Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[pemerton]

Choosing how to work through my suite of resources (eg do I fireball this round or next?) is not impacting the fictional world.

Doesn't that depend on who or what is being targeted with the fireball (or the alternative resource should the fireball not be chosen)? Isn't that as important and have as much impact on the fictional world as whether or not the PCs choose to befriend or oppose an NPC? I suppose, ultimately, it may not matter whether the PC is using a fireball or a lightning bolt (assuming there are no collateral casualties), but it isn't clear from your statement that's the level of choice you're getting at. But, in general, the act of choosing an offensive resource rather than a peaceful one like some form of charm is certain to have a similar impact on the fictional world to making the choice between friendship and enmity.

My example wasn't choosing whether to fight or befriend. Nor whether to attack via fire or via enchantment.

The latter might or might not impact the fiction - if I use a Fear spell, or Turn some undead, rather than blowing them up with a fireball, then (everything else being equal) that doesn't strike me as meaningfully impacting the fiction.

If I use some sort of charm or domination to turn the king's advisor into my mental slave, thereby taking control of the kingdom, that does seem to be meaningfully impacting the fiction, and in a different way from just blowing up the advisor and taking his/her place.

But my example was choosing whether to use fireball this round or the next - ie about managing resources in the context of a fight. That can be an important element of play, especially in a certain sort of wargaming style (eg in the great hall of the hill giants in G1). It's an expression of player agency. In an of itself, however, I don't think that it counts as meaningfully impacting the fiction.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What I was trying to argue in a very simplistic manner is that when you blend in techniques from different approaches to running a game what you end up with is not all benefits of the approaches, but with an approach all its own that has its own strengths and weaknesses. I think most games use a blending of at least a couple of the broad approaches I outlined in some way, but that does not mean they are more flexible than the pure forms of the approaches, just different in orientation, and will result in different experiences. This is something you should consider very carefully and hone over time through playtesting and iteration. It is the very essence of game design.

Perhaps that's what you were trying to argue, but since you only pointed out the negatives, I felt obliged to say that a blended approach has positive factors. I think you're probably right by saying such an approach is its own thing, and also that most games are likely such a blend.

Here is the rub though. The reason why GM as Storyteller and GM as Referee push toward being mutually exclusive is very simple.

One's apex priority is about fidelity to GM-preferred outcomes and/or the exhibition of setting/prepared material. To that end, the (typically covert) manipulation of play (action-blocking, not honoring/upturning fictional results earned, resolution mechanic subordinating, resolution mechanic result fudging) toward those preferred outcomes and/or toward the exhibition of that setting/prepared material is wholly legitimate.

The other's apex priority is about constructing scenarios that present tactically and strategically engaging decision-points, knowing the rules and impartially applying them as you fairly run the challenges within those scenarios, and ultimately letting the players sink or swim by virtue of their (un)skilled play. The concept of "preferred outcomes" and the massaging/manipulating of play toward those outcomes is anathema.


They don't play nice with each other. At all.

So you can be a Storyteller GM with a veneer of Referee, but you can't truly claim the virtues of both simultaneously.

Now, if you don't have preferred outcomes/metaplot/setting or prepared material that you massage/manipulate play toward (typically by way of the techniques in my parenthetical above), then you're not a Storyteller GM.

I disagree that they are mutually exclusive. I use both elements in my game. I think @Lanefan's reply about the macro versus micro scale of the game is one reason. The other is the frequency of usage.

Every game has some sort of restriction on player action. We could say that a heavily plot focused, linear game has more restrictions than other games. Such a game may even accurately be called a railroad. But even very open, player-driven sandbox style games still have restrictions. It's unavoidable that there are at least some. If your game is a post-apocalyptic setting of some sort, then the player's aren't necessarily free to abandon their search for fuel and safety in the badlands and instead examine suburban life in contemporary times.

So it's a sliding scale, with opposite extremes. Most games would be somewhere in the middle. My game certainly contains DM-authored content in the form of a main plot. But I still leave the players a good amount of leeway in how they engage that plot, and in what other plots are incorporated. Perhaps it works for me because when the characters are created, we work together to incorporate them into the existing world. So my players are constantly driving the story in the ways that I hoped they would. Sure there are some detours here and there, but that's fine. We go where the play takes us, but it inevitably goes back to the main plot.

That plot is much more open then you likely expect. It's very loose because I want the players to come up with their own ideas on how to engage the story. I don't really need to steer events in order for the players to interact with the main story.

So I see no reason that player-driven material and DM-driven material cannot be in alignment at times, and how they cannot dovetail nicely together at other times. Sure, it is easy to imagine them being at odds...but it is not something that must be so.

 

[Manbearcat]

I disagree that they are mutually exclusive. I use both elements in my game. I think @Lanefan's reply about the macro versus micro scale of the game is one reason. The other is the frequency of usage.

Every game has some sort of restriction on player action. We could say that a heavily plot focused, linear game has more restrictions than other games. Such a game may even accurately be called a railroad. But even very open, player-driven sandbox style games still have restrictions. It's unavoidable that there are at least some. If your game is a post-apocalyptic setting of some sort, then the player's aren't necessarily free to abandon their search for fuel and safety in the badlands and instead examine suburban life in contemporary times.

So it's a sliding scale, with opposite extremes. Most games would be somewhere in the middle. My game certainly contains DM-authored content in the form of a main plot. But I still leave the players a good amount of leeway in how they engage that plot, and in what other plots are incorporated. Perhaps it works for me because when the characters are created, we work together to incorporate them into the existing world. So my players are constantly driving the story in the ways that I hoped they would. Sure there are some detours here and there, but that's fine. We go where the play takes us, but it inevitably goes back to the main plot.

That plot is much more open then you likely expect. It's very loose because I want the players to come up with their own ideas on how to engage the story. I don't really need to steer events in order for the players to interact with the main story.

So I see no reason that player-driven material and DM-driven material cannot be in alignment at times, and how they cannot dovetail nicely together at other times. Sure, it is easy to imagine them being at odds...but it is not something that must be so.

Let me see if I can come at this from another direction.

You know the term "the game is fixed", right? For those who don't, that means that someone who serves as an intermediary (typically a Referee) between the rules, the players, and the play outcomes has violated the role of their stewardship. The role of their stewardship being to ensure the integrity of the game and its results or, put another way, the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes that are an organic outgrowth of competition within the boundary of the rules.

If they partially or completely leverage their stewardship as rules intermediary to put into effect a pre-determined outcome, they have subordinated, to their own will, the competitive integrity of the game and the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes.

Again, this could be "somewhat innocuous" point-shaving to calling one or more subjective penalties on one side but allowing the other side to get away with it, or to something more egregious like giving an undeserved 10-8 round (especially if it should have been 9-10 the other way) or a few undeserved 10-9 round wins in Boxing/MMA. Bare minimum, the trajectory of play is influenced. At the other end of the spectrum, the result is actually decided.


This is why the apex priority, and the attendant techniques to enforce that priority, of outcome-biased Storyteller GMing and outcome-neutral Refereeing are completely incompatible.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Let me see if I can come at this from another direction.

You know the term "the game is fixed", right? For those who don't, that means that someone who serves as an intermediary (typically a Referee) between the rules, the players, and the play outcomes has violated the role of their stewardship. The role of their stewardship being to ensure the integrity of the game and its results or, put another way, the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes that are an organic outgrowth of competition within the boundary of the rules.

If they partially or completely leverage their stewardship as rules intermediary to put into effect a pre-determined outcome, they have subordinated, to their own will, the competitive integrity of the game and the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes.

Again, this could be "somewhat innocuous" point-shaving to calling one or more subjective penalties on one side but allowing the other side to get away with it, or to something more egregious like giving an undeserved 10-8 round (especially if it should have been 9-10 the other way) or a few undeserved 10-9 round wins in Boxing/MMA. Bare minimum, the trajectory of play is influenced. At the other end of the spectrum, the result is actually decided.


This is why the apex priority, and the attendant techniques to enforce that priority, of outcome-biased Storyteller GMing and outcome-neutral Refereeing are completely incompatible.

That's an effective analaogy. I get your point, and I even agree with it in the general sense. Subverting the rules in order to ensure a specific outcome is generally not good for a game.

However, sports are competitive activities where a level playing field is vital. Is that also true of an RPG? In a way, sure.. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] just posted about the players playing to win, and I think that people may debate that, but I think it's a matter of semantics. There are elements of success or failure, so there is winning and losing. And if winning and losing are involved, then people tend to expect things to be fair.

What is missing in an RPG that is present in sports is the competition. There is no side being favored over the other in an RPG in order to ensure a specific outcome. In sports, ensuring a specific outcome means deciding the winner.

What does it mean in an RPG? Does it mean the same thing? Who are the sides? Is the GM in competition with the players? Most of us would say no, I expect.

Now, this is not me advocating for subverting the rules to favor specific outcomes...I'm not gonna say I've never done that, or won't ever do it again, but it's something I avoid at the very least. But it brings me to my second point.

When we talk about storytelling, I'm not sure I understand why it's automatically a case of the GM bending the rules or influencing results to get his desired outcome. Why must the rules be broken for that? I honestly don't feel the need to alter results of dice rolls or anything of the sort to keep the game moving in the way I would like.

This was my point about GM desire and player desire being in alignment. If your argument were true...that they are mutually exclusive...then they could never be in alignment. But that's not the case.

If I as the GM want the players to become involved in the political machinations at court, I can introduce NPCs, story hooks, goals, and other elements that align with PC motivations or desires. If one of the PCs has a goal to discover his father's killer, then I create a connection...a clue that one of the members of the court may have something to do with his father's death.

This leads the PCs down the path that the GM had in mind. It's also the choice of the players to pursue that goal based on the one PCs motivation. It also required no subverting of the rules or anything "dishonest".

The truth is that you can use a combination of techniques to achieve alignment in the expectations of the GM and the players.

 

[Campbell]

[MENTION=9200]Hawkeye[/MENTION],

What are your feelings on the following passage from Monsterhearts?

Every moment of the game leads into the next. When you narrate something, others respond. Moves get triggered. Dice get rolled, and those rolls create new situations to react to. The fiction and the mechanics interact with one another to create an emergent story, one that has its own momentum and energy.

The interactions that you have with the other players and with the mechanics create a story that couldn’t have existed in your head alone. It’s something feral.

You might have a strong impulse to domesticate the story. Either as the MC or the player, you might have an awesome plan for exactly what could happen next, and where the story could go. In your head, it’s spectacular. All you’d need to do is dictate what the other players should do, ignore the dice once or twice, and force your idea into existence. In short: to take control of things.

The game loses its magic when any one player attempts to take control of the future of the story. It becomes small enough to fit inside one person’s head. The other players turn into audience members instead of participants.Nobody’s experience is enriched when one person turns the collective story into their own private story.

So avoid this impulse. Let the story’s messy, chaotic momentum guide it forward. In any given moment, focus on reacting to the other players and to the mechanics. Allow others to foil your plans, or improve upon them. Trust that good story will emerge from the wilderness.

When I talk about playing to find out what happens and following the fiction to wherever it leads I really mean it. I mean it even when its painful. I mean it especially when things do not turn out in the way I want them to. My biggest regrets, both as a GM and a player of a character, have come from the times when I tried to control the experience and make it mine. It usually comes from a good place.

You want to keep your character safe so you hold back in a crucial moment where you should be laying it on the line. You have a particular arc in mind for your character so you justify a decision you made after the fact that if you were playing with integrity you would not have made. You do not want to deal with the consequences of a decision you made so you give the GM doe eyes in hopes they will rule in your favor.

A player has ignored your soft moves and is in a position that would likely result in the loss of a PC so you make another soft move because you love the PC. You designed an elaborate set piece battle, but the PCs came up with a plan that circumvents it. You put a lot of work ito said set piece and want to use it so you pull some chicanery with the fiction. A player makes doe eyes at you because of a risk they do not want to deal with the consequences of so you fudge a dice roll or change some stats on the fly. Your players steamroll the villain in your planned epic confrontation through a series of crits so you add some hp. The players are off track so you nudge them with social pressure. The PCs side with a character who was supposed to be an antagonist so you contort the fiction to make them regret it. You really want that big reveal so you pull back from conveying the fictional world honestly. Robilar soloed your favorite dungeon so you send an army after him to take all his stuff!

These are the things that keep me up at night. There's a very good reason why I talk about the discipline that is required to play and run the game to find out what happens and follow the fiction vigorously. Sometimes this stuff is hard! No one is immune to this underlying tension. A commitment to it helps. Embracing principles that help you get there really helps. I personally find it really rewarding in a very real way. It's not like super hard though! This is the same sort of way seasoned poker players approach the game. It's also the same way that software engineers need to approach their work. Holding on lightly and not trying to control things is also super valuable in all sorts of relationships.

John Harper explains this stuff in far less words than I am able to.

[video=youtube;FdVK_w9uDv8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdVK_w9uDv8[/video]

Brevity is the soul of wit.

 

[Lanefan]

I do not believe you can meaningfully design a game to be fun. To the extent that a GM's responsibilities intersect with game design I do not believe a GM can meaningfully make determinations about what is fun in the moment. What I think game designers and GMs can do is design a particular experience they believe is interesting, rewarding, and their audience may enjoy overall.

I think you can generate fun by design, if only because I also think it's very possible - almost easy, in fact - to design fun out of a game and therefore logically it must be possible to design fun in by the simple means of intentionally not designing it out.

Does that make any sense at all?

Here's where I get really contentious. I believe that roleplaying games are games where we create compelling fiction to be experienced in the moment, but they are still games. You don't win or lose at Dungeons or Dragons, but there is still winning and losing involved. You can win at a social exchange, a combat, a dungeon, or a scenario. You can win by realizing as a player what your character hoped for and what you as a player hoped for. Those small wins mean very little if there is no chance at losing, no real chance at winning, or if the GM manipulates things to their own ends. I think we very much should see role playing games as games that involve luck and skill.

This might come as a surprise, but I largely agree with this particularly at the in-the-moment level of play.

It's at the macro level where the DM can mess with things and (hopefully) generate a better game by doing so, which is the opposite of this bit:

I also believe the stories are often better if we do not put designs on them, but instead experience them as they come in the same way we experience stories when we watch a good TV show or movie.

If I-as-DM know my players and have found an adventure I think they'll enjoy playing, I'm going to do my best to gently steer them into it. But once they're in it then the referee side comes out.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Let me see if I can come at this from another direction.

You know the term "the game is fixed", right? For those who don't, that means that someone who serves as an intermediary (typically a Referee) between the rules, the players, and the play outcomes has violated the role of their stewardship. The role of their stewardship being to ensure the integrity of the game and its results or, put another way, the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes that are an organic outgrowth of competition within the boundary of the rules.

If they partially or completely leverage their stewardship as rules intermediary to put into effect a pre-determined outcome, they have subordinated, to their own will, the competitive integrity of the game and the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes.

Again, this could be "somewhat innocuous" point-shaving to calling one or more subjective penalties on one side but allowing the other side to get away with it, or to something more egregious like giving an undeserved 10-8 round (especially if it should have been 9-10 the other way) or a few undeserved 10-9 round wins in Boxing/MMA. Bare minimum, the trajectory of play is influenced. At the other end of the spectrum, the result is actually decided.

Except that there's some massive differences between sports matches and RPGs:

In an RPG the DM is both player and referee.

Further, in an RPG the DM is also in part the designer of the game being played: she determines the system being used, often sets the game world parameters (e.g. determines or designs the setting), and sometimes even has a large hand - via kitbashing and houseruling - in what rules get used.

And further, in an RPG you don't have set teams or individual combatants. You have a table full of people who each individually may or may not at any given moment be competing with each other and-or the DM, co-operating with each other and-or the DM, or doing neither of the above.

Even further yet, an RPG doesn't (usually) have a pre-set or pre-known win condition either going in to play or coming out of it.

This is why the apex priority, and the attendant techniques to enforce that priority, of outcome-biased Storyteller GMing and outcome-neutral Refereeing are completely incompatible.

Still don't agree with you.

Lan-"for the win!"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

The latter might or might not impact the fiction - if I use a Fear spell, or Turn some undead, rather than blowing them up with a fireball, then (everything else being equal) that doesn't strike me as meaningfully impacting the fiction.

If you mean the in-the-moment fiction during actual play this choice certainly will have an impact, in that a Turned or Feared undead is probably going to come back later once the effect wears off (and thus have to be dealt with again) where a blown-to-bits one probably will not.

If you mean the meta-fiction then no, this choice will have limited impact unless the Turned undead manage to kill a character or two when next they're met.

Lanefan

 

[Campbell]

One of my intellectual interests is more modern approaches to understanding markets as a way to analyze human behavior. One of the guiding principles of market design is every participant decides their own level and type of involvement in any given market. This has application in software engineering, the way we approach relationships, and I believe has a fundamental impact on GMing. The concept of a hook implies that we must either bite it or not. As GMs I think we should strive to offer the players to approach the fiction as they see fit. Instead of thinking in terms of hooks I think it is far more useful to think in terms of providing opportunities for players to resolve their characters own goals and desires.

Blades in the Dark says to Provide Opportunities, Follow Their Lead. The basic conceit is that you provide them with information they can use, and they determine how to act on that information if at all. One of their rivals is being closed in on by their enemies. Do they take this as an opportunity to deliver a telling blow to that rival? Do they support them in order to rehabilitate that relationship? Do they stand back and hope their enemies finish each other off? Do they engage in a bidding war for who to support? Asking a series of provocative questions here can be really helpful, but we should strive not to put designs on what they do. Whatever the case, follow their lead and be a curious explorer of the fiction. Leave room for lateral thinking.

One of the things I am careful to do in my own GMing is to not prepare social or combat encounters. I leave that choice up to the players in how they choose to engage with the fiction. They are showing you their interests through the actions they take. Embrace that.

I believe we have to be careful about our use of the implied social cache of the GM not to prod or pull too much. We should be asking questions more than providing answers to create an inquisitive spirit in our players and to enable them to make choices about how they approach the situation.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

I do not believe you can meaningfully design a game to be fun. To the extent that a GM's responsibilities intersect with game design I do not believe a GM can meaningfully make determinations about what is fun in the moment. What I think game designers and GMs can do is design a particular experience they believe is interesting, rewarding, and their audience may enjoy overall. People enjoy and find all sorts of different things rewarding and enjoyable.

Emphasis is obviously mine.

''..as long as kids have been playing cops and robbers or cowboys and indians, they've been playing roleplaying games.''

We're all 'game designers' by and large. We've all had to entertain ourselves at some point during our lives. With practice, testing and development, we made some pretty great games - for an audience of one, that being ourselves.

Approaching game design from a macro perspective leads us with generic experiences - we aim to capture as much of an audience as possible, which ultimately means lumping folks together under 'target groups' and other all-encompassing labels. We deal in trends, fads and popularity in order to generate appeal. Sure, there is a challenge to making a super popular game and it's certainly an area of research that I find fascinating, much akin to those folks that build and develop the latest boy/girl band pop sensation, or the latest Hollywood Summer Blockbuster.

There seems to be a modern mentality that game design means, 'making a game for everyone', which is, much like any other form of entertainment, simply not possible. Especially with D&D, we're given the tools and advice to go forth and entertain ourselves. With time, others may join us in our play where upon we may have to modify our game design to their tastes. And if we can do this while keeping things fun for ourselves, great! If not, then we either have to go play a different game - perhaps they'll go on to make a game we find fun to play.

After all, how many people are we playing with at a given time? How many people are we having fun with? When we step back from our current culture of game design that predominately focuses on 'mass appeal', where and when have we had the most fun? For me at least, its been with a small group of people doing something we enjoy - be it on the many MMOs I've been with or kicking a ball around.

While academia is slowly catching up to game design as a formal field of research, I've always maintained that a good game designer is a good people person - they watch, study and try to understand people first and foremost. A game designer is, at the heart of it, an entertainer and without knowing their audience a prospective game designer will not get far. And they're making games for themselves - because heck, if we're not having fun, why should we expect anyone else to?

This starts with learning about ourselves - what do we find fun. How do we find fun. Where do we find fun and so on. Then, we can compare our 'funning*' to that of others. At this stage, with our small audience of perhaps a single friend at the most, mistakes are made, rules and systems need to be checked and changed - testing, development - until everyone involved is having fun. I'm sure folks out there with siblings will be able to relate - you make a game for you, you make a game for your brother/sister(s). Sure, you might need to tweak the rules, modify the experience here and there but hey, you'll get to where you're both having fun. Likewise, if you've ever gamed with the same group/table for a good few years you'll learn what they love/like, hate, want and so forth. Sometimes we take this for granted, assuming how we play is, 'the norm'. Thankfully, this is challenged as soon as a newcomer unfamiliar with the group/table comes along, with an outsiders view and expectations, and all those little tweaks and adjustments, be it actual mechanical or something more ephemeral - come to light.

Personally, this is why I love pen & paper rpgs. Compared to board games and computer games, the development cycles can by lightning fast, empowering us to really design, test and develop for our own fun and that of those we wish to consider. And all of this does help us teach ourselves how to design, how to to build for fun - for us and those with us, on a more personal level. I know I have, for myself and for my friends and folks that became my friends - and bless their manically hearts, they've done the same for me. We not looking to be famous or get rich - simply enjoy the medium of game design, the art of making fun



[sblock]*Funning is totally a real word.[/sblock]