choices about encumbrance and inventory management more important than choices about what to say to the demented Chamberlain) then that would seem to me to be a problem with your game's mechanics.
Conversely, if your game has mechanics that engender interesting choices, what do
you think you are contrasting in the passage I've quoted.
For instance, in a fairly recent episode, First AP of the Shattered Star campaign to be exact, while the PCs were visiting an informant, the 1st level rogue sees some people dicing, and decides to pick their pockets. This was not anything I had planned. He attempted it, and through the use of the resolution mechanics was spotted. The hoodlums gave chase, the rogue ran and hid, and discovered his attempt had netted him only a few coppers.
I may be missing some context, but as I read it this instance of play seems to have almost no relevance to the overall dynamics of the campaign or the story development. In fact, while I'm not that familiar with the details of adventure path play, my general understanding is that the basic plot of the campaign has already been preconceived and written up by the adventure path author. That's pretty much the opposite of the sort of play I'm talking about.
When I'm talking about "thematically driven play" and "no preconception", I'm meaning events like this:
The PCs include servants of the Raven Queen and other undead hating gods, but one who also has an ambiguous relationship to Vecna. They promise to the baron, who is an ally of theirs and their host, to track down his missing niece. They find her, but discover that she is a Vecna-ite necromancer who is inadvertantly rousing Kas from dormancy. They therefore do battle with her, and in order to save her from Kas swear an oath to Kas to track down his nemesis from 100 years ago, who also happens to be a wizard whom, as an apprentice, they rescued from a magical trap when they were in the past on a time-travelling adventure.
(Writeups
here and [urlhttp://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?299440-Exploration-scenarios-my-experiment-last-Sundayhere[/url].)
In other words, whether the PCs are allies or enemies of Kas and Venca, and how that will play out in the game, is up for grabs to be resolvd through actual play. The whole
point of play is to discover, through play, what is worth struggling for and what not, which cosmological beings need to be opposed and which aided.
