A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[Numidius]

Not an ice-box - fairly similar, seasonally, to Rome. (Single digit max temperatures sometimes happen in winter, but not much, and there is no snow here except the - rather occasional - dusting of some nearby hills.)

Someone from further north in Australia would find it cold, but then they would find Rome cold too in winter! (To get Cape Town type temperatures here you have to go further north, up towards Brisbane - I was at the Gold Coast, just south of Brisbane, in winter last year and had a nice morning swim at the beach, with no need of a wetsuit, before heading off to my conference.)

Yes, you're right about climate.
I meant, this guy used to answer to something like: "Are we cool?" with: "Yes, absolutely ice-box". So much so that I still remember that way of saying

 

[pemerton]

Yes, you're right about climate.
I meant, this guy used to answer to something like: "Are we cool?" with: "Yes, absolutely ice-box". So much so that I still remember that way of saying

Ah, sorry, my literalist mistake! Though there are people in Melbourne who complain about the temperature because they've come from further north - eg a one-time housemate of mine from Darwin, who would spend all winter wearing his parka indoors.

As for "absolutely ice-box" I don't think I've ever heard that one myself.

 

[Sadras]

The thing is, this actually describes a lot of D&D play, especially with modules that GM is running close to the printed material.

Sure, published modules and APs are pretty "fixed". Having said that though, In my table's ToD storyline I'm running things have been very much all over the place with the players selecting ways advantageous for their characters - finding plausible ways to draw dragons out of their lairs and deal with them on their own terms. As I see it, the AP is very much a guide, but you're right many people will be running it as is. In our ToD there are fixed scene-framing, events that have to happen (i.e. each council meeting), but these have been very fluid and the players are free to have their characters skip them.

It's pretty typical for a "find traps' attempt, for example, for the result to be whatever the GM already knows but is now telling the players. Quite often, this is 'no traps'. Sometimes it's "you spot [insert some clue about a possible trap]." I don't think this is at all uncommon in D&D play.

Pemerton was talking about changing the fiction, I'm not convinced "find traps" is a great example of what he was referring to.

 

[Maxperson]

If it's a matter of taste - which is what I said in the OP of this thread - then how can someone be a jerk just because they have different tastes from mine?

From the way in which you post about them I am pretty sure that, for me, the games you and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] run would fall foul of my "significant number" constraint. But presumably neither of you thinks that you are a jerk.

Yeah. What you are describing seems to me to just be playstyle differences, not the DM being a jerk about things.

 

[Sadras]

I didn't talk about the character being surprised or even disappointed. I talked about the player

Is the player not disappointed at the failed saving throw?

The difference that I pointed to between action declaration that can change the fiction, and exploration, is a difference that operates at the table in the play of the game, not one that is discernible within, or pertains to, the content of the fiction itself.

So the puzzle is solved on the meta-level which means when this happens the player, and perhaps, perhaps, this level of happiness/satisfaction is greater than that where the puzzle is solved via die roll as it is the player who solves it not the character. To be very clear this is not a discussion of what roleplay system is better, but my understanding is if you're saying the lows are low in DM-decides, then it kinda makes sense to say that the highs are high in same such game. Yes no?

From the way in which you post about them I am pretty sure that, for me, the games you and @Maxperson run would fall foul of my "significant number" constraint. But presumably neither of you thinks that you are a jerk.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about Max's games to comment, in fact I know less about his games than I do yours since you've been pretty generous with your playtest reports on your various games. Significant is a subjective word, you might interpret it as 1-x DM adjudications, I might interpret it as y or more. When you use that word I'm thinking extreme and then the jerk DM application is applicable (for me).

EDIT: Rightfully so, if your bar is very strict, given that you have perhaps judged that an entire playstyle is MMI, then yes I would be agree with you I may be a jerk DM in your eyes.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure, published modules and APs are pretty "fixed". Having said that though, In my table's ToD storyline I'm running things have been very much all over the place with the players selecting ways advantageous for their characters - finding plausible ways to draw dragons out of their lairs and deal with them on their own terms. As I see it, the AP is very much a guide, but you're right many people will be running as is. In our ToD there are the fixed scene-framing (i.e. each council meeting), but these have been very fluid and the players are free to have their characters skip them.



Pemerton was talking about changing the fiction, I'm not convinced "find traps" is a great example of what he was referring to.

You're absolutely right [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] isn't talking about action declarations to get info from the GM, but 'find traps' is a staple of D&D play that is, in fact, to find out info from the GM so you don't accidentally fall afoul of his notes when you open the door/walk down the hall/open the chest. I guess I skipped to normal D&D play where 'find traps' is something players are essentially taught to do before getting to the changing fiction actions -- they're taught to ask for information before moving to changing the fiction.

If a player instead just opens the door, then their attempt to change the fiction (door is open) is then altered by the GM telling them some things about the world (the trap goes off).

Traps are an interesting thing in RTD games, because they're either part of the initial scene framing (ie, part of the initial challenge) or added as a consequence to a failed check. They aren't very much at all like D&D traps.

 

[Lanefan]

So here's a fairly uncontroversial idea: bartenders who swap water for gin, or vic versa, aren't doing something perfectly fine. Even leaving aside the breach of laws that regulate the commercial provision of alcholic beverages, there is the social issue: they're doing wrong by their patrons.

Of course. But none of that saves me from the here-and-now situation of being surprised by my surroundings - in this case gin masquerading as water. (which, btw, could just as easily happen at home as in a bar)

And I can tell you, if I was playing in a game where a signficant number of my attempts to change the fiction got reframed by the GM as opportunities to provide me with the outcomes of exploration - ie to tell me more about the gameworld and fiction as they conceive of it - then that wouldn't be fine and I'd be out of there quick smart.

Which tells me that a) you don't like being deceived by elements in the setting (e.g. the water is actually gin) and b) you don't like being surprised when things aren't as they appear.

I take it you don't often (if at all) use illusions in framing your scenes, i.e. where much or all of what you describe to the players is an elaborate illusion intended to deceive the viewers (the PCs) either to give a false impression or an early combat advantage. Pity.

One cool encounter we had a few years back: party is in a palace; within this palace is an area filled with rock riddled with small narrow tunnel-like passages. Once we're in these passages we get repeatedly attacked by creatures stepping out of the walls, swinging weapons, and then blending back in often before we could react. Took us forever to figure out the "passages" were all illusory and we were in fact in one great big chamber.

Says who? It could be a race. An attempt to deliver a message. This seems like sheer projection.

If these are the case then it'd be exploration. See below.

The same is true of your discussion of other examples. Eg buying things in BW is not mostly about social interaction at all, but is primarily about how the resource stat is affected.

I'll concede this wouldn't count as social if the whole transaction was done via interaction with machines (in our real world this would equate to online ordering leading to robotic delivery). But as soon as the PC interacts with a shopkeeper it's social, even if it isn't role-played out at the table.

In what sense is either case (the desert crossing, or me describing to the players the situation in which their PCs find themselves) exploration?

Desert crossing: see below.

Describing the situation: in order to receive that description it's assumed that the PCs are using their senses (vision, hearing, scent, etc.) to determine what's around them; the very act of which is pure exploration.

Here's how the 5e D&D Basic PDF describes exploration (p 5):

Exploration includes both the adventurers’ movement through the world and their interaction with objects and situations that require their attention. Exploration is the give-and-take of the players describing what they want their characters to do, and the Dungeon Master telling the players what happens as a result. On a large scale, that might involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or an hour making their way through caverns underground. On the smallest scale, it could mean one character pulling a lever in a dungeon room to see what happens.​

I bolded the key bits there - crossing a desert would seem to count as movement through the world, hm?

In my Traveller game, last session, a group of PCs was being pursued by mercenaries and Imperial Marines in a faster, better-armed vehicle, and so surrendered. I described to them the circumstances in which they found themselves as prisoners (incuding that there were force-fields of a particular type to keep warm air inside an open-air area). That's not exploration, that's just the GM describing the situation. Having the GM tell the players about the PCs' circumstances isn't exploration - isn't "interacting with objects". It's the functional equivalent of reading the boxed text in a module.

The pursuit sounds like an offshoot of combat. The social bit where they surrender and thus interact with their pursuers looks by this description to have been skipped, leading straight to you describing their situation in prison - which looks from here like describing what happens as a result of their action, which was to surrender. Failing that, to get this description the PCs would still have to engage their senses as noted above.

In other words, exploration no matter how you slice it.

And the last time I adjudicated a desert crossing was in BW. The PCs knew where they were going. There was no exploration, either in the fiction (the PCs weren't exploring) or in the process of resolution (the players weren't learning the content of the fiction from the GM).

They weren't exploring in the sense of discovering something new, but they were in the exploration pillar nonetheless as they were moving through the world.

The actual question resolved by the action resolution was whether or not they would make it to the foothills and find the fresh water there. The outcome - given the relevant check failed - was that when they got to the waterhole it had been fouled by an enemy. There was no "give-and-take" here, and the players weren't being told the result of their journey by the GM: there was a framed, and ultimately unscuccessful, Orienteering check. Had it succeeded, the players' vision for the fiction (safe arrival at fresh water) would have been what happened. But because it failed, I as GM got to establish an adverse vision of the fiction instead.

All this is simply describing the mechanics of how a particular system handles an action (or series of) in the exploration pillar.

But that's not what I talked about. I referred to the need to succeed at checks to avoid misjump, enging failure and the like.

Again, just mechanics surrounding exploration.

RPGs can cover any ficitonal events that can be conveived of - and human endeaour extends beyond talking to people, fighting them and looking for them.

And each respective pillar extends far beyond those examples.

The "three pillars" of 5e, and your "four pillars", are a jumble of in-fiction and at-the-table characterisations of PC actions. In Cortex+ there are Action Scenes and Transition Scenes - differentiated both by their role in the fiction and (more importntly) their role in pacing and conflict at the table.

In Burning Wheel there is either "say 'yes'" or else there is confict, which is resolved via checks. Whether the conflict is about fighting, persuading, or makng it safely across a desert, the mechanical basics are the same.

Again you come back to mechanics.

Back off from the mechanics for a moment and consider the underlying thing that's transpiring in the fiction. A group of PCs are crossing a desert - OK, fine; but that's exploration no matter what specific mechanics (or lack thereof) get overlaid by the game system in use.

But anyway, I've already listed some stuff that doesn't fall under any of your pillars, in that it is not fighting, not talking, and not just "give and take where players say what their PCs do and GM tells them what happens": runing a race; and ensuring that a spaceship successfully makes a jump. More examples would include successfully placing a secret message (happened in my second-to-last Traveller game), trying to ensure a message is sent to your family so they can join you at an event (happened in my last Prince Valiant game), intercepting or blocking communiation signals (a recurrent element in my Traveller game), repairing a vehicle, testing the DNA of an alien creature, making checks to avoid being caught doing illegal things (al Traveller again), lighting a campfire (Burning Wheel), recalling a fact, etc, etc.

Hmmm - a challenge.

Running a race = combat, of a sort
Ensuring a spaceship makes a clean jump = exploration as the goal (the jump itself) with associated preparations
Successfully placing a secret message = social as the goal (successful receipt of the message) with associated preparations
Ensuring a message is sent = social as the goal (successful receipt of the message) with possible other elements depending on what means are required to ensure it gets sent
Intercepting/blocking comm signals = social (in the negative sense of blocking social interaction), and exploration if the intent is to gather information from the intercepted signals
Repairing a vehicle = downtime (probably)
Testing a creature's DNA = exploration (information gathering) and-or downtime (research)
Making checks to avoid getting caught = irrelevant (pure mechanics); it's the illegal acts themselves, whether successful or not, that would fall under a pillar - can't say which as what those acts are isn't given
Lighting a campfire = downtime (probably); or social if the intent is to send a signal or have it be a beacon
Recalling a fact = could be any of social, exploration, or downtime; depends on the context in which the fact needs to be recalled (and, possibly, what the fact is)

Spout Lore and Discern Realities (in DW), or the scenario I described from my Traveller game, are not the give-and-take of the players describing what they want their characters to do, and the Dungeon Master telling the players what happens as a result. They don't involve the revelaion of hidden information (maybe in the fiction it might be hidden, but not necessarily). They're examples of players activating the mechanics to oblige the GM to make some stuff up! The sort of thing the GM makes up depends on the outcomes of the check(s) at issue.

I think we mostly agree on this, though one could just as easily say the give-and-take bit applies here too:

the players describing what they want their characters to do (they want their characters to learn more information)
the Dungeon Master telling the players what happens as a result (you get more information, which consists of ...)

5e D&D simply doesn't contemplate this sort of thing in its account of "exploration". And there are features of the game - namely, the lack of an appropriate system of checks - that would make it hard to introduce. (This is a marked contrast with 4e, which is easily run this way.)

In the fiction, of course this happens. In my Traveller game one of the PCs has Jack-of-all-Trades-4. But as a resolution method, no, not really. When actions are declared the players know the general way that resolution will be determined (eg in Traveller, the default is a 2 dice throw), and we throw the dice and see what happens.

It's not any sort of coincidence that this post keeps coming back to the framing of checks. Making checks is the most obvious alternative to GM decides in order to esetablish the content of the shared fiction.

What's more telling is that the post kept coming back to game mechanics; particularly just above where you point out that 5e doesn't have an appropriate system of checks. The presence or absence of supporting game mechanics has nothing to do with the presence or absence of an underlying pillar of play.

Exploration is still exploration and the PCs (very likely!) still want to know what's around them regardless of whether this is achieved by straight GM narration or by skill challenges or by the framing of a scene or whatever.

 

[Lanefan]

I didn't talk about the character being surprised or even disappointed. I talked about the player - like turning up to an invitation to a bridge tournament only to find they're all playing poker instead.

Of course characters will be disappointed all the time in RPGing.

Exactly - and if the character is disappointed one would kind of expect the player to also be disappointed, if only because she's playing in character.

Sort of comes back to keeping player knowledge and character knowledge the same, such that their reactions will also mirror.

 

[darkbard]

The presence or absence of supporting game mechanics has nothing to do with the presence or absence of an underlying pillar of play.

OMFG! How many of these conversations have you partaken in over the years?! It seems like you learn nothing from this interaction: you're so locked in to the parameters of D&D c. 1988. Why not actually read a rulebook from some other game methodology and see how it challenges the preconceptions you take for granted as built in to RPGing?

I honestly don't understand the impulse to partake in conversations like these if you're not going to do the basic work of understanding where other posters are coming from!

EDIT: I acknowledge the above might sound harsh, but I don't mean it personally. I just really don't understand what you (or others!) might hope from these conversations if you don't take the steps of understanding where the other "side" is coming from. And posts like this indicate that you're not even listening, let alone following up on what is said.

 

[Sadras]

Traps are an interesting thing in RTD games, because they're either part of the initial scene framing (ie, part of the initial challenge) or added as a consequence to a failed check. They aren't very much at all like D&D traps.

That is certainly different and from my PoV would be better for my table. I'm not a huge fan of the way D&D presents them at least not how I DM for our current games* but if I were running a 1e/2e/BECMI game per book, as I think Bedrockgames does from time to time, then perhaps in that style it would work. I have only done that once properly in my later more experienced years, and it was an absolute blast.

* I prefer the surprises to be a narrative twist or part of the solving the puzzle process rather than a 'gotcha' if that makes sense.