Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Lanefan]

If those can mitigate, I suppose, say 'familiarity' could, as well. If the burden imposed by the system is predictable and intuitive, that makes it easier to work with, but if it's familiar & mastered to the point of being second nature, it'll be just as much easier to work with, too.

I'd say familiarity is the biggest mitigating factor there is. Once you know a system well enough it seems to largely run itself - you're doing less work because you know what really needs doing and what doesn't, and the work you are doing doesn't seem as much like work because it's familiar and comfortable.

I suppose that could be thought of as sunk cost or investment, as well.

And the familiarity is the payoff.

Lan-"find familiar"-efan

 

[pemerton]

I would say your view is more along the lines of the fiction writing itself because it ignores the GM's involvement. The GM introduces the NPC in question. The GM chooses to either commit to a motivation, or to leave it open.

<snip>

If the NPC has no motivation when introduced....he's up to something, but it is unknown by everyone, including the GM, then that's fine. But it is what it is. I don't care that a motivation can be introduced later on and within the fictional world it can be justified. There is no motivation, then there is. That is a change.

I'm not ignoreing the GM involvement. I'm expressly noting it.

In the real world, a change takes place: something that was unknown (the skulker's motivation) becomes known. Something that was unauthored (the skulker's motivation) becomes authored.

But there is no change in, or to, the gameworld. Within the fiction, the skulker's motivation has not changed. It is what it always was.

Hence the notion of "Schroedinger's motivation" or "Schroedinger's secret door" misfires. It's not the case that the door is both there or not there. It's either there, or not, but no one knows because the fiction hasn't been authored yet.

It's no different from watching Star Wars and wondering whether or not Luke knows how to ride a horse or similar beast. Either he does or he doesn't - there's nothing of a Schroedinger nature about his ability to ride. But from wathcing the movie one can't tell because that particular bit of fiction has not been authored yet, and nor has anything else that might entail an answer one way or another.

Just because a bit of fiction hasn't been authored yet doesn't mean that, in the fiction, there is no fact of the matter one way or the other. And authoring the fiction doesn't change anything in the fiction itself. The only change that takes place is in the real world. (Something unauthored and hence unknown becomes authored and thereby known.)

Well, from a fictional standpoint, the Passwall spell as a solution to a problem is something that comes from within the character. It's a choice made by the player for his character to have that ability because it may help in certain situations.

The secret door, from a fictional standpoint, is something outside that kind of shows up out of the blue just to help the characters out of a jam.

So, from a fictional standpoint, I think one is a bit more satisfying than the other. Meaning that if I was reading a story, chances are I would prefer a character solving his own problem rather than some outside element solving it for him. Not always....such random occurrences can be interesting....but generally I would consider one favorable to the other.

There are no REH Conan stories in which Conan casts a spell, but there are stories in which he finds secret doors.

And there are adventure films in which secret doors figure. It's a fairly common trope (it's not as if Gygax invented it from scracth!).

From a gaming standpoint, I'm not as sure of the distinction. This is because I am not familiar with this gaming style, so there could be restrictions or caveats of some sort that limit how such information comes into play. But for me, looking at it simply as part of our discussion, the PCs being trapped in some way, and one of them using Passwall seems to be a PC using an ability chosen by the player for exactly this type of situation. A player instead using a character skill of some sort to establish the presence of a secret door is likely some level of player skill....but it's using the elements of the fictional world in a way that is far less constrained, so to me it feels easier.

Well, there is no cost to using a Passwall spell or similar in D&D!

And a character having good Perception, or Architecture, or Catacombs-wise, or whatever, doesn't seem to me any different in principle from a player having an ability for a particular situation.

In any event, in BW, the failed check obliged the GM to narrate a consequence of failure. New fiction gets established, adverse to the intention with which the action was declared. The example that has already come up in this thread is the search for the nickel-silver mace in the ruined tower - the check failed, and the consequence was the discovery, instead, of black arrows made by the mage's brother prior to being possessed by a balrog.

It is the combination of needing to establish the right fictional positioning to declare the check, and the risk of failure, that generates the constraint.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

No it's not. As you've quoted, he talks about GM authority over backstory and dramatic coordination. This is not control over story.

The same sort of GM authority is described by Luke Crane in the BW rulebooks that I quoted upthread:

​

The "power to being and end scenes, to present challenges and instigate conflicts", and "to hold off one action" is what Eero Tuovinen calls dramatic coordination. The GM's knowledge of "the big picture" is what Eero Tuovinen calls authority over backstory.

Burning Wheel is an instance of the "standard narrativistic model" - and neither Luke Crane nor Eero Tuovinen is talking about GM control over the story. "Story" (or "plot") is the upshot of actual play, in which players make choices for their PCs in response to the situations framed by the GM. Here is Luke Crane's account of it (from the GM side):

​

And here is Eero Tuovinen's (more technically elaborated) account of the same process:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .

The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​

I've bolded some key passages - the players establish the concrete characters, and hence the dramatic needs. The GM "goes where the action is" ie frames scenes that are interesting in relation to those dramatic needs, that have been established by the players. The players then make choices, which have consequences - and those consequences (and their interaction with dramatic needs) provide the context for further framing. This is why I call it "player-driven": it is the players who establish the focus of play, and whose choices for their PCs drive play.

The sort of thing he is talking about is defeated by the GM's use of secret backstory to determine consequences of action declarations. Because at that point it is no longer a case of the GM "going where the action is" ie framing and narrating in response to dramatic need as established by the players in the build and play of their PCs.

The method that the GM uses to present the world, events, etc is absolutely central. Here are the key passages again, with some highlighting:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .

The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.

The GM . . . needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​

This is what makes it story now. The aspiration is that every moment of play is a story, in the sense that something is happening that matters to the dramatic needs of these characters; and that this is achieved by the players playing the characters they have built and the GM framing scenes and adjudicating action declarations[ made by the players for their PCs. If the GM is framing scenes (eg moments of haggling, or marauding wolves) that don't speak to anyone character's dramatic needs, then we don't have story now. If the GM is adjudicating results not by reference to action declarations that express dramatic need, but rather by reference to secret backstory, then we don't have story now.

Well, I can report that there is no contradiction, as I (and many others) run games in this fashion.

You have misquoted Eero Tuovinen. He doesn't say that "the story is nothing but choices made by playing the character". He says that "from the player’s viewpoint . . . he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." That is, the player doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by playing his/her PC.

And the GM doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by framing the PCs into scenes that speak to dramatic need. (Eg the GM doesn't need a whole lot of notes such as one might find in a typical "event-driven" module.)

The story emerges from the sequence of situation -> choices -> action declarations -> consequences -> new situation -> etc. What is crucial to this is that the situation, at each point, speaks to dramatic need as established by build and play of the PCs.

It is therefore the exact opposite of most event-driven modules that I am familiar with, which are replete with devices (like back-up clues, back-up BBEGs, etc) all intended to ensure that whatever the outcomes of action declarations, nothing will change and the situation will remain constant.

I'm not sure what you think the force of the should is. And I'm not sure what method you have in mind either.

In the "standard narrativistic model", the "players [establish] concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes". As part of this, the players inform the GM what the dramatic needs of the PCs are. The GM is then obliged to frame a scene that speaks to this.

Luke Crane describes the same thing in these terms in the BW rulebooks:

​

The players offer hooks; the GM uses those hooks to frame scenes.

If the players, in fact, find the situation the GM frames unengaging (which can happen - humanity is frail, after all) then Luke Crane has the following advice:

​

But the player, in creating those interesting situations, is nevertheless going to have to work with what the GM has provided, because games run on this model do not require, nor empower, the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice. The player cannot frame his/her own challenge (that's the Czege Principle being applied).

This is the exact opposite of the "standard narrativistic model". This is the sort of railroading play that the model is a reaction against.

There is no pre-planning of the sort you describe here in the "standard narrativistic model". Because all subsequent framing depends on prior consequences, and hence on prior choices plus the process of resolution. And so can't be known in advance.

This is why Tuovinen stresses that an important GM skill is to "figure out consequences". Whereas the whole point of the sort of published adventure you describe is to make consequences irrelevant because everything has been worked out in advance.

No one is in control of the story. It emerges from the process of situation -> choices -> action declarations -> consequences -> new situation -> etc - until, as he says, "all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end". It is the players who decide what those outstanding issues are. This is why I describe this sort of RPGing as "player-driven".

I'm going to start with this, because clearly we're (I'm?) not communicating well.

So I'll start with part of my original quote that you specifically responded to since it kind of relates to the OP:

"I can't tell you how many games I've seen where a DM was running a published or pre-planned adventure, and the DM had put something of great importance in front of the PCs, only for them to completely ignore it and go someplace else entirely. Many years ago I figured out that the stories were much more interesting (and "authentic") if they were driven by the PCs and not me, the DM. That's why I focus on the backstory and setting, all the things that are happening around the PCs, and let them decide what's important."

To which you responded (only to the bolded portion):

This is the exact opposite of the "standard narrativistic model". This is the sort of railroading play that the model is a reaction against.

Yes. 100%. Exactly. That's my point and why I stated: "Many years ago I figured out that the stories were much more interesting (and "authentic") if they were driven by the PCs and not me, the DM. That's why I focus on the backstory and setting, all the things that are happening around the PCs, and let them decide what's important."

I disagree that the model was specifically a reaction against that sort of railroading play. The model, as far as I can tell, was specifically a reaction against shared-authorship in several forms. The post in which he lays out the "standard narrative model" is all about how shared-narrative approaches robs the players of the best possible experience because they are put in a position where they have to advocate for their players while at the same time advocate for what's best for the story. And in many situations those two positions are at odds with each other. He states quite clearly what he thinks the problem is, and it has nothing to do with railroading:

"The problem we have here, specifically, is that when you apply narration sharing to backstory authority, you require the player to both establish and resolve a conflict, which runs counter to the Czege principle. You also require the player to take on additional responsibilities in addition to his tasks in character advocacy; this is a crucial change to the nature of the game, as it shapes a core activity into a completely new form. Now, instead of only having to worry about expressing his character and making decisions for him, the player is thrust into a position of authorship: he has to make decisions that are not predicated on the best interests of his character, but on the best interests of the story itself."

You have misquoted Eero Tuovinen. He doesn't say that "the story is nothing but choices made by playing the character". He says that "from the player’s viewpoint . . . he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." That is, the player doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by playing his/her PC.

I stated: "That the "holy grail of RPG design" is that the player's viewpoint is that the entire game is based around "nothing by choices made in playing his character."

How can I misquote somebody I've copied and pasted? Mis-interpreted perhaps, but I disagree.

Anyway, that's exactly the same thing you just said, and what I have been describing all along, that the players create the story by playing his/her PC. Not by authoring the backstory (secret or otherwise), and not by authoring the setting.

You are correct that I should have said "backstory and setting" and not "story."

And I stand by what I stated before, that I find his statements contradictory. The fact that people have played games based on this concept do not mean that his statements aren't contradictory. Just that others either don't feel they are contradictory, or choose to ignore that they are.

Making the DM responsible to "frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications." You are giving them more control over the story, or to put it a different way, taking control of the story away from the players.

I like his division of roles: backstory and setting for the DM; characters and story for the players. That pretty much sums up my approach.

Whether the DM takes that control or not is a different story, but the general guideline is to frame scenes around the action. This concept is largely what 4e recommended as well.

To me, framing a scene means that there is a start and finish to the scene - the frames. How hard you frame the scene has an impact as well, including on the story. Meaning that the DM takes some control of the story (away from the characters) when you frame the scenes in this way. At it's extreme, this can be a railroad.

For example, here's a look at two scenes:

Scene 1: "You find yourself lying on a rocky shore water lapping at your legs. It's dark. Very dark. You notice that there is something around your ankle...a manacle with a chain still attached. As your mind clears, you recall that you were in the hold of a ship. A slave ship, chained to the deck. A light flares up some distance away, you hear and see a boat several hundred yards away, and the sound of voices, voices you recognize. The slavers. What do you do?"

That was how one of my campaigns started. I took full control of the story at that stage, and it's a very hard frame. I then handed it over to the PCs. Where they went and what they did was up to them.

So let's say I had then have some encounters, they escaped the slavers, made their way into the caves around them (they were underground), and found the remains of an adventuring party, giving them weapons and supplies and a clear exit from the caverns beneath Waterdeep. So this was the "opening scene" that established where they came from, and why they were together. End scene 1.

Scene 2. Then cut to a tavern in Waterdeep, with the group together, waiting for an NPC. Somebody with information, names of the slavers and where they can be found. The person provides the information and the location where the NPC will be, others seem to be eavesdropping, and the PCs react to that, then make plans on how to confront the slavers. End scene 2.

This is another hard frame. It's a logical frame and goes to where the action is. It's a great dramatic sequence to start things, explain why they are together, what they are trying to accomplish. It skips past lots of things not related to the story. It provides all of the dramatic tension that's needed, and a clear starting point for the next scene.

And it also completely took the thrust of the story away from the characters. By skipping what happened after they escaped the caves, and then met in the tavern, were the decisions as to whether they intended to go after the slavers. Perhaps the characters didn't care about the slavers, or each other for that matter. By skipping everything between scene 1 and scene 2, along with the specific framing of scene 2, the DM took control of the story away from the PCs.

I'm not saying the other way is bad, it's a great way to create a dramatic story. It's a style of story-telling that can be really exciting and dramatic. As somebody mentioned, it's a James Bond style of story-telling - there are clear start and end points to each scene, with the end of one pointing to the start of the next. There could be thousands of miles between them. Until you get to the end-game where the action is continuous. Sometimes there are a couple of these story arcs leading to the big continuous scenes. And it might be the exact type of story your players want to play.

But that's not the way everybody wants to play. We find the stuff between "the action" to be where the real meat of the story often exists. The character development occurs in the scenarios like the angry owlbear where they learned something about themselves which altered the direction of the rest of the campaign.

Also note that I'm not saying all Story Now campaigns have to frame scenes quite that hard. But it does show that when the DM is responsible for framing the scenes dramatically (rather than sequentially based only on the actions of the PCs), that is making decisions as to what scenes there should be, and when they start or end, it can actually foster, if not a railroad, a very DM-driven game.

It's simply an acknowledgement (and pointing out contradiction in the method) that whenever you hand over control to stop and start the scenes in order to frame them for dramatic purposes, you are also handing over control of the story to the DM, who then hands it back to the PCs after the scene is set.

Maybe some (most?) story now campaigns don't frame scenes as hard as I think they do. But that seems to be what they are advocating to me, in the same way that 4e recommended that you "skip to the fun parts." Either way, the players have agreed that the DM should be framing the scenes dramatically, and skipping over the boring parts. It's not a bad thing, just a different type of approach than I prefer.

I also disagree with his assertion that D&D has nothing to do with this model. As I've pointed out, I think it describes D&D very well. Perhaps not later editions as much, or at least as they are presented. But I can say that later editions can still be played this way.

Eero's description is equally descriptive of the style we prefer:

1. The DM is in charge of the backstory and setting (minus the framing for dramatic purposes).
2. The players are in charge of their character, making decisions as their character.
3. The DM frames the scenes, although in our case a hard frame is the start, and maybe, the end of the campaign. Other hard frames occur only when the DM and players agree together to skip ahead.
4. The player's task is advocacy. He also comments on how the DM utilizes rules, and tools from outside the rules, and experience.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]: I'll ask again, how do you think the number of words required by a prayer is estahblished?

And I find it very bizarre that you seem to be contesting the designers' own published elaboration of their rules: 'The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table". What do you think that is about?

Faith is not the only BW mechanic that requires the player to speak appropriate words. There is the Elven Spell-song Rhyme of Rules, and the Human Courtier lifepath trait Rapier Wit.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - the word "story" can have (at least) two meanings. It can refer to any narrated sequence of events. Or, it can mean a story in something like the literary sense - dramatic need, rising action, complication, climax etc.

In the first sense, even Andy Warhol's Empire or Sleep has a story: "the sleeper is still there, sleeping"; "he's still there, sleeping"; etc. But in the second sense there is no story (which is part of the point of those films, as far as Andy Warhol was concerned).

As DM I'm not obliged to frame anything specific to anyone. I frame a game world, a setting, some history, some ongiong stuff, and the PCs can fit themselves in however they like...and in so doing they can sort out their own dramatics, again however they like.

I'm sure this is true for you. I'm not stating principles that are universal. I'm stating the principles that govern a particular, fairly well-known (but I think not that well-known on ENworld) approach to RPGing - what Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narratiistic model".

You say "no-one is in control of the story" and then almost immediately say the players are in control via their decision of both what the outstanding issues are and what choices they make in order to deal with them.

That doesn't put the players in control of the story. By analogy: a farmer sows seeds. And waters them, and weeds the fields. But the farmer is not in control of the yield. Other factors are also at work (eg the weather; the quality of the soil; animals that might eat the growing plants; etc).

The players control their PC responses, and they establish the dramatic need that governs framing. But the GM actually does the framing; and, when checks fail, the GM narrates the consequences. Thus, no one is in control of the story. It is emergent.

The OP gives a clear example: the (small slice of story) described in the OP is this:

A snake-handling shaman, under the control of a dark naga, hopes to capture a powerful mage and take said mage back to the naga, so said mage's blood can be spilled in sacrifice to the spirits. But, before the shaman could get to the mage - who was lying unconscious in a room in another mage's tower - an assassin decapitated said mage in an act of revenge. The shaman, seeing this occur, thinks "All that blood is flowing away, and my master wants it. Is there a vessel I can catch it in?" Looking around the room, he sees such a vessel, and uses it to catch the blood.​

That's the story. It is a story in the second of the two sense I identified: it has dramatic need, rising action, complication, a degree of climax and resolution.

Who was in control of it?

No single individual. The player of the shaman has a PC with the Belief that he will get the mage for his master. The player chose to have the shaman try to enter the tower to take the unconscious mage away. A series of failed checks (including, in the end, an opposed Speed check between PCs and assaasin) resulted in the assassin - played by me, the GM - getting there first. The player decided that the PC would look around for a vessel. A successful check meant that he found one.

That is "the standard narrativistic model" at work: the players providing dramatic need and making choices; the GM framing scenes that include complications (like assassins trying to kill the mage); dice being used to resolve action declarations, with successes realising player (and PC) intent, and failures leading to intent-defeating consequences narrated by the GM.

I call this "player driven" because it is the player-supplied dramatic need and the players' choices about action declarations that drive things. But that doesn't mean the players control the story. They don't. No one does. And we don't want anyone to control it - that's why we roll the dice.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Some quick clarifications.

Make your move, but misdirect is not really about misleading the players. They know it is your turn to speak either because things have grinded to a halt, interrogating the fiction, or they did something that requires a response from the fiction. You are defining something in the fiction because there is a game to be played. You know it. They know it. We all know it. We just do not speak to it because it endangers the fantasy that the world is real. We are still making Apocalypse World seem real, but we are also making the players' characters' lives not boring - making sure there is interesting fiction to play in. The vast majority of the time this will not be an issue if they have made vibrant characters who they play with integrity. Think about why there are dungeons to be explored or adventures to be had in Dungeons and Dragons and why we do not speak to this real world truth. It does not have to be directly tied to their characters. We just want interesting fiction to play through.

I would not take look through the crosshairs too literally. It's more about ensuring that the fiction is dynamic and there is no meaningful status quo. It's about making sure that things are always changing in some way rather than staying static. We want success to be as consequential as failure. We want NPCs to do things to each other, rather than just the PCs. We want existing relationships to shift and become upended. Looking through the crosshairs could be about the waitress of their favorite watering hole changing jobs as much as a local warlord being assassinated. It could be about their allies calling in favors because they are under threat. It could be about that dungeon they have avoided being cleared out by another adventuring company. It could be about their wife leaving them for someone who can be there for their kids rather than always going off adventuring. Sometimes the crosshairs are literal. Often, they are not.

Respond With F---ery And Intermittent Rewards is about characters getting what they earn, but not usually what they hope for. We do this to keep the fiction interesting and also because the fiction is what it is. Social influence only goes so far. It does not change what motivates the character most of the time. Violence tends to beget more violence. Alliances are mutual relationships that must be nurtured. The game is more forceful about this than I would like, but Apocalypse World is about a particular hard-edged sort of fiction in a desperate world. The more the fiction is about a world where hope and perseverance wins the day the less applicable this principle should be.

I meant to go back and rewrite my analysis of the "Make your move, but misdirect" rule, because after going back to the rules it was clear that it wasn't so much about misleading the PCs itself. But it is another example of how I don't like the presentation since I think it's a poor choice of words for GM Principles that are listed in bold and might only be re-referenced by name, rather than reading the rules again.

If the player's lives are boring, it depends on the source. If the world as I present it (backstory and setting) aren't interesting, that's on me. But if they are just heading off to do boring things, then that's really their problem. It might become my problem if it's clear that this group of players needs a different style of game than a straight living sandbox. I can provide more story myself if needed, but I prefer for the players to do it.

That makes sense about "look through the crosshairs," and I also understand the general thrust behind "respond with f-ery..." but ultimately the rules themselves can imply that the GM is there in part to mess with the characters. And that's not the way I run my games. That doesn't mean that there won't be NPCs that will target the characters specifically, but it won't be because the game tells me that at this point in time I need to mess with the PCs.

The world is always changing, but as a DM I aim to approach the world from a neutral standpoint. I'm not trying to make it easier or harder on the PCs. I mean, the world outside of civilization is a pretty deadly place, but I'm not trying to change it on the fly. Your examples are exactly the sort of things that I do think are appropriate - but the intention is a bit different, I guess. I'm not trying to make their lives not boring or the fiction interesting. I know it sounds a bit paradoxical, but if I'm providing an interesting backstory and setting (including NPCs and their motivations) then the players can run with that and create an interesting story without me having to create dramatic scenes and interesting complications.

 

[pemerton]

if nobody knows his motivation at that time why is he doing what he's doing? His motivation for doing those things has to come from somewhere...in this case, the DM.

<snip>

the later "authoring" does in fact overwrite whatever was driving his actions when he was seen earlier.

Both these claims are just false. As in, refuted by the actual experience of people running RPGs.

I can narrate a NPC doing something without knowing what that NPC's motivation is, and without even having an idea as to what it might be. Here is a concrete example: the Gynarch of Hardby is engaged to marry Jabal of the Cabal. Why? No one at the table knows. It's a mystery. I introduced this mystery into the game because I thought that it would spur one or more of the PCs to action, given their dispositions and concerns. And I was right about that - it did.

When, in play (possibly our next session) a reason emerges, it won't be an "overwriting" of any earlier fiction, because there was no earlier fiction.

Likewise in the skulker case. Subsequent episodes of play established that one of his motivations for supporting the hobgoblin army was to wield power in the city where he was an advisor to the baron (because a hobgboblin army created a state of siege which empowered the baron and hence his advisor). But that was not known to me, or anyone, when I first narrated him flying out of the hobgoblin fortress on a flying carpet. At that point the baron hadn't even been established as an element of the shared fiction, nor any sort of hobgoblin operations against the city.

Establishing this later stuff is not rewriting. It is simply writing. Had the game unfolded differently, the fiction would have been different. The city might never beecome anything more to play than a dot on a map; its form of government might have remained undiscovered; and it might have turned out that the yellow-robed skulker was not an advisor to anyone, and had no motivations connected to the baron or the city.

I understand that you don't yourself GM in this fashion. But I don't get why it is so hard to see what's going on: that these bits of the fiction are authored by the GM when needed to establish framing or consequences, and not beforehand.

mutability of backstory and story elements is along the lines of Illusionism (not that it must be Illusionism, although it can be) in the sense that it allows the GM leeway to go in multiple directions based on what the GM decides is best for the game by working in an area unknown to the players

As I see it, the key feature of Illusionism is not that it is GM narration.

The key feature of Illusionism is that it is GM narration that covertly nullifies the significance or consequences of player action declarations for their PCs. The illusion is that these action declarations, and their resolution, matter to the outcomes of the game.

A classic example of advocacy for Illusionism is "Don't let a single dice roll ruin a good story".

In the skulker example there is GM narration. This narration fills in something unknown to the players (and, hitherto, unknown to the GM) - it can't but do that, because if the relevant fiction was already known to the players then the GM would be bound by it and hence would have no authority to narrate over the top of it.

But that's the only resemblance to Illusionism that I can see. Narration.

And I would query your claim that "the GM decides what is best for the game". That is not a very precise description. The GM frames a situation. Or the GM narrates a consequence of a check. And does these things in accordance with certain principle, primarily "go where the action is" ie follow dramatic need.

The GM doesn't have any at-large power to narrate stuff on the basis that it is "best for the game". I'm not really sure that "best for the game" is even a meaningful concept in this context.

I just see a similarity in the GM having the ability to decide things on the fly. Whether that happens to be what's at the end of the left fork in a tunnel, or the affiliations and goals of an NPC....the GM is free to alter what is true until some point of commitment.

"Alter" and "establish" are not synonyms, though.

And there is another thing going on here. The idea of the left fork in a tunnel suggests that we already have a whole lot of backstory established but unknown to the players (eg the classic dungeon map). In which case we already seem to be positing an approach to play where part of what is involved is the players learning what is in the GM's notes (in this case, the map). In which case it would be something like cheating for the GM to just change things around on the fly.

But in the sort of approach I am describing, there is no map of the tunnels prepared in advance in that classic fashion. (I will sometimes use a map as an element in framing - especially in 4e - but that is something different.) So that the PCs went left rather than right is mere colour. The initial choice of a direction to go has no significance for resolution (though it may establish fictional positioning that comes to be of significance down the track).

 

[Lanefan]

For example, here's a look at two scenes:

Scene 1: "You find yourself lying on a rocky shore water lapping at your legs. It's dark. Very dark. You notice that there is something around your ankle...a manacle with a chain still attached. As your mind clears, you recall that you were in the hold of a ship. A slave ship, chained to the deck. A light flares up some distance away, you hear and see a boat several hundred yards away, and the sound of voices, voices you recognize. The slavers. What do you do?"

That was how one of my campaigns started. I took full control of the story at that stage, and it's a very hard frame. I then handed it over to the PCs. Where they went and what they did was up to them.

So let's say I had then have some encounters, they escaped the slavers, made their way into the caves around them (they were underground), and found the remains of an adventuring party, giving them weapons and supplies and a clear exit from the caverns beneath Waterdeep. So this was the "opening scene" that established where they came from, and why they were together. End scene 1.

Scene 2. Then cut to a tavern in Waterdeep, with the group together, waiting for an NPC. Somebody with information, names of the slavers and where they can be found. The person provides the information and the location where the NPC will be, others seem to be eavesdropping, and the PCs react to that, then make plans on how to confront the slavers. End scene 2.

This is another hard frame. It's a logical frame and goes to where the action is. It's a great dramatic sequence to start things, explain why they are together, what they are trying to accomplish. It skips past lots of things not related to the story. It provides all of the dramatic tension that's needed, and a clear starting point for the next scene.

And it also completely took the thrust of the story away from the characters. By skipping what happened after they escaped the caves, and then met in the tavern, were the decisions as to whether they intended to go after the slavers. Perhaps the characters didn't care about the slavers, or each other for that matter. By skipping everything between scene 1 and scene 2, along with the specific framing of scene 2, the DM took control of the story away from the PCs.

And took control of the PCs away form the players. That scene skip is a full-on railroad.

I'm not saying the other way is bad, it's a great way to create a dramatic story. It's a style of story-telling that can be really exciting and dramatic. As somebody mentioned, it's a James Bond style of story-telling - there are clear start and end points to each scene, with the end of one pointing to the start of the next. There could be thousands of miles between them. Until you get to the end-game where the action is continuous. Sometimes there are a couple of these story arcs leading to the big continuous scenes. And it might be the exact type of story your players want to play.

It has its uses in a few specific situations:

- convention (limited time) games
- tournament games
- games where there is limited time to finish the campaign (e.g. a 1-20 game in a single college term)
- games where the DM has a very short attention span and gets bored easily (I've personally seen this, it wasn't pretty)

Beyond that, however...

But that's not the way everybody wants to play. We find the stuff between "the action" to be where the real meat of the story often exists. The character development occurs in the scenarios like the angry owlbear where they learned something about themselves which altered the direction of the rest of the campaign.

...this is the way to go. Slow down, take the time, and let them decide what to do on their own. Assume the campaign will last forever, and that you've got forever to play it.

Maybe some (most?) story now campaigns don't frame scenes as hard as I think they do. But that seems to be what they are advocating to me, in the same way that 4e recommended that you "skip to the fun parts."

I noticed that recommendation in 4e and thought it rather odd even then.

Either way, the players have agreed that the DM should be framing the scenes dramatically, and skipping over the boring parts. It's not a bad thing, just a different type of approach than I prefer.

Actually it is a bad thing in that it bakes in an often-erroneous assumption of what parts of the game people are going to see as boring. Sometimes what happens between the dramatic set-pieces is far more interesting and engaging than the set-pieces themselves!

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Both these claims are just false. As in, refuted by the actual experience of people running RPGs.

I can narrate a NPC doing something without knowing what that NPC's motivation is, and without even having an idea as to what it might be. Here is a concrete example: the Gynarch of Hardby is engaged to marry Jabal of the Cabal. Why? No one at the table knows. It's a mystery. I introduced this mystery into the game because I thought that it would spur one or more of the PCs to action, given their dispositions and concerns. And I was right about that - it did.

Where my assertion is that for this to have any weight at all, and for it to be consistently acted on and roleplayed by you the DM, you yourself must - must! - know the answer to "Why?" as soon as the mystery is presented. It doesn't matter a whit whether the players and-or characters ever find out or not, but you have to know so you can be consistent in your narrations and actions and not play/write yourself into a corner.

Spurring them to action is great! But you need to know the answers right now, because...

When, in play (possibly our next session) a reason emerges, it won't be an "overwriting" of any earlier fiction, because there was no earlier fiction.

...when that reason emerges it has to be consistent with what has gone before; and the only way to ensure that is to have the backstory nailed in place beforehand. The "earlier fiction" is in your head or your notes.

Likewise in the skulker case. Subsequent episodes of play established that one of his motivations for supporting the hobgoblin army was to wield power in the city where he was an advisor to the baron (because a hobgboblin army created a state of siege which empowered the baron and hence his advisor). But that was not known to me, or anyone, when I first narrated him flying out of the hobgoblin fortress on a flying carpet. At that point the baron hadn't even been established as an element of the shared fiction, nor any sort of hobgoblin operations against the city.

Establishing this later stuff is not rewriting. It is simply writing. Had the game unfolded differently, the fiction would have been different. The city might never beecome anything more to play than a dot on a map; its form of government might have remained undiscovered; and it might have turned out that the yellow-robed skulker was not an advisor to anyone, and had no motivations connected to the baron or the city.

Different strokes, I guess.

You say you're good at sniffing out whether a DM is using pre-planned notes or not; by the same token I'm good at sniffing out inconsistencies and things in the fiction that in hindsight don't make sense, and I'm not shy about calling them out.

I understand that you don't yourself GM in this fashion. But I don't get why it is so hard to see what's going on: that these bits of the fiction are authored by the GM when needed to establish framing or consequences, and not beforehand.

What I don't understand is how you can keep it all consistent. If I'm a player in that game and we as a group see the skulker flying out of the Hob fortress I'm going to assume that he has some reason for being there and that said reason is already locked in as a part of the hidden fiction. Doesn't matter if it ever becomes relevant or visible to the PCs or not; it's still part of the fiction, and if three years later we for some reason happen to find out what the guy was up to the answer given then would be exactly the same as it would be if we found out right now.

It's the same as the real world. I see some guy walk out of a Starbucks (Starbucks...hobgoblin fortress...pretty much the same), get in his car, and drive away. He doubtless had some reason or other for being in the Starbucks, and also had some reason for leaving at that moment. Realistically I'll never know or care what those reasons are, but that's immaterial: they're known to the guy involved in the actions, are locked in as a fact of life, and will be the same whether told to someone right now or told to someone in 5 years.

The same is true of your guy flying out of the Hob fortress. He knows why he's there, and why he's leaving at that particular moment...and if he knows that means you must know as, being an NPC, he's you.

So the time to determine those reasons is, at the very latest, right at the time the PCs see him fly out and leave. Why? Because - to repeat - in the fiction he knows what they are; and as he's you, you must also know.

And there is another thing going on here. The idea of the left fork in a tunnel suggests that we already have a whole lot of backstory established but unknown to the players (eg the classic dungeon map). In which case we already seem to be positing an approach to play where part of what is involved is the players learning what is in the GM's notes (in this case, the map). In which case it would be something like cheating for the GM to just change things around on the fly.

Exactly. Which is why you can't make stuff up now that explains what happened then; you need to have made it up at the same time it happened, otherwise you are in fact changing things around on the fly - except that instead of changing from one thing to another thing you're changing from nothing to something. This is just as big a change, like it or not.

But in the sort of approach I am describing, there is no map of the tunnels prepared in advance in that classic fashion. (I will sometimes use a map as an element in framing - especially in 4e - but that is something different.) So that the PCs went left rather than right is mere colour. The initial choice of a direction to go has no significance for resolution (though it may establish fictional positioning that comes to be of significance down the track).

You keep going on about something being "mere colour" as if it means something. It doesn't.

Whether something has significance for resolution or establishes fictional positioning or is a meaningless diversion is irrelevant. It's all an equally important part of the fiction and all an equally important part of the story being told.

We're in the forest on some important mission and we get attacked by a wandering pack of wolves. While in-character I might be chafing at the delay, you can rest assured that the most important things to me-as-character (and thus, even by your definition, to the story) in that moment in that place is that I not be eaten by wolves; that we find a way to defeat or drive off these wolves; and that we not attract too much other unwanted attention in the process. Even though in the grand scheme of things the wolves may be utterly irrelevant they inescapably do, once beaten, become part of the characters' story.

Lan-"my, what big teeth you have"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

the word "story" can have (at least) two meanings. It can refer to any narrated sequence of events. Or, it can mean a story in something like the literary sense - dramatic need, rising action, complication, climax etc.

Yes, and in this sort of milieu - discussing campaigns and their stories - I only use the first definition: a narrated sequence* of events; though the narration is occurring in a different manner (ongoing and continual) than this rather generic definition probably expects.

* - in the case of a game or campaign, maybe not even all that sequential.

The second definition might apply randomly now and then within a game, but if it comes up all the time in a game that's a red flag that there's some hard railroading going on in order to make it so; whether over the short term (a single encounter) or long term (a whole campaign).

Lanefan