Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Lanefan]

But this is exactly what I'm saying would leave me feeling blind. If I don't know what the PC's motivation is, or how the player sees that relating to other concerns and declared convictions of the PC, then I don't know what is really happening in the fiction and how best to handle it as GM.

And why should you?

Your job (and my job, in my game) is to as neutrally as you can present the game world, the setting, the opportunities for adventure, and the inhabitants of all of the above.

Ideally, it's presented in exactly the same way to:
- an angst-riddled Elf Druid who just wants to sort out his feelings for his father and then save all the poor defenseless trees
- a roaring drunkard of a Part-Orc warrior whose only motivation is to kill anything he can and then eat it afterwards
- a lonely Mage who is looking for her husband, who long ago ran off to join the militia and never came back
- a happy Dwarf Rogue who has no real motivations at all other than adventuring is more fun than mining

If this is the party that gets rolled up I'm just going to find a way to get them into a field adventure and then run that adventure. If I immediately start tailoring things to the Druid and the Mage and their personal problems I'm doing a disservice to the other two who just want to get after it. Sooner or later down the road I might work in something about the Mage's husband and where he ended up, if it's even still relevant by then; and angsty Druid can just go right on being angsty - though the inevitable arguments between he and the Dwarf over the usefulness of trees are bound to be good entertainment!

Never mind that the minute they start a quest or mission whose goal is to find the Mage's husband it's inevitable the Mage will then either retire or die at the first opportunity.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

This is an odd comment, because I don't know what my combat AC is either

Mine is most likely 10, no matter what edition you use.

That said, the episode of play I described - being a 4e skill challenge - doesn't use "social AC" or "social damage". It is more fiction-focused than that, and is resolved by the players accruing the requisite number of successes prior to suffering 3 failures.

It still, however, completely defeats the point of creative role-playing by reducing a social interaction to a series of dice rolls. We (well, most of us) don't have swords and shields and armour at the table, and aren't generally much use at spellcraft, so those must be mirrored or replicated somehow by something: this game uses dice.

But we do all have mouths and brains and (I hope!) imaginations and creativity at the table, meaning there should be much less - if any - necessity to mechanize these aspects of the game.

(Eg early D&D had morale and loyalty checks, which were as binding as combat. ...)

Perhaps I'd better note here than when I do use those mechanics (which isn't all that often) I take the results as guidelines rather than binding.

My personal preference is to avoid stuff that a player finds boring or dull. (That's not to say that I always succeed. But this relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post quoted just above - if I realise the game is boring or dull for someone, I will act on that.)

Ditto here, except that I don't expect every player to not be bored every minute of the time - it's the old line about you can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time. I get more concerned if it seems things are boring for everyone, or everyone except one; that's when I have to do something about it.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

This is emphatically not what I look for in a game.

<snip>

I am fundamentally and deeply uninterested in distributing narrative control in play.

A recurrent theme in threads that touch on what I have called "player-driven" RPGing is that the idea of player influence on play very quickly gets conflated, by at least some posters, with players authoring their own challenges, or players resolving situations by introducing novel fitional elements in a way that is somehow external to the action resolution mechanics.

I think that conflation tends to miss the way that quite a few RPGs are played.

For instance, when the player of a fighter in a 4e game uses CaGI, that is not an authoring by that player of his/her own challenge; and it is not solving the challenge by way of introducing some novel fictional element that circumvents action resolution. In the fiction, it can correspond to a range of possibilities, depending on context (eg most of the time in my game it represents the dwarven polearm master defeating his enemies by dint of superior footwork and weapon handling; the first time it was used, some of the forced movement was narrated as goblins, who had been fleeing down a corridor, turning around to avoid being cut down from behind); in the play of the game, it is just another status-imposition attack, like the many others found in that and other editions of D&D.

In my BW game, when the player says "I look around for a vessel to catch the spilling blood", and I then call for a Perception check, both phenomenoligically and mechanically I don't find it fundamentally different from any other action declaration. The fact that, as a consequence of success, it is now established that there is a vessel in the room, whereas before it was uncertain, is no different (in my experience) from the myriad other elements of fiction that get established as part of the resolution of action declarations.

I do not like it when games like Fate, Cortex+ or Night's Black Agents directly model narrative structures. I want the overall focus to be directly on the fiction. When Fate tells me I have to pay to use my fictional positioning it puts a sour taste in my mouth.

In Cortex/MHRP you don't have to pay to use your fictional positioning - you just have to play to establish it (in the form of an asset)!

It makes the game very different from, say, BW. Or even 4e.

All that being said, I can find a measure of fun playing these sorts of games. It just does not feel very natural to me. It's not optimal.

<snip>

Because of its purposeful design I can adopt my own interests to the interests of the game in a way that is more difficult than playing Vampire or any game where our shared interests might flex and weave moment to moment. I don't have to struggle in vain so much.

Should the bit that I've bolded read less difficult?

 

[Campbell]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the player driven vs. GM driven framing. Under that framing it feels like the point is to resolve creative conflicts between players and GMs. That's not what I want. Ideally when we sit down to play a game our interests as players are the same. What I want rules to bring to the table is a fiction that is not what either of us wanted, but is compelling enough to accept. I want the game to actively contribute. I want it to get in our way in ways that are an improvement over the sort of hard won consensus you find in Principled Freeform roleplaying. It needs to make the conversation more interesting for its presence. System must earn its keep or be banished. We do not need it to functionally play.

Should the bit that I've bolded read less difficult?

Exactly so. I meant to clarify that I would rather play in a principled way using a different set of skills than try to play in my most preferred way, but be met with frustration when I am not being rewarded for it socially, frictionally, or mechanically.

 

[Manbearcat]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the player driven vs. GM driven framing.

While I'm not uncomfortable with it (or at least not in examining moments of play in that fashion), I've been trying to divide things into:

1) GM agency
2) Player agency
3) System agency

I think examining moments of play in those discrete silos and examining the (hopefully significant and coherent) bleed is the most functional way forward in this conversation. Further, I think the examination of (3) and how it facilitates the general play agenda (thereby facilitating either or both of (1) and (2) from one moment to the next) is also extremely interesting and fertile ground for this discussion. The reason why I think its fertile ground is because I think it inevitably reveals a person's perceptions of the boundaries of (1) especially if they hold that (1) is system agnostic, therefore cross-RPG orthodox, and should be carried forth wherever they go. I think exploration of the nature of those boundaries are essential to understanding collateral (or sometimes direct) impacts to (2).

 

[Nagol]

While I'm not uncomfortable with it (or at least not in examining moments of play in that fashion), I've been trying to divide things into:

1) GM agency
2) Player agency
3) System agency

I think examining moments of play in those discrete silos and examining the (hopefully significant and coherent) bleed is the most functional way forward in this conversation. Further, I think the examination of (3) and how it facilitates the general play agenda (thereby facilitating either or both of (1) and (2) from one moment to the next) is also extremely interesting and fertile ground for this discussion. The reason why I think its fertile ground is because I think it inevitably reveals a person's perceptions of the boundaries of (1) especially if they hold that (1) is system agnostic, therefore cross-RPG orthodox, and should be carried forth wherever they go. I think exploration of the nature of those boundaries are essential to understanding collateral (or sometimes direct) impacts to (2).

I'm pretty sure GM agency cannot be considered system agnostic. The expectations and requirements on the GM for Amber is substantially different than any edition of D&D, for example. The agency I express running FATE is more constrained than Champions and is much more constrained than when I run D&D.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm pretty sure GM agency cannot be considered system agnostic. The expectations and requirements on the GM for Amber is substantially different than any edition of D&D, for example. The agency I express running FATE is more constrained than Champions and is much more constrained than when I run D&D.

You'll be unsurprised to find that I completely agree!

However, I'd like to hear more on this from others, because I've seen a lot of evidence over the years to indicate that a major conflict in the greater TTRPG culture is one of "GM Mandate vs System Agency". However that conflict gets sorted out in one's head (and then at one's table) is no small part of this conversation.

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] , I'll post some thoughts on what you've written later.

 

[Maxperson]

This seems to be about framing, and what is a permissible action declaration. (And [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] made the same point upthread.)

Once the check has been framed and resolved, however, I don't see any reason why it is not binding on the GM just as much as on the players. Combat as a domain of fictional endeavour does not generate any distinctive demand of finality in resolution. (Eg early D&D had morale and loyalty checks, which were as binding as combat. The idea that social/emotional responses cannot be governed by binding mechanics unless, in the fiction, those mechanics correlate to the use of magic, is a more recent prejudice.)

It was binding. The check was for him to reveal himself. Not to reveal himself and then not do anything about it. Once he revealed himself, you were no longer bound with regard to his actions. An advisor presumably has an agile mind and would try to mitigate the revealing the first check caused. Those are two different actions.

 

[Imaro]

I'm sure there are more concerns about GM Driven games...I just threw out a few. Others can add to that. I'm hoping that some of the more Player-Driven-Minded folks will be willing to share their views on the drawbacks of that approach; I have my own ideas, but I'd like to hear what they have to say first.

Emphasis mine... I'd be interested in this as well... [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], and any others that would be interested in chiming in?

 

[Manbearcat]

Emphasis mine... I'd be interested in this as well... @pemerton, @Manbearcat, and any others that would be interested in chiming in?

Because this is a quick one and I've answered it before, I'll just do this right quick. Couple easy examples:

1) It places a greater cognitive burden on players. To some that is a feature. To others it is too mentally taxing/exhausting (3 buddies of mine I solely run AD&D and B/X for are in this camp).

2) Why would someone smuggle "ask questions and use the answers" in the midst of a B/X dungeon crawl?

a) We don't need answers. The prep is already done to create those answers.
b) The system machinery works beautifully as is. Interesting, challenging stuff is going to spin out of orthodox play. All it's inclusion would likely do is render something coherent and functional incoherent and disfunctional.
c) There is no system machinery and play principles to account for/integrate it. Challenge/puzzle gaming can become compromised then with unintegrated player authorial control (coupled with neutral refereeing) that works at cross purposes.

A-C above makes "ask questions and use the answers" a bad fit for a game like B/X.