Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Ovinomancer]

You think that GM's secret backstory is an important part of GMing, right? That sometimes it's appropriate for a GM to declaring an action declaration fails by dint of some consideration in the fiction that the players weren't aware of and couldn't be expected to know.

You also don't like resoltuion systems that deliver finality in non-combat conflicts - that came out in the discussion of the advisor example.

All I've said about these matters is that I don't share your preferences. How is that painting it as "universally negative"?

The universal negative here is that you continue to conflate "secret backstory" with denying player action declarations because of things they don't know. These are not synonymous, nor is the former sufficient for the latter.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

By "backstory" in that passage, Eero Tuovinen means the gameworld.

So bits of it are authored by the GM outside the context of play.

I decided to set the game in Hardby, and hence decided that there is a Gynarch.​

Bits of it are colour, authored by the GM as part of the process of play.

I decided that the merchants tell the PCs that the Gynarch is engaged to be married to Jabal of the Cabal.​

Bits of it are framing, authored by the GM as part of the process of play; some of that framing is the redeployment of past colour.

The mage PC is at the docks hoping to meet a cleric who will cure his mummy rot. He thinks there should be clerics around, as a famous holy man is arriving to officiate at the Gynarch's wedding. [That's framing, and it draws on the previously-established bit of colour, namely, that some important personages are to wed.] I tell the player that, across the crowd of people waiting to greet the abbot's ship, he sees his brother, for the first time in nearly 16 years. [That's more framing.]​

Bits of it are authored by the players outside the context of play.

As part of the build of the mage PC, the existence of his balrog-possessed brother, and of the sorcerous cabal, are both established.​

Bits of it are authored by the players as part of the process of the play.

In the first session, the player of the mage PC declares a Circles check: in the fiction, the mage PC puts out feelers to the cabal, hoping for gainful employment. At the table, the player establishes a few more details about the cabal, including the existence of its leader Jabal.​

Bits of it are authored by the GM as part of the process of narrating failure.

Early in the first session, a check made to study the magic of a newly-acquired angel feather failed; in the fiction, the mage PC's examination of it revealed it to be cursed. Later on, the Circles check described above failed. So I tell the players, "As you sit waiting in the tavern for word from Jabal, a thuggish-looking figure approaches you . . ." - and go on to explain how Jabal's servitor Athog brings them a message from Jabal, that they are to leave town immediately as they are bearers of a curse. [Note how the narration of the later failure weaves in the fiction established in the narration of the earlier failure.]​

There is no single person whose job it is to author all of the backstory. And there is no single time at which this is done: not in practice, and not in principle. Playing the game produces new fiction, and establishes new "facts" about the gameworld.

...

What the players are doing here is trying to solve the mystery posed by the GM: I have something written in my notes - a bit of fiction that explains why the court rebuffed you. And now the players are doing stuff, and having their PCs do stuff, to try and learn that fiction. As I posted upthread in reply to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], it's puzzle-solving.

I'm not interested in it.

Yeah, I don't think that your examples and their examples are all that different. You objected to the idea that the fact that the king was assassinated was predetermined, so the DM didn't engage the mechanics. As a result of the king being assassinated, they players need to figure out why they were rebuffed.

In your example, Jabal told them to leave town because they are bearers of a curse. Although you could just as easily said that "Jabal says leave town now, or there will be consequences," leaving the party wondering why they were debuffed.

Either result works for me, because either one is reasonable from the PCs point of view. Whether it was by fiat or by random determination, the king is dead, and as of yet, the PCs don't know about it. In either scenario - King or Jabal's thug, if I were one of the PCs I wouldn't expect to get a clear answer. I'd probably ask, perhaps push just a bit, but would be surprised if I actually received an answer that way.

I wouldn't characterize it entirely as puzzle solving. The death of the king probably won't remain a secret for long. On the other hand, I don't have an issue with this type of puzzle solving. On the contrary, my campaigns rely on layers upon layers of such things.

So your objections are:

The GM already knows what happened...and they kept it secret: That is, they know the king has been assassinated. To the common person, that information may not have been known, and they (the NPCs) may have been keeping it a secret at that point in time for a reason. There are legitimate reasons for this to have been the case.

The GM has authored it unilaterally Just as you decided that the campaign would be set in Hardby, and you decided the merchants would tell the PCs that the Gynarch is to be married to Jabal, which also means that you decided they were to be married.

The fact is, like all RPGs, the fiction must come from people. That is, the DM/GM authors stuff, the PCs author stuff, maybe other people author stuff that the other participants use. Just about everything in the DW rulebook I agree with, other than the tone:

The players in the scenario just described aren't playing to find out in the salient sense. Here's the relevant passage from the DungeonWorld rulebook, p 161 (note that it's addressed to GMs):

Your agenda makes up the things you aim to do at all times while GMing a game of Dungeon World (DMing D&D):

• Portray a fantastic world
• Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
• Play to find out what happens

Everything you say and do at the table (and away from the table, too) exists to accomplish these three goals and no others.
OK, that's a bit much, but OK. I guess we're not interested in a social event, or having fun with our buddies, an escape from the world into a fantasy world, or imagine ourselves as a character outside of our comfort zone, or anything else other than these three things. Things that aren’t on this list aren’t your goals.

You’re not trying to beat the players or test their ability to solve complex traps. You’re not here to give the players a chance to explore your finely crafted setting.
So what's wrong about a finely crafted setting? If I recall, the BW rules specifically said that they weren't providing a setting, because there are plenty of good ones out there, and that you can write a better one than us anyway. DW is based on those rules if I recall, and now they're saying, "your better setting is wrong?"

I agree in the test their ability to solve complex traps, unless that's what they like. However, if a trap ought to be there, then it should. It shouldn't be any more complicated than it needs to be to get the job done, and be built by the mechanical capability of the time. Oh wait, that's right, we used to love trying to play through Grimtooth's traps...

You’re not trying to kill the players (though monsters might be). You’re most certainly not here to tell everyone a planned-out story.
I kind of prefer to avoid a playing a planned-out story myself. But I know other gamers that think the Dragonlance series of modules are some of the best ever.

Your first agenda is to portray a fantastic world. . . Show the players the wonders of the world they’re in and encourage them to react to it.
Check.

Filling the characters’ lives with adventure means working with the players to create a world that’s engaging and dynamic. . .
Check.

Dungeon World adventures never presume player actions. A Dungeon World adventure portrays a setting in motion—someplace significant with creatures big and small pursuing their own goals. As the players come into conflict with that setting and its denizens, action is inevitable. You’ll honestly portray the repercussions of that action.
Because so many other games encourage dishonest portrayal of the repercussions of their actions. I agree with not presuming player actions - all too often a DM (and especially a published adventure) operates under a certain requirement in terms of their actions. Usually the assumed action, which is blindly accepted by the players, is to attack to kill anything put in their way. And whatever it is will, of course, fight to the death. I believe in honesty in portraying the repercussions too. To start with, most intelligent creatures won't fight to the death. Then you have to deal with that.

This is how you play to find out what happens. You’re sharing in the fun of finding out how the characters react to and change the world you’re portraying. You’re all participants in a great adventure that’s unfolding.
Check.

So really, don’t plan too hard. The rules of the game will fight you.
OK. Not sure I've ever had a game that fights me. I have visions of the pages and dice suddenly rising up to buffet me around my head.

One of the issues I have with indie games is that there's an awful lot of presumption on their part. The "Everything you say and do at the table (and away from the table, too) exists to accomplish these three goals and no others" is quite a declaration. Did I just join a cult?​

Whereas in the scenarios that you (Lanefan) and Maxperson describe, the GM already knows what has happened. S/he hasn't worked with the players to create the world, but has authored this bit of it unilaterally. And s/he hasn't portrayed that bit of the world, either. S/he's kept it secret.

As I said, it's not really something I'm interested in.

So in the scenarios I saw, the GM knows something that happened. That sets the framing, as you state. The king has been assassinated. Back to the Star Wars examples - Luke doesn't have any clue what's happened in regards to the droids, he just buys them. So are you suggesting that the players should know all of that information before Luke makes any decisions?

If the "no GM secrets" thing is one of those key mechanics that is a requirement for you to play (such as "no DM fudging" or "no hidden dice rolls" that are requirements for certain other players), I obviously don't have any objection to that. But I definitely don't think that's a universal requirement for good game design or play.

Secrets for the sake of keeping secrets is one thing, but for events to happen in the world that the PCs don't know about, but could discover, that's pretty much a given in my world. To make an in-game secret worthwhile, it needs to be discoverable. I am curious as to where the line is, though. You have no secrets in the campaign? The GM never knows something that the players don't? I didn't get that sense with other in-game examples you've given, but I could be wrong.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not really getting the drawbacks thing.

Someone goes onto a puzzle hobbies site and posts "I really like doing crosswords!" And then some other poster says, "I prefer sudoku. What are the drawbacks of doing crosswords?"

It's a strange question. What's the answer meant to be? "Well, they invovle words, not numbers, so aren't so good if you prefer numbers to words." But presumably that's self-evident.

"It's hard to do a crossword at the same time as taking a shower." But that's true of sudoku also.

I don't really get what the question is asking. I mean, I don't regard it as a drawback of playing RPGs the way I like to that the players don't get the chance to figure out the GM's nifty plot, because that's not something I enjoy in RPGing.

It's not hard to grasp. You have no problem explaining the drawbacks in a GM driven approach.

EDITED to add:

Other posters like different things in their RPGing. And some posters (eg [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], etc) are posting about that, and giving examples that show how the techniques they prefer lead to RPGing that they've enjoyed.

Keept it up! And if anyone else wants to post about how their preferred technique has given them awesome gaming, then that's what the thread is for (to stay on topic, I guess with some reference to the role that GM judgement calls played in delivering the awesome).

I put forth my approach to the game as being a blend of player driven techniques and GM driven techniques. I was told that was impossible because they are mutually exclusive. I disagree with that assessment. I can certainly share examples of play from my game that would show this, but I don't feel that they will help.

The only posters who are suggesting that it is a "nefarious device" are the ones who are defending it!

I've never said that it's a nefarious device. I'vd just said that I don't like it. It is an element in RPGing-as-puzzle-solving - in essence, the players trying to learn what is written in the GM's notes - and I don't enjoy that as a player and enjoy it even less as a GM.

No one else is suggesting it is a nefarious device. Instead, people are pointing out that you are positioning it as such. Your examples have not once shown how a secret backstory of the game can be used to enhance a game, you have only shown how it can be used to thwart player agency, which is a virtue of paramount importance to you.

So while you are right that you've never come right out and SAID it is nefarious, you must realize that is what you have portrayed.

 

[pemerton]

The universal negative here is that you continue to conflate "secret backstory" with denying player action declarations because of things they don't know. These are not synonymous

First, given that the phrase "GM's secret backstory" has no currency in any forum I'm aware of outside my use of it, and given my use has been made abundantly clear, I think I'm at liberty to continue using it in that way.

Second, if it only comes into play as part of framing, then it's not secret, and hence is not secret backstory.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I think part of the problem is that when players get introduced to a new RPG, they expect the games to exhibit a greater commonality than they actually share. Playing BW, or Apocalypse World, or Fiasco is very different from D&D; a lot of the skills one might have learned playing D&D simply aren't going to translate. It's like expecting your Monopoly skills to carry over to a game of Twilight Struggle, or your Call of Duty experience to make you better at Street Fighter, or expecting being skilled at golf to help you play basketball better.

Of course, you're also correct that a lot of modern games DO explicitly tell players the best way to play them, it was a explicit design ethos in reaction to players attempting to shift classic games into different paradigms and then complaining about how difficult it was to achieve the expected play style. (The classic example being D&D 2e's stated intent for players to focus on story and characterization, when the mechanics were still that of a dungeon-crawling player-skill based wargame.)

I totally agree. Expectations can be a huge factor when trying something new. And I've experienced that with folks when I tried to give DW a shot.

But it also highlighted that the game we wanted to play was D&D. Not DW.

I don't recall that shift for 2e, but then we were already playing that way, and 2e was really like 1.5e in many ways. At least until the splat books.

On the other hand, if you were a regular reader of Dragon then you'd already seen a qualitative shift occurring, basically a contrast between Gygax's rules-based articles and Greenwood's lore-based articles.

 

[pemerton]

What if the DM instead responded: 'As you look through the market, you do not see any Calisham silks on display. You overhear a few merchants saying that the troubles in Calimsham have severely reduced trade out of Calmisham. You realize that if you want some Calimsham silks, you'll have to scrounge a bit harder." Now, instead of the player just buying some silks in the market, it's a skill challenge to negotiate some silks that a merchant is hoarding, or buying on the black market, as smugglers aren't having as much trouble getting goods out, or whatever. You, once again, frame a technique as having only one, negative result.

I presented an exampe of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. That happens in RPGing. And as the responses in this thread have shown, it's not even particularly controversial.

What you describe is not an example of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. It's an example of framing a challenge. But I don't think it's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] had in mind.

Ilbranteloth said "the intention is not to write or have material available that never comes into play. It's to have such material available in case it might come into play." In your example, who cares about haggling with merchants and smugglers? The player - in which case, it's an example of the GM "going where the action is". If that's how you run your game, then presumably it's not wildly different from how I run mine. But, again, I don't think that's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] meant, because when I said that I would be GMing blind without knowledge of what is motivating the players in their action declarations for their PCs (which is what one needs to know to "go where the action is"), Ilbranteloth didn't indixcate the same need.

If it's the GM deciding that it would be fun to have an episode of haggling with merchants and smugglers, then it's an example of what I would call GM-driven play (because, in introducing the fiction by way of framing, the GM is not having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as expressed through the build and play of their PCs).

I think, upon reflection, that what happens here is survivor bias. You present the method as if it always produces relevant and useful backstory because you end up with a story at the end that can clearly trace it's way through all of these bits of story created using your method, so it appears that the method itself always produces the correct outcomes: a good, well integrated story. But this is ignoring all of the chaff that's created and discarded or forgotten or ignored. As you yourself said, you don't have to look up what happened in game 4 years ago because it's always been relevant and at the forefront because it's become part of the ongoing story. But, dollars to donuts, things were authored into the fiction 4 years ago that haven't made it and you don't remember until you look at it. The difference there is that you don't care about those tidbits -- they can be overwritten because no one recalls them as important anyway (I believe something exactly like this was presented earlier in the thread). But, again, this leads to a false positive for your style because you aren't actually honoring ALL of the fiction created, just the bits that end up mattering because the players and/or GM latch onto them. Therefore, those are the only tidbits that 'survive' the gameplay, and you then base your final determination only on those survivors.

So, the difference here seems that in a DM driven game, those bits are retained, but need to be teased out by reviewing old gameplay or notes, whereas in player driven games those bits are discarded and might as well never exist. Your examples about the Elf and the watering hole, for instance. Had a player never presented the idea that the Elf stole the mace, that was a throwaway bit that wouldn't have made it into your ongoing story. But, since a player did add it in, the Elf becomes a survivor, and is retroactively classified as emergent foreshadowing of future gameplay. Had the elf not, well, then, it would just be forgotten and become unimportant and never referenced. It would never have 'survived' to be lauded as an example of great gameplay. And, I'm sure there's lots of such examples, hence the classification of survivor bias -- judging something only by those examples that survive and succeed, and forgetting all of the bits and pieces that didn't.

A few things in response.

(1) The Forge's slogan for the sort of play that I have called "player-driven", that Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narrativistic model", and that is set out in the introductory pages of BW that I quoted upthread, is story now.

Ie it is not about "a good, well integrated story" in the future. It is about story now. Hence the injunction to the GM to "go where the action is". Hence the need, in each framing and each narration of a failed check, to have regard to the dramatic needs of the PC as established by the player through build and play.

Without having a full-fledged theory of dramatic composition, I think it's likely that a series of episode of story now, taken as a whole, will also probably exhibit "a good, well-integrated story". But that's a secondary concern.

(2) Suppose the wastrel elf never figured again, because his dramatic work - testing the reaction of the elven ronin sworn always to keep the elven ways - had been done. How would that be inconsistent with anything? Or even atypical - all episodic fiction has it's one-off characters who figure prominently at some point but then fade into the background thereafter.

The good naga who helped the PCs in the Bright Desert may never figure in the game again. It was still fun at the time. And sowed the seeds for the dark naga, which has appeared in only one session but - due to its influence over the shaman PC - continues to be a significant presence in the the fiction of the game.

(3) Why would participants in a GM-driven game keep better notes, and have better memories, than participants in the sort of game that I run? Given that, as I posted, one constraint on authorship is consistency with the established fiction, why would you assume that I discard it rather than retain it? You assert that it is "overwritten", but have no actual evidence for that.

(And what I said that I don't have to look up from 4 years ago is character goals. Because those infuse every moment of play. I mean, you know I have notes from 6 years ago that I can look up if I need to, because I posted about that in a reply to you.)

In reality, lots gets thrown at the fan during play, but not all of it makes it.

And now you're just making stuff up. The "realilty" you describe here has no life outside your own imagination.

If you want to see how my game actually works, follow some of the links that I've provided in this thread.

 

[pemerton]

In your example, Jabal told them to leave town because they are bearers of a curse. Although you could just as easily said that "Jabal says leave town now, or there will be consequences," leaving the party wondering why they were debuffed.

Either result works for me

OK. But it's not the case that either result works for me. And when you say "I could just as easily" have used the second result, that's not actually true. Doing that would have been more-or-less breaking the rules of the game.

Back to the Star Wars examples - Luke doesn't have any clue what's happened in regards to the droids, he just buys them. So are you suggesting that the players should know all of that information before Luke makes any decisions?

No. I'm suggesting that no one has that information until it emerges out of play - probably as the result of an interplay between framing (that is the most natural way to first present the message to Obi-Wan) and failed check (R2D2 running off would be a natural result of a failed repair check).

Here is an account of the first bit of action in the OP game:

I started things in the Hardby market: Jobe was looking at the wares of a peddler of trinkets and souvenirs, to see if there was anything there that might be magical or useful for enchanting for the anticipated confrontation with his brother. Given that the brother is possessed by a demon, he was looking for something angelic. The peddler pointed out an angel feather that he had for sale, brought to him from the Bright Desert. Jobe (who has, as another instinct, to always use Second Sight), used Aura Reading to study the feather for magical traits. The roll was a failure, and so he noticed that it was Resistant to Fire (potentially useful in confronting a Balrog) but also cursed. (Ancient History was involved somehow here too, maybe as a FoRK into Aura Reading (? I can't really remember), establishing something about an ancient battle between angels and demons in the desert.)

My memory of the precise sequence of events is hazy, but in the context the peddler was able to insist on proceeding with the sale, demanding 3 drachmas (Ob 1 resource check). As Jobe started haggling a strange woman (Halika) approached him and offered to help him if he would buy her lunch. Between the two of them, the haggling roll was still a failure, and also the subsequent Resources check: so Jobe got his feather but spent his last 3 drachmas, and was taxed down to Resources 0. They did get some more information about the feather from the peddler, however - he bought it from a wild-eyed man with dishevelled beard and hair, who said that it had come from one of the tombs in the Bright Desert.​

So there we have two "secrets" revealed: the feather is cursed; and there was an ancient battle in the Bright Desert between angels and demons.

The first secret was established as the result of a failed check. The second was established by the player, who had the opportunity to do so because I had framed his PC into a situation in which an angel feather reputedly from the Bright Desert was the focus of attention. (Note how that is quite different from a player just sitting up at the table and, with no apparent context to make sense of it, declaring "There was an ancient battle in the desert between angels and demons". I think this is related to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s ideas about following the fiction, though I'm not sure that it's identical.)

So at the start of the session no one knew anything about angel feathers, curses and ancient battles in the Bright Desert. But after what was probably 15 to 30 minutes of play, this stuff had been established. Through play.

If the "no GM secrets" thing is one of those key mechanics that is a requirement for you to play (such as "no DM fudging" or "no hidden dice rolls" that are requirements for certain other players), I obviously don't have any objection to that. But I definitely don't think that's a universal requirement for good game design or play.

No one in this thread has said that any particular technique is a universal requirement for good play or good game design.

From the OP:

(By railroading I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)

<snip>

Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.

But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.

On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.

I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!

No universal claims there. I think quite the opposite.

I am curious as to where the line is, though. You have no secrets in the campaign? The GM never knows something that the players don't? I didn't get that sense with other in-game examples you've given, but I could be wrong.

I have ideas for things that I don't tell the players. Secret plans. For instance, I didn't tell the players I had written up a wastrel renegard elf. I just brought that character into play. Likewise the dark naga.

That's not the same thing as secret backstory. Plans to author something don't themselves establish any fiction. The fiction is established via framing, and narration of consequences.

 

[Imaro]

I guess another one of the big things I'm not grasping about your playstyle [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (and anyone else feel free to posit thoughts on this) is... what are the purpose of knowledge skills in your games. If there is no "secret backstory" to discover and the GM knows no more than the players about the fiction of the setting and it's being created as they all go along... what exactly do knowledge skills and their ilk do in your game since there's nothing to know beyond what exists in the now and what's already been established (all of which the PC's would already be aware of right?)...

 

[Tony Vargas]

(and anyone else feel free to posit thoughts on this) is... what are the purpose of knowledge skills in your games. If there is no "secret backstory" to discover and the GM knows no more than the players about the fiction of the setting and it's being created as they all go along...

Seems obvious they'd work like the perception check in the OP. Success doesn't determine if you know a fact already invented by the DM in the past that he then tells you about, it determines if there's a relevant fact to know and the DM creates it in the moment.

Seems like it'd make very little difference to the player's experience of the game, though.

 

[Imaro]

Seems obvious they'd work like the perception check in the OP. Success doesn't determine if you know a fact already invented by the DM in the past that he then tells you about, it determines if there's a relevant fact to know and the DM creates it in the moment.

Seems like it'd make very little difference to the player's experience of the game, though.

See I thought it was only consequences of failed checks that the DM narrated... did I misunderstand that? So if a knowledge check is successful... do the players determine what said knowledge is or does the DM?

EDIT: And if as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] claimed earlier the DM has plans for things already created... and he is now planning for both success and failure on this check... well it would seem he does in fact know the outcome irregardless of the roll.