Dungeon Mastering as a Fine Art

[Neonchameleon]

Again, I think he left right away, but he was there at the beginning. Edwards himself talked about it. And it's well over ten years now since this has been relevant so I admit I'm having trouble finding my previous references. Now only Nixon and Edwards are easily found as co-founders.

I'm not surprised you are having trouble.

But I assume you are discounting all the 1990s dialogue that led up to the creation of the Forge so it might profligate the One True Theory?

You mean where Edwards took the much more useful Usenet GDS theory that guided actions and tried to turn it into agendas?

If so, the circles of people were largely the same prior to its founding. Whoever originally determined "Mother May I" isn't as important as where almost everyone learned it from, as a piece of Edwards' promotion for his conclusions on gaming.

The earliest reference I can find for the phrase applied to RPGs was Mearls in 2005. Ron Edwards pretty much faded into irrelevance less than a year later when he tried defending rather than apologising for his brain damage comment - something the community lashed back against and he doubled down on. So no it wasn't Edwards, and it wasn't The Forge. It was Mike Mearls just before he was hired by Wizards of the Coast.

went to the site asking about their games and the guru told them "the real meaning" of their gaming problems all the time selling "the real good way to play" which meant good storytelling (conflated with "fun"). Gamers had problems and they were manipulated into switching over to what they "really" wanted: storytelling. It was one person's power trip and a case study in groupthink and cult behavior. Megalomania is the best term I can think to describe it.

OK. So now you're accusing Edwards of inventing GNS as a power trip? And megalomania? Have I got this right?

I have no problem with philosophy asking why people like to play games (keeping score, winning and succeeding during play, avoiding losing when playing and ultimate failure, self-improvement at the game, gaining influence, team improvement and team camaraderie, friendly competition, good sportsmanship, etc. etc.)

I say they were never really interested in talking about play as it relates to games. They were talking about play when making up stories. It's a 180 degrees opposite.

You believe it's opposite because you personally have decidedly non-mainstream views on RPGs. This is you being out of synch with the RPG community and the advice that has been produced in both the 2E DMG and in the Storyteller games.

It is a pathetic shame our hobby has been ruined into story making and few even know it.

Because we should all play only lightly hacked tabletop wargames where the role of DM is reduced to that of referee? And nothing about the hobby should have been allowed to change since the 1970s?

Me? I always find it a shame when, no matter what the hobby, people start worrying about the purity of the hobby. And saying there is only one way to do it. Most people have a point to what they were saying - and people new to an insight confuse their point with the whole sword (as I'm prepared to accept happened with GNS).

 

[Hussar]

Hey, NeonC, even those of us playing in the seventies would barely recognize Howandwhy99's screed as playing DnD. Let's not forget, people like Weiss and Hickman were playing back then.

Never mind looking at thing like the Bronstein (sp) campaigns which barely resembled h&w's points.

 

[howandwhy99]

I, as DM, am more interested in exploring the game world than I am in setting up a pre-defined theme park.

I don't consider what I'm doing as presenting Toyland either. But let's be clear so we can understand each other.

You are interested in "exploring" (actually inventing on the spot) the game world. Whereas I am setting up a predefined game world (of tried-and-true rigorous game design) for the players to actually be able to discover and manipulate - much of which they have altered even before they discover its existence. Is that accurate?

Either way is fine and can be functional game designs, but I think both really need to be told to players up front as to what's about to happen. IOW in the rules.

In the example, Luke is an NPC. But, my point is, very little, other than some very basic parameters (game mechanical elements like hp and the like, since he very likely will be fighting someone) needs to be pinned down before play.

Again, as I said, is Luke corruptible? Before play starts, I as DM, have no idea. I honestly don't know and I don't want to know. After play ends, now I know. Did Vader succeed? Then yup Luke's not as strong willed as he might have been. And play continues from that point.

In your style, that question is already answered. The player's interactions with Luke have to take into account your, as DM, feelings and interpretations. It places the DM right squarely in the spotlight. All the time.

As a DM I never want to be in the spotlight. That's not my job and the best DM invisible to the players as much as possible.

That's a fair understanding, but I don't think it adequately gets where I'm coming from.

You don't want to know if Luke Skywalker is corruptible before a game begins, a kind of definite yes or no state.

In my game all elements change and are changeable. There can be no definite state about whether Luke actually is corruptible or not. He can be changed, but the game may also shift to keeping him from being corrupted.

As a DM I'm very specifically NOT taking actions in the game so all those shifts are a result of the players' actions in the game. The last thing I want this to be is about me or me in the spotlight. The game stands on its own I only relay it.

Back to Luke, this would be an Alignment system question. Can an NPC "fall" to another alignment? Yes. Even a deity can change. Can he be saved? Also yes.

...Okay, are there exceptions to "everything is alterable game content?" I can only think of Paladinhood, but that's the whole point of that rule. The Players wants to be in a situation where any screw up means never going back. That nothing they do in game can reclaim that loss of paladinhood. And so the rules exist as they do to provide that situation.

 

[howandwhy99]

SNIP
Me? I always find it a shame when, no matter what the hobby, people start worrying about the purity of the hobby. And saying there is only one way to do it. Most people have a point to what they were saying - and people new to an insight confuse their point with the whole sword (as I'm prepared to accept happened with GNS).

Then let's not have the manner I'm putting forth be the "whole sword" either.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Hey, NeonC, even those of us playing in the seventies would barely recognize Howandwhy99's screed as playing DnD. Let's not forget, people like Weiss and Hickman were playing back then.

Never mind looking at thing like the Bronstein (sp) campaigns which barely resembled h&w's points.

Point

I actually think that the major thing separating RPGs from refereed wargames is that the role of the DM is not what Howandwhy99 claims it is. But Brown (and White) Box D&D are still "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures". I don't believe the separation between the rules of a wargame and those of an RPG was complete until 1977 and Holmes D&D (or possibly until AD&D), and people will have continued playing in the hybrid style for some time after that.

 

[Lanefan]

Never mind looking at thing like the Bronstein (sp) campaigns which barely resembled h&w's points.

Having played it, I'm not at all sure Braunstein would even qualify as a campaign; it's more of a one-off - unless Wesely did a lot more with it than I know about.

In play Braunstein more resembles a proto-LARP than anything else. Its HUGE leap from a game design viewpoint was in giving each player one character with its own (admittedly pre-set) goals and motivations, with the player then set free to create their character's personality however they saw it; a big difference from the wargames from which Braunstein emerged.

Lanefan

 

[Neonchameleon]

Having played it, I'm not at all sure Braunstein would even qualify as a campaign; it's more of a one-off - unless Wesely did a lot more with it than I know about.

In play Braunstein more resembles a proto-LARP than anything else. Its HUGE leap from a game design viewpoint was in giving each player one character with its own (admittedly pre-set) goals and motivations, with the player then set free to create their character's personality however they saw it; a big difference from the wargames from which Braunstein emerged.

Lanefan

That's my impression too - descriptions of Braunstein look to me like those of freeform LARPs. And Braunstein was a one-shot game.

 

[Hussar]

Fair enough. But it's still miles from the DM as robot POV that howandwhy99 espouses.

 

[howandwhy99]

Imagined things, however, are fictions

No, they are part of the imagination. Fictions are parts of stories. Both are obviously real as we experience them they are only unreal in reference (again, as stories).

All RPG play requires these.

No RPG requires fictions. Only storygames will ever require fictions.

Here is Ron Edwards in his essay "Gamism: Step on Up":
SNIP
That is all about playing a game. It perfectly describes, for instance, playing Tomb of Horrors or White Plume Mountain.

There is more wrong with your quote than it seems you can possibly imagine. Do yourself a favor and get your head out of his philosophy. "If everything that makes sense in your world is Ayn Rand, get the hell out of Ayn Rand"

Edwards gesture of "gamism" towards actual game play and games is as biased as they come. Everything you've quoted only further seals that fact.

There is nothing at all in this passage about storytelling. Which is to say, your claim about the Forge is flat-out wrong.

Every bit of Edwards' philosophy is founded on games as stories. They are "Characters" not playing pieces. They are "Situations" not designs. They are "Systems" (a term he often had to repeat was not mathematical system) not patterns. They are "Setting" and "Color" not Out-Of-Game elements not relevant to gaming or game play.

There are far more, seemingly endless biases and deliberate misrepresentations on his part, but I've not seen your posts for some time now to discuss them. Which makes me uncomfortable as I shouldn't have Mentioned you if I couldn't. I apologize for that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Every bit of Edwards' philosophy is founded on games as stories. They are "Characters" not playing pieces. They are "Situations" not designs. They are "Systems" (a term he often had to repeat was not mathematical system) not patterns. They are "Setting" and "Color" not Out-Of-Game elements not relevant to gaming or game play.

I don't believe this!

We've referred to characters, either as Player Characters or as Non-Player Characters right back to the 1E DMG. Gygax was happy with this terminology and it has been standard for RPGs ever since - while talking about playing pieces has not. Because there is, as you say, a huge conceptual gap. The rest of it is all also standard RPG terminology.

If this is your argument you are rejecting all RPGs right back to Gygax's AD&D, if not oD&D itself.