Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Ovinomancer]

In referring to a "classic sandbox" with a "somewhat static, reactive character" I'm following [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post 65; and [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s post 41:




The "scenarios" in this style are essentially "static" situations that the PCs engage via their PCs. The examples I have in mind, based on my own experience with material being published c1977-c1982, are for B/X, OD&D and early AD&D, RQ and Traveller.

The Village of Hommlet is an example that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and I discussed upthread - we were in agreement that the situation is "static" until the PCs inject themselves into it, which I regarded as a virtue but Lanefan as a weakness.

The classic dungeon is another example - be that a semi-serious dungeon, like the example of The Haunted Keep in Moldvay Basic, or a funhouse dungeon like White Plume Mountain, or some intermediate example like Moldvay's Castle Amber.

In the case of Traveller, I'm thinking of White Dwarf scenarios like The Sable Rose Affair or Amber to Red; or GDW modules like Mission on Mithril.

These scenarios don't have a trajectory of their own. They are situations conceived of by the referee for the players to engage via their PCs - poking here, asking questions there, gradually building up a picture of the situation so that (ultimately) they can "beat" it.

Because the situation is static but for the response to the PCs, the actual sequence of events in play is driven by player choices - they choose which rooms the PCs enter and which they ignore; they choose whether the PCs try to sneak past the guards or assault them; when these sorts of scenarios are incorporated into a larger "world", the players choose which "hits" to make and which to leave.

In this sort of play, a lot of NPC responses are determined randomly (reaction rolls; evasion rolls; etc - with the players being able to influence this by standard strategies like offering bribes) or by generic scripts (hobgoblins hate elves and always attack them; skeletons fight until destroyed; etc) which the players are capable of learning via divination magic, collecting lore from NPCs (think of classic D&D's elaborate rules for sages), etc.

When the GM turns the "world" into a "living, breathing one" - ie the sorts of changes [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], upthread, said that he would prefer to see made to T1 - it is no longer the players who are choosing what parts of the "world" to engage, and driving the fiction by their choices. The world is going to come to them (eg if the players ignore the orcs, the GM works out orcish events offscreen, and these then feed back into the events that occur to the players). The extreme example of this is the players whose PCs ignore the cultist plot and find, X amount of game time down the track, that the world has come to an end in a great apocalypse. But the same trajectory of play can unfold in less extreme cases.

I didn't see anything in Lanefan's description that violates your definition, though -- he presented various things going on that the players then can choose to engage with.

As for the 'sandbox in motion' idea, you using a narrow definition that requires a static world, only changing due to player engagement, is harmful to full discussion. A sandbox, generally, is a place where players choose what to engage -- the world is open to player engagement. Nothing about this requires that the box not move when the players aren't there. Your example of a cult ending the world behind the scenes is using a bad example to dismiss an idea -- having a game end without any player engagement in the reasons is just bad GMing, in any system or method. But having the players have to deal with complications for things they knew about and ignored isn't -- ie, if they learn about the cult and decide to go knit sweaters, having the town they knit in taken over by summoned demons isn't a failed sandbox. The concept of Fronts, above, largely mirrors the ideas I have for a living sandbox. A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring.

 

[Ovinomancer]

To me, this is a key question. And it's not a rhetorical question.

To those who assert that GM force can play the same role in (say) DungeonWorld or MHRP or Burning Wheel as it can in (say) 2nd ed AD&D, my response is, show me.

Either relate an actual play anecdote that illustrates the point, or at least sketch a conjectural example that engages with the system.

I'll focus just on BW:

If a PC's Belief is at stake (as in the OP), and the GM "says 'yes'" rather than framing a check and calling for a roll of the dice, the player can tell. Which is to say, the player can tell that the GM is departing from the principles that are stated, in the game's rulebooks, to govern the game.

If a GM calls for a check when nothing relevant to a PC's Belief is at stake, then again the player can tell.

If a GM calls for a re-check when "Let it Ride" should be in force, then again the player can tell.

If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the the player can tell. For starters, the player will know that s/he doesn't feel any tension related to his/her conception of his/her PC (as expressed via those Beliefs).​

In other words, there's no way - in Burning Wheel - for the GM to nudge or manipulate the fiction in his/her preferred direction, away from the concerns the players have expressed via their Beliefs, without this being flagrantly obvious to the players.

Could you do this in 5e? Sure, in the sense that you could (i) graft on a Belief mechanic, and (ii) have the GM frame scenes in accordance with BW principles. But some issues will come to light fairly quickly: the asymmetry of player resource suites with respect to rest periods, for instance; a degree of lack of a robust non-combat resolution system to interface with "Let it Ride"; some maths issues, which tend to allow guaranteed success at low DCs (which means that "say 'yes' or roll the dice" won't work on those occasions) and can make it hard to muster the resources to allow the player's choices to swamp the d20 at high DCs; the fact that unless you change the XP system from the published ones (XP for combat, or "milestones"), you won't have any robust correlation between playing the game and PC advancement; and probably other stuff I'm not thinking of.

Which is to say - if I wanted to use 5e to run a player-driven game I wouldn't necessarily be looking to BW as my model. Classic B/X or AD&D, with some sort of attempt to integrate the rest mechanics into the dungeon exploration time cycle, would (I think) be a more profitable route.

(I don't have enough DungeonWorld experience to know how well you could try and emulate that with 5e, but besides [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s points - or maybe taking the one about different resolution systems and making it more precise - there is the fact that DW has mechanics that are almost guaranteed to produce a cycle of success and failure, driving the dynamics of the game. And there are very definite rules about what happens on a success, and what happens on a failure. I think it would be non-trivial to introduce that into 5e - eg for a start some of the most dramatic actions in 5e, like casting spells, can succeed automatically.)

Oh, come now, you really can't imagine it? Take your example of the imprisoning of you player. You said that the consequence for the failed check was that the player couldn't escape on their own. Fair enough, but you picked that consequence. You could have easily allowed for the player to escape, but by doing so it would now directly harm something else they cared about. Say they had a belief about a fellow rogue, and in their attempt to escape, they placed that rogue in danger of their life. That's a manipulation you could pull by choosing the consequence according to something you want to have happen.

For further examples, if none of the player beliefs involved demons, but you really like demons and want demons to be a part of the game, you can then have consequences for failures rolled by the players in regard to their beliefs involve demons. Like when your player investigated the tower for the mace, you chose finding cursed arrows, but you could have had a demon appear, instead. Bam, you're now influencing the direction of the game with your preferred narratives. Sure, the players still get their licks in, as they have to engage their beliefs for a roll to occur, but you can frame the outcomes in terms of demons or demon related things. Soon enough, you'll have players proposing replacement beliefs in terms of demons. And now you have the game you wanted.

Can you force the exact outcome you want? No, not with BW. But you can most certainly shape the game strongly according to your desires as DM.

 

[Maxperson]

I can't follow this.

Here is one question: Is the existence of X in fictional place Y consistent with the established fiction with respect to Y?

And it's essentially the same question for both.

Greyhawk gave 2 moons in the fiction, but didn't say that there weren't more.

Lanefan gave 4 options in the fiction, but didn't say that there weren't more.

You gave a third moon as consistent, since Greyhawk didn't say that there weren't more.

I gave a player choice as another option that was consistent, since Lanefan didn't say that there weren't more.

It's the same.

Here is a different question: Does the GMing approach that @Lanefan described allow the players to introduce content that the GM hasn't already signalled in some fashion?

That doesn't have anything to do with whether something is a sandbox or not. You can have a pure sandbox without the players being able to dictate to the DM that there are barbarians in the country next to the one that the PCs are in, creating those barbarians. The DM can create 100% of the world and just let the players decide where the PCs go, what their goals are, and how they go about achieving those goals. That's a sandbox.

To answer the question, though, yes they can. Let's say that Lanefan didn't signal that there were barbarians in the world, but he knows that there are since he created the world. The PCs decide that they are curious about whether there are any wild men around any more, so they determine where likely places are and research those areas. Lanefan lets them know that there are wild men called barbarians in the northern wastes. They inform him that they are going to go take over the tribes.

The players have now given their own direction to the game content, creating that path and content. It may not be the pure creation of people, items and places that your playstyle allows, but it is still player created content.

 

[Manbearcat]

To me, this is a key question. And it's not a rhetorical question.

To those who assert that GM force can play the same role in (say) DungeonWorld or MHRP or Burning Wheel as it can in (say) 2nd ed AD&D, my response is, show me.

Either relate an actual play anecdote that illustrates the point, or at least sketch a conjectural example that engages with the system.

I'll focus just on BW:

If a PC's Belief is at stake (as in the OP), and the GM "says 'yes'" rather than framing a check and calling for a roll of the dice, the player can tell. Which is to say, the player can tell that the GM is departing from the principles that are stated, in the game's rulebooks, to govern the game.

If a GM calls for a check when nothing relevant to a PC's Belief is at stake, then again the player can tell.

If a GM calls for a re-check when "Let it Ride" should be in force, then again the player can tell.

If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the the player can tell. For starters, the player will know that s/he doesn't feel any tension related to his/her conception of his/her PC (as expressed via those Beliefs).​

In other words, there's no way - in Burning Wheel - for the GM to nudge or manipulate the fiction in his/her preferred direction, away from the concerns the players have expressed via their Beliefs, without this being flagrantly obvious to the players.

Could you do this in 5e? Sure, in the sense that you could (i) graft on a Belief mechanic, and (ii) have the GM frame scenes in accordance with BW principles. But some issues will come to light fairly quickly: the asymmetry of player resource suites with respect to rest periods, for instance; a degree of lack of a robust non-combat resolution system to interface with "Let it Ride"; some maths issues, which tend to allow guaranteed success at low DCs (which means that "say 'yes' or roll the dice" won't work on those occasions) and can make it hard to muster the resources to allow the player's choices to swamp the d20 at high DCs; the fact that unless you change the XP system from the published ones (XP for combat, or "milestones"), you won't have any robust correlation between playing the game and PC advancement; and probably other stuff I'm not thinking of.

Which is to say - if I wanted to use 5e to run a player-driven game I wouldn't necessarily be looking to BW as my model. Classic B/X or AD&D, with some sort of attempt to integrate the rest mechanics into the dungeon exploration time cycle, would (I think) be a more profitable route.

(I don't have enough DungeonWorld experience to know how well you could try and emulate that with 5e, but besides [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s points - or maybe taking the one about different resolution systems and making it more precise - there is the fact that DW has mechanics that are almost guaranteed to produce a cycle of success and failure, driving the dynamics of the game. And there are very definite rules about what happens on a success, and what happens on a failure. I think it would be non-trivial to introduce that into 5e - eg for a start some of the most dramatic actions in 5e, like casting spells, can succeed automatically.)

Another huge one for you in BW would be:

* If the GM frames the player into a scene or resolves the fiction post-resolution in a way that violates a PC Instinct, the player can tell (and either they or another player is supposed to let the GM know).

Beyond the fundamental Agenda and GMing principles that would have to be entirely remapped in order to morph 5e into DW, the sheer systemization of the change would be overwhelming (starting with the two you mention):

1) The system maths would need to be rejiggered to ensure that roughly 2/3 of all outcomes are Success with a Cost/Worse Outcome/Hard Bargain/Ugly Choice. Then you would need very precise instruction, principles, and constraints on resolution of those costs/worse outcomes/hard bargains/ugly choices. This, of course is the fundamental lifeblood of the DW experience.

2) Spellcasting would require the same “Move” resolution as everything else in the system.

3) Non-spellcasters would need to have their non-combat capabilities increased considerably and spellcasters would need to have their suite of spells and spells available contracted considerably.

4) Initiative, turn-based combat, action economy would have to be gutted.

5) System interactions would have to be stripped down dramatically or encounter budgeting would have to actually reliably work (even though there is no such thing in DW, its lack of complexity and lack of 2nd/3rd order interactions ensures that the GM can trivially intuit the threat level of whatever obstacles/adversaries are thrown at PCs).

6) There would need to be several different abstract resources put in place that are integrated directly into the player agency/move cost dynamic (eg Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Rations, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, etc etc).

7) The nature of equipment/damage/tags (weapon, armor, range, injuries through debilities) would have to be integrated and the old model thrown out entirely.

This may not even handle half of the problems. You know what, just forget it. As I get deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, its impossible enough to be utterly not a worth the effort.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Another huge one for you in BW would be:

* If the GM frames the player into a scene or resolves the fiction post-resolution in a way that violates a PC Instinct, the player can tell (and either they or another player is supposed to let the GM know).

Beyond the fundamental Agenda and GMing principles that would have to be entirely remapped in order to morph 5e into DW, the sheer systemization of the change would be overwhelming (starting with the two you mention):

1) The system maths would need to be rejiggered to ensure that roughly 2/3 of all outcomes are Success with a Cost/Worse Outcome/Hard Bargain/Ugly Choice. Then you would need very precise instruction, principles, and constraints on resolution of those costs/worse outcomes/hard bargains/ugly choices. This, of course is the fundamental lifeblood of the DW experience.

2) Spellcasting would require the same “Move” resolution as everything else in the system.

3) Non-spellcasters would need to have their non-combat capabilities increased considerably and spellcasters would need to have their suite of spells and spells available contracted considerably.

4) Initiative, turn-based combat, action economy would have to be gutted.

5) System interactions would have to be stripped down dramatically or encounter budgeting would have to actually reliably work (even though there is no such thing in DW, its lack of complexity and lack of 2nd/3rd order interactions ensures that the GM can trivially intuit the threat level of whatever obstacles/adversaries are thrown at PCs).

6) There would need to be several different abstract resources put in place that are integrated directly into the player agency/move cost dynamic (eg Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Rations, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, etc etc).

7) The nature of equipment/damage/tags (weapon, armor, range, injuries through debilities) would have to be integrated and the old model thrown out entirely.

This may not even handle half of the problems. You know what, just forget it. As I get deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, its impossible enough to be utterly not a worth the effort.

Yes, I suppose it's a lot of work to change 5e into a completely different ruleset in it's entirety. However, porting over some concepts and principles into 5e isn't that hard. You're stuck on the fact that the outcomes don't 100% match, but is that entirely necessary to use the concepts of player agency BW or DW are based on into a 5e framework? Yes, it would be messy if you compare outcomes, but lowering stakes to minor impacts to reflect the abundance of rolls and swinginess of 5e would be one coping mechanism. Then, it's not single rolls that affect the story, but a sequence of them that more gradually bend the game.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

GM advice is a real thing, just like their can be advice to help with other activities that require skill and judgement to do well.

Absolutely. I was more commenting on the fact that this discussion has (d)evolved into a mirror of many other discussions in similar threads with the same participants. Many of whom seem to be focused on presenting their opinion as the "right" way to do things. And some that seem to be in the exact same language as posts elsewhere, but that's probably just me seeing the similarities. Obviously, there are approaches that some people feel strongly about, and that's cool.

For example, there are certain people who feel very strongly that Illusionism is wrong, regardless of whether they know it's going on or not. Most of those that feel so strongly that they won't play with a DM that use it insist that they can tell when a DM is using it.

The same argument pops up in a thread about whether DM should fudge dice rolls or not. I also see pieces of the canon thread creeping in.

And the advice is helpful only to those DMs that are willing to acknowledge that the group in front of them might have strong feelings about a particularly play style or tool in the DM's toolbox. If not, they are going to run into problems.

I for one don't have a problem with illusionism or occasional DM fudging. If the group is expecting the DM to be the primary author of an overarching epic story with the PCs as the centerpiece, and that character death is a very bad thing, then these are tools that the DM is going to have to be comfortable pulling out periodically.

On the other hand, you might find yourself playing with somebody who states when they sit down at the table for the first time that they will not play with a DM that uses these tools. Among your options as a DM are to not use those tools in that group, to tell the player that you sometimes use those tools and let them decide whether they want to give it a try, or say you won't and use them anyway.

The first option is usually the one I choose, but it becomes problematic when you have a group with players at the two extremes - one abhors any sort of DM interference (fudging, illusionism) into "player agency" and the other will have a cow if their PC dies.

So what sort of DM do you (the collective "you") want to be? I'm willing to consider using whatever approach the players as a group decide. There may still be an outlier that disagrees, and then it's up to the table (and often the DM) to decide if one veto rules the table, or if majority rules. On the other hand, I'm refining my home-brew rules, and while they are open for some discussion, the core purpose behind them will remain, even if the specifics vary a bit. In other words, there are a number of non-negotiable things in my campaigns now, and probably more than most campaigns.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Another huge one for you in BW would be:

* If the GM frames the player into a scene or resolves the fiction post-resolution in a way that violates a PC Instinct, the player can tell (and either they or another player is supposed to let the GM know).

Beyond the fundamental Agenda and GMing principles that would have to be entirely remapped in order to morph 5e into DW, the sheer systemization of the change would be overwhelming (starting with the two you mention):

1) The system maths would need to be rejiggered to ensure that roughly 2/3 of all outcomes are Success with a Cost/Worse Outcome/Hard Bargain/Ugly Choice. Then you would need very precise instruction, principles, and constraints on resolution of those costs/worse outcomes/hard bargains/ugly choices. This, of course is the fundamental lifeblood of the DW experience.

2) Spellcasting would require the same “Move” resolution as everything else in the system.

3) Non-spellcasters would need to have their non-combat capabilities increased considerably and spellcasters would need to have their suite of spells and spells available contracted considerably.

4) Initiative, turn-based combat, action economy would have to be gutted.

5) System interactions would have to be stripped down dramatically or encounter budgeting would have to actually reliably work (even though there is no such thing in DW, its lack of complexity and lack of 2nd/3rd order interactions ensures that the GM can trivially intuit the threat level of whatever obstacles/adversaries are thrown at PCs).

6) There would need to be several different abstract resources put in place that are integrated directly into the player agency/move cost dynamic (eg Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Rations, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, etc etc).

7) The nature of equipment/damage/tags (weapon, armor, range, injuries through debilities) would have to be integrated and the old model thrown out entirely.

This may not even handle half of the problems. You know what, just forget it. As I get deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, its impossible enough to be utterly not a worth the effort.

I think that there's a difference between trying to match the mechanics of a game, and match the feel of a game. D&D, particularly 5e, is extremely easy to modify if you want to. However, to make it work well with 5e, it's best to leverage the mechanics of 5e, perhaps with some tweaks.

It's not all that different than things like Dragonlance that has seen official releases with two different game systems. Yet they both feel like Dragonlance. Of course there have been multiple Middle Earth/Lord of the Rings adaptations to RPGs too. I don't think playing The Lord of the Rings RPG will feel like MERP, yet both feel like LotR.

On the other hand, BW/DW has different goals as a game. While I wouldn't consider D&D as written a simulation game, it has its roots in the simulation approach of war games. BW/DW seems to be more focused on a shared fiction game experience. While both have a focus on the fiction, part of the point of BW/DW seems to be how you get to the fiction and interact with it. That the gaming experience is as important as the fiction itself. I'm sure not everybody plays it that way, but that's the sense I get.

I don't know BW/DW well enough to be able to give a precise example. In a thread at least a year ago, somebody asked me to explain how I would play out a scene that they described in Dungeon World. If I recall, I didn't even have to really tweak any rules to do it.

Now that was to describe a scene, and the control over that scene would have shifted a bit, with the players having less overall control of things that are outside of their character's control, so it's not exactly the same. I think you or [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] might have been part of that thread.

So I think that pulling concepts out of BW/DW is very doable. Some just require a different perspective on running the game, others would require some mechanical changes. But it's probably a bit more difficult to duplicate entirely, and I agree, I'm not sure you'd want to.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Can you try explain how you think this might come about in a Dungeon World game (despite the fact that it is a transparent violation of the game's play Agenda, a few GMing principles, and would actually be more difficult to do than just letting things unfold naturally)? I think I may have an idea of what you have in mind.

I think that it would be separate of the basic mechanical means of action resolution. So in 5E you may have the DM "steering" things by using his ability to establish DCs that are unknown to the players, or by simply saying that they failed or what have you. Such a method could be used to force the game in a certain direction.

For DW, not being familiar with the game first hand, it seems to me that the GM can determine story elements on the fly. The chasm from your play example...deciding what the complications are when a 7-9 roll is made is entirely within the GM's purview, correct? So the GM could just introduce elements he wanted in the game. So instead of your "Alienesque" situation in the crevasse with the goblins getting picked off by the monster....couldn't the GM introduce an entirely different scenario? Say, drow that have recently performed a raid on the surface world and have taken some kind of important NPC as hostage.

Is that not feasible in DW?

Do I think running 5e without deploying any Illuiosionism at all could yield precisely the sequence of the Dungeon World excerpt upthread? Yes, I do, but it would have a considerably more difficult time doing it reliably because (i) the fundamental system maths disparity, (ii) the very different resolution mechanics/resource models/play procedures, and (iii) the deep disparity of System Agency and GMing Agency between the two systems.

So with that said, let us go back to a - c above and then consider the following components of 5e's GMing ethos:

* ...as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

* <the DM> creates and runs adventures that drive the story.

* Inventing, writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, refereeing...Focus on the aspects you enjoy and downplay the rest.

* ...the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game.

There is a lot more than that including the profound role that the GM plays in determining outcomes merely in the course of mediation procedures. On the continuum of GM Agency, 5e is on the extreme of one side. As GM Agency becomes more prolific, System Agency becomes less so. The game outright gives the GM a mandate to ignore/change/downplay/subordinate the rules. Also consider the expectation that the GMs created/run adventures drives the story. That has a lot to say about (c) vs (b) when compared to Dungeon World. Also consider the fact that the games encounter building tools are absolutely broken (and I said they would turn out that way during the playtest because of fundamental design decisions). When the apex priority of play is to "create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama", all of this stuff combined puts a lot of pressure on the GM (while enabling them considerably) to deploy Force/Illusionism techniques (which you see advocated for in some of the early WotC modules) such that the yield of play is indeed that "tension and memorable drama" with the gross becoming "epic stories."

So with all of this in mind, I'm left wondering why GM Force/Illusionism is something to be protested in 5e? The text certainly doesn't decry it as taboo. In fact, it at least tacitly embraces it due to all of the above (and I'd say tacitly is a massive understatement).

I don't think GM Force or illusionism or any of the other methods listed above must be protested. As I said earlier, I am advocating an approach to the game that would allow for any method to be used, depending on the circumstances.

However, I do enjoy allowing my players to have a lot of agency and leeway in determining how the story of the game takes shape....and those methods you listed above can at times get in the way of that.

Again, all of that being said, I still stand by my position that you can absolutely run 5e without any Force or Illusionism. When I run it, I use my friend's hexcrawl/setting/maps, pick up where he left off the week before, deploy the resolution mechanics in orthodox process sim fashion (with the 10 Ability Score laymen as the model) and basically just eyeball the Encounter Budget with a keen eye toward numerical superiority, spellcasting, and team action economy (my profound experience with these games is more robust than their, predictably, wobbly encounter design). I use Success with Complications (DMG 242) except use failure by 3 or less rather than 2.

Still, while my experience and my house-ruled use of Success with Complications certainly helps along yielding "tension and memorable drama" in most moments of play, it doesn't remotely produce it as organically (and with less cognitive workload and attendant stress) and inexorably as Dungeon World (and I certainly don't get to "play to find out" in the way that I do with DW). It seems to me that 5e's answer to that is GM Force/Illusionism to bridge those gaps.

I would think that creating "tension and drama" isn't really dependent on the mechanics, though, right? Isn't it more a question of the situation that has come up, and then the success or failure of the PCs in that given situation?

But as for your first point in this quote, I think you approach the game far more scientifically than I do....I don't use any of the encounter budget or encounter design or XP mechanics at all. I really don't find them all that useful, and I think they exist more for newer players who don't have lots of experience with this aspect of teh game. Longtime DMs, I feel, won't get much out of those mechanics at all, and are better simply designing encounters based on their judgment.

I'm going to sblock the entirety of the "Sled into the Glacial Crevasse" scene for your reference. This may give you further insight into things and may help our conversation along so I'll put the work in:

Thanks for sharing that, it kind of helps see how things play out in the system. I have to ask, mostly out of curiosity....is this a play by post game? The back and forth is very verbose and has an element of prose that I wouldn't expect at a table.

Agreed. Generating a full hexcrawl/setting map with a metaplot vs "make a map with blanks" + "play to find out" + "generate a few Fronts that challenges the player's goals" is definitely not a different species. The devil is in the details of prep, system, and play (both procedures and outcome).

I just think that any dungeon or hexcrawl can be boiled down to some kind of flow chart. I think storylines can also be designed that way. In that sense, they are the same. Kind of an "if A, then B or C" and then "If B, then D or E or F"....that kind of thing. Hard to describe without a visual.

To me, this is a key question. And it's not a rhetorical question.

To those who assert that GM force can play the same role in (say) DungeonWorld or MHRP or Burning Wheel as it can in (say) 2nd ed AD&D, my response is, show me.

Either relate an actual play anecdote that illustrates the point, or at least sketch a conjectural example that engages with the system.

I'll focus just on BW:

If a PC's Belief is at stake (as in the OP), and the GM "says 'yes'" rather than framing a check and calling for a roll of the dice, the player can tell. Which is to say, the player can tell that the GM is departing from the principles that are stated, in the game's rulebooks, to govern the game.

If a GM calls for a check when nothing relevant to a PC's Belief is at stake, then again the player can tell.

If a GM calls for a re-check when "Let it Ride" should be in force, then again the player can tell.

If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the the player can tell. For starters, the player will know that s/he doesn't feel any tension related to his/her conception of his/her PC (as expressed via those Beliefs).​

In other words, there's no way - in Burning Wheel - for the GM to nudge or manipulate the fiction in his/her preferred direction, away from the concerns the players have expressed via their Beliefs, without this being flagrantly obvious to the players.

What does "Framing" entail? What about where the GM must determine the consequences of failure? You don't think that a GM could nudge things in the way that he would like in these ways?

 

[Lanefan]

According to what principles? For what reasons? Until we answer those questions, how can we know whether the game is GM- or player-driven?

For what reasons? So there's a world for the PCs to play in, for one thing...a living breathing world that has more to it than just what the PCs might happen to interact with. This is important in that it gives the PCs a sense of there being a bigger world "out there" beyond just what's right in front of them. Depth and immersion.

But in a player-driven game as I understand it, that's all there is. There is a sequence of events, in which the PC(s) are at the centre.

And it's not just a case of one thing leading to another. I think that to describe it that way is to miss the point.

There is no inevitability to my (i) narrating that the magistrate decides they are to be imprisoned indefinitely, and (ii) connecting this, in the fiction, to the PC's past (mostly unhappy) dealings with the leader of his sorcerous cabal.

That is a choice - a judgement call, to use the language of the OP. Other choices were, in principle, available, but I didn't make them because those other choices would have taken the game away from its focus on the matters that the player has put into play via his choices in playing the game.

Where I don't analyze it to nearly this level. The magistrate - maybe by random die roll, maybe because the PCs lipped him off, maybe just because they were blatantly guilty - threw 'em in jail. Now it's up to the PCs to either get out or not (but if you're running this A-4 style it'll take some serious DM manipulation to help them escape).

The analogue, in your example of a player having his PC go to the mercenaries' guild and the militia HQ, might be something like this:

The player has written into his PC backstory, "I will be avenged upon the lizardmen for their destruction of my farm."

The PC goes to the mercenaries' guild, and learns (via the GM's narration) that the lizardmen are readying an attack on Dumont tower - if you sign up now to join the defenders, you'll be handsomely paid.

The PC goes to the HQ, and learns (via the GM's narration) that the orcs are attacking the farms, and we need every able body we can get to help in defence.

In putting these two scenarios on the table, the GM forces the player to make a choice: do I seek vengeance upon the lizardmen? or do I postpone, even abandon, my quest for vengeance in order to help other defend their farms against a different threat?​

That would be the GM putting the player at the centre of things. And thereby creating the space for the game to be player-driven in the sense I've tried to get at.

First off, not everything has to be tied to the PCs' backgrounds. Second off, what if those things have already been done? Third off, what if they've been done by someone else?

Rather than the GM putting his/her desires for the content of the fiction, and the trajectory of things, at the centre.

In my example the only DM desire is that the party keep adventuring; and if that's already too much DM input for you we might as well call it quits - we're comparing apples and bicycles.

Which is why simply noting that the GM manages the backstory doesn't tell us who is driving the game. Because it depends crucially on the reasons for narrating one thing rather than another, and the way that that narrated stuff then speaks to the players one way rather than another.

The DM is, one would think, always going to narrate with the backstory in mind even if it's not obvious at the time. That said, she's also going to, one would think, narrate to what's happening in the moment.

If everything the PCs care about has been resolved, then the campaign is over.

That's a very narrow view. If everything from the PCs' backgrounds has been resolved the campaign is still very much alive, because finally they can stop thinking only about themselves* and start looking at the greater world. There's goodly deeds need doing. There's wealth and riches and fame to be had. There's the King's representative knocking on the door of these now-famous adventurers calling them to defense of the realm.

* - because that's what all of this is - if everything is tied to or framed around the PCs' backgrounds you're almost forcing a PC-selfish type of play: it's all about their own issues and problems, and righting their own wrongs. Sure some bigger things might happen as a side effect - getting vengeance on the lizardmen might lead the party to learning the scalies are the vanguard of an invasion which they end up thwarting - but it's unintentional on the PCs' part.

See, this is is pretty much the opposite of the answer I just gave. The player has to stop playing the PC - ie as far as that PC is concerned, it's "campaign over" - if the "logical" play of the PC takes that character away from the GM's hooks. Whereas my answer, above, is that the campaign is over when the players, via their PCs, no longer have any "hooks" to offer the GM

Two-way street. When the players run out of hooks it's on the DM to set some; and when the DM runs out it's on the players.

Also, individual characters come and go all the time; but the party(ies) remain(s). This is why I rarely if ever like to pin a story or adventure to a particular character (e.g. the guy who swore vengeance on the lizardmen has persuaded the party to help him out) as it's inevitably that character who then dies at the first opportunity - leaving the rest of the party asking why the eff they're doing what they're doing.

The PCs in the game mentioned in the OP spent 18 months in the ruined tower, trying to eke out enough of a living to buy food from the locals (mechanically, this involves the game's Resources sub-system) while also training and, in one case, healing from a near-mortal wound.

But during that time the PCs (and their players) weren't at a loss for things to do. They made a choice to postpone their pursuit of the thing they cared about so they could spend that time that way.

That's hardly what I'd consider as relaxing R&R downtime for the PCs; still, good on 'em for taking the time off. (our parties rarely if ever take much non-enforced time off even when there's nothing pressing; they instead look for an adventure or something worth doing and get right back at it, if for no other reason than to get themselves out of town before they do something stupid/destructive/highly-illegal and get themselves banished)

Lan-"shuddering to think what rolling 18 months worth of wandering monster checks must have been like"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

The other is about the permissible and expected moves at [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s table, given that the GM is adopting a certain approach to running the game. Roughly speaking, it belongs to the domain of anthropology (or some discipline in that neighbourhood).

Er...I'm really not quite sure how to take this.

Anthropology???

Lanefan