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

[hawkeyefan]

I don't think that there are 3 types. I think that there are only 2. The first type you mention I don't think exists. No matter what level of authority a DM has, some will like it and some won't, and opinions will vary on how much is appropriate and how it should be used. That leaves us your number 2 and 3 as the only types out there.

My categories were already taking subjectivity into account. There are 3 types of games.

1) Games that work.
2) Games that don’t work.
3) Games that partially work.

Are you really saying that there are no games of D&D that fall into category 1?

Obviously, where a particular game is would be a subjective thing. You might think a game is working fine, and I may think it’s working okay, and yet another person thinks it’s awful. That’s all fine. But objectively there are those three categories.

Would you agree with that?

"Mother May I" and "Railroad" DMs abuse their authority and most think those are bad. The rest want to discuss the grey area that's left.

The OP may have wanted to discuss the kind of game that falls into the grey area, but by inviting people to discuss things using the pejorative "Mother May I," even if it isn't how HE would refer to the games, he caused the discussion to devolve into hundreds of pages of arguing over the term and how it should not be applied to the playstyles people are trying to apply it to. People have strong feelings about the kinds of games they like being insulted by such terms. The OP should have said that he wanted to discuss X, and that no pejorative terms should be used in the discussion as they just cause problems and derail threads.

The OP did not cause anyone to do anything. Each of us has chosen to engage in this conversation to whatever extent we have because of our own inclinations.

It’s incredibly clear at this point, and has been for tens of pages worth of comments, that the OP did not mean MMI in a pejorative manner. You’ve been arguing that for dozens of posts, and have made some really strange arguments along the way (i.e. a DM fudging a die roll is actually a DM preserving chance? Um...okay....).

As I’ve said in a couple of posts, we need to try and be aware of context and intent. If you didn’t quite grasp the fact that MMI was not really being used pejoratively in the OP, okay that’s fine....but in the subsequent clarifications and qualifications that have been made, have you realized it?

I didn't say "doesn't always exercise that power." What I sad was "doesn't exercise that power." There''s a big difference between the two. Yours involves at least some instances of the DM railroading the players. Mine involves no such abuses, yet was still being called "Mother May I."

Right. Two things on this.

First, a DM who never really abuses the authority granted to him by the default assumptions of D&D is probably running the kind of game that his players expect, and would likely fall into category 1 above. So not much to talk about there; things are going fine and they should proceed and enjoy. The issue is in games where it does come up.

Second, for some, a system where there is even a possibility that the GM can at any point in time bend the game to his desires is one that some folks don’t enjoy. Even if the DM proves to be principled in his judgment and rulings, that kind of system does not appeal to them.

As I mentioned in another recent response, during background I let the players come up with towns, NPCs, and sometime monsters if done well. During game play not so much, but it's not 100% unheard of and usually pertains to background that hasn't been fully fleshed out.

Okay, I’m almost reluctant to bring this one up but hey let’s use this old chestnut....

Our 3rd level party is attacked by strange creatures, giant green skinned monsters with long noses and wicked claws. They are vicious and what’s worse, their wounds heal before our eyes!!!

Let’s say we’re at a table of veteran players. One rolls his eyes and then declares that his character lights a torch and throws an oil flask at one of the creatures. He says “Tordek’s Uncle Elmo told him about such creatures, they’re vulnerable to flame!” The other players smile and nod.

Here the player is basically saying “I’m not really interested in a random encounter with trolls and in pretending my character doesn’t know about their vulnerability, so I’ve come up with a way around it”.

How the DM responds to this situation is what is in question. Based on your comments in this thread, I thibk you’d consider this solution cheating, and you’d deny it.

Which to me is far worse than metagaming because basically the whole group looked at the encounter and said “not interested” and the DM denied their preferences and proceeded with running things how he wanted. Which is kind of a strong example f the DM being a jerk, in my oponion.

So the MMI flaw in GM Driven game systems can surface in a variety of ways, and how it’s handled can vary greatly as well.

Such a mismatch is generally solved by leaving the game and finding players or a DM that matches your expectations. Occasionally, the players or DM can change and still enjoy the game.

Or playing a different game or having a discussion and coming to some kind of compromise that all can live with or any number of other options.

In the case of the OP in the original thread, perhaps asking others how to incorporate some player driven content in order to help engage a player.

I agree with that.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell. You seem to have a very binary view.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

What I'm doing is simply pointing out how what "the other side" (if in fact there's sides here rather than a bunch of individual viewpoints) is saying is rooted in the same underlying foundations as what I'm saying.

That those underlying foundations were first hard-coded by an edition of D&D (as opposed to any other RPG) is of no matter. All that hard-coding does is put into words that which has existed all along and which still exists: that 99+% of RPG play is going to involve at least one of these four things: combat, exploration, social interaction, or PC downtime.

Sure, different RPG systems might have different terms for these things* and will apply different game mechanics when they arise in play, but the underlying idea remains.

* - including, wilfully or otherwise, denying the existence of one or more of these foundations; which seems rather self-defeating from the design side. "Let's design an RPG that doesn't include [pick one: combat, exploration, social interaction] in any way" doesn't seem like a premise that's going to get very far.

 

[Numidius]

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.

Actually I love those moments of alchemy. Comes to mind the first session of the Vampire game I joined: the Gm handed me the character sheet of my Malkavian with a depressive mania, talked for some time, then Game started and an UberNpc gave his long and instructive speech in-character introducing my Pc to the party and Npc and "breafing" us on the present situation. So this man, the Gm, just spoke for about an hour in total. At the end the UberNpc/Gm asked me if I had questions... I started laughing out loud at the table, inside me considering the asylum I entered voluntarily, in & out of character. Then I described the Malkavian recompose himself from the hysterical laugh, sitting down in place on the floor, staring at bystanders.

Fond memories. After that the psychological thriller began...

 

[Aldarc]

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.

So have you looked into Dungeon World?

 

[pemerton]

Is the player not disappointed at the failed saving throw?

Sure. And the player will also be disappoined if someone drops a mug on her foot that breaks a toe. But that wasn't what I was talking about.

If I turn up to a bridge tournament and lose a hand, then I'm disappointed in the sense that I lost. But I'm not disappointed to be playing bridge - that's what I turned up to do. If I turn up to a bridge tournament and find everyone's playing poker, though, that's a different sort of disappointment. I've been tricked, my hopes raised and then dashed.

We have a phrase for someone whose disappointment at losing makes them regret having taken part at all - a bad sport.

But it's not being a bad sport to be disappointed at having been tricked into attending a poker tournament because it was advertised as a bridge tournament.

If I turn up to play a RPG, and I find that what is really going on is that the GM is telling me his/her story - which is to say, if my attempts at changing the fiction by way of action declaration routinely default to the GM rendering it exploration and telling me more about the fiction - then I will be out of there.

And that's not hypothetical. I've left games for this reason.

he 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?

I don't understand what you're saying or how it relates to my post that you quoted. Which puzzles? What highs and lows?

I'm saying that if I turn up to play a RPG, that is, to particpate in establishing a shared fiction; and find, instead, that a good chunk of what is happening is the GM is revealing fiction to me as the result of my acion declarations; then I'm out. (I might hang around for a little bit of free kriegsspiel play, where the fiction is not an end in itself but a vehicle for puzzle solving, but not too much as I'm not really into it.)

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.

This is backwards. You're not a jerk GM. You're just someone I may not want to play RPGs with. What is the moralistic language adding?

 

[pemerton]

for some, a system where there is even a possibility that the GM can at any point in time bend the game to his desires is one that some folks don’t enjoy. Even if the DM proves to be principled in his judgment and rulings, that kind of system does not appeal to them.

I want to pick up on this.

Let's look, concretely, at a particular episode of RPG play. I'll draw again on the example of Discern Realities/Spout Lore, and the piece of Traveller play that I compared to this.

Discern Realities and Spout Lore provide a framework in which a player can oblige a GM to elaborate on the established fiction, in a way that connects to the interests/concerns of the player in respect of that fiction. To work, these DW moves depend on a few things being the case:

* There must be an established but "gappy" fiction. To see why, consider a Spout Lore result which requires the GM to tell the player something true and useful - the presence of this move, and this possible result, as part of the gameplay means that the GM is precluded from already having estabished everything about the fiction, which would create the possibility of there being nothing more useful to learn.

* Following from the above, it depends on their being ways of resolving other sorts of action resolution - like, say, we hurry to the next corner or we sneak across town avoiding being spotted by any sect members - that don't depend on maps and keys and notes about the locations of sect members and wargame-type movement rules. Because those ways of resolving moving and sneaking and so on only work if the fiction is fully established in precisely the way that it can't be for the DW moves to work.

* There must be some known goal or orientation or trajectory of play, such that the notion of useful makes sense. This establishes, straight away, a contrast with RPGing in which the players keep their plans and intentions secret from the GM.

* As the flip-side of the above, there must be some clear sense of what would count as adversity or a setback for the PCs (and thus the players), so that the GM can make a meaningful move on a roll of 6-.​

So can you implement the DW approach in 5e D&D? To me, it seems not super-easily: 5e D&D doesn't have clear mechanics for resolving moving and sneaking and the like other than the classic wargame approach, which means it doesn't properly handle "gappy" fiction. And 5e D&D, by default, doesn't really encourage clear trajectories of play, and a clear sense of adversity, in the way that these DW moves depend upon.

Could 5e D&D be tweaked to change this? Well, introducing clear goals and adversity might be easy enough. But then you'll bump into the central resolution system, which, outside of combat, doesn't clearly support ntent and task action declaration and fail forward action resolution, and rellies very heavily on GM intuition to set DCs.

Again, there are tweaks and workarounds and so on possible here, but that still leaves us with the issue of "gappy" fiction. Eg a relevant consideration for resolving hiding/sneaking in 5e D&D is whether or not someone is looking at the character. That is, the presence and location (in the fiction) of observers is an input into resolution. But resolving movement and sneaking in "gappy" fiction depends on a system where that sort of thing can be an output of resolution.

Can this be worked around too? Maybe - I'm not a 5e expert by any means. What I'm trying to point out is that system is intimately and intricately linked to the feasible range of techniques that can be used, and hence is apt to produce a particular sort of play experience. And while some posters in this thread have talked about the flexibility of D&D, and about picking and choosing among techniques, there are some failry deep features of 5e as a system that make it hard to use it to produce the sort of experience that DW will.

Classic Traveller can be contrasted with 5e D&D in some of these respects: first, its PC gen (the first lifepath system) produces characters with richer implicit backstory, and hence more readily emergent goals for play, than does 5e D&D; second, it has a system for random patron generation which can produce a patron without depedning on extrapolation from established fiction (hence producing less pressure for non-"gappy" fiction); third, it has a system for random world generation which can produce implicit situation (eg how do people survive on this high-pop but low-tech world with a tainted atmosphere?) again without needing the fiction to be filled in; fourth, its base move action is the interstellar jump, which can be resolved without needing a detailed, non-"gappy" map; fifth, it has a reaction roll table which can be used to extrapolate NPC reactions without needing to know what the underlying fiction is that explains that reaction, again supporting "gappy" fiction; and it has other random content generation systems also.

I drew on these features when (i) presenting a patron and a mission, and (ii) subsequently adjudicating the attempt by the player in my first Traveller session to extract more information from the PCs' patron about the nature of the mission she was sending them on.

Drifting Classic Traveller to play something like DW (not the same - more randomness, for a start!) is easier than doing the same with 5e - it has more supporting frameworks, and fewer assumptions about how framing and resolution work that will create problems.

 

[pemerton]

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.

You're draing the wrong inference.

What it tells you is I don't like a game where the focus is on learning the pre-established fiction as opposed to changing the fiction.

Deciet by elements in the setting is fine, if it is the output of action resolution.

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.

<snip>

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.

Given that this whole thread is about resolution techniques, why would I back off from discussing them?

Te content of the fiction is largely irrelevant to whether a RPG gives a good or bad experience. Proof: if it was otherwise, then it would make no difference whether the game proceeded in the typical mode of a RPG, or whether it proceeded by the players just sitting there and having the GM tell them a story. Because both things can produce excactly the same fiction. But the first might be fun while the second will almost certainly suck.

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)

This is all pointless and bizarre. Only a few bits of it are worth respoding to.

Running a race is not a combat. It's a competition.

Making sure a starship engine doesn't fail during jump is not exploring anything. It's performing a mechanical task. The only reason you "pillars" don't have a craft/repair element to them is because that's never been a significant focus of D&D play, because D&D is set in a pre-technological world. And the reason you label repairing a vehicle as "downtime" is because, in D&D, magic item crafting is framed as something that happens outside the main focus of dungeoneering play. This is why I described your classification as projection: you've so internalised the dynamics of D&D c 1980 or thereabouts that you seem to find it literally inconceivable that there might be RPGs which don't focus on dungeon-delving or bank robbing as the main part of play.

In my Prince Valiant game, we played a scenario in which the PC knights accompanied a crimson bull to a swamp, where it was to be killed by a pagan wise woman. On the way through they had some strange interactions with the bull, and wondered and debated what to do with it. In the end, one of them used his dagger blessed by St Sigobert to dispel a demonic spirit that was possessing the bull; and in doing so, so impressed the wise woman that she agreed to be baptised at the Shrine of St Sigobert.

Nothing was being explored. No maps were drawn by me as GM or by the players - we jointly looked at our map of Britain at the back of the Pendragon hardback to get a general sense of where the PCs were travelling to, and then the journey was simply narrated (You walk for a day through the forest; You arrive at the valley; etc). There were some social elements to the scenario - eg talking to the bull - but that was not all of it. The hurling of the dagger into the mist of the demon as it left the body of the bull was not combat in any genuine sense - there was no fight going on.

D&D doesn't exhaust the possible range of fiction, nor the possible range of play techniques, that can figure in RPGing. It adds nothing to our understanding of how RPGing works to try and cram everything into D&D's categories.

What I'm doing is simply pointing out how what "the other side" (if in fact there's sides here rather than a bunch of individual viewpoints) is saying is rooted in the same underlying foundations as what I'm saying.

That those underlying foundations were first hard-coded by an edition of D&D (as opposed to any other RPG) is of no matter. All that hard-coding does is put into words that which has existed all along and which still exists: that 99+% of RPG play is going to involve at least one of these four things: combat, exploration, social interaction, or PC downtime.

Sure, different RPG systems might have different terms for these things* and will apply different game mechanics when they arise in play, but the underlying idea remains.

This is so backwards it's hard to put into words.

It's a bit like saying that all road transport can be explained in terms of steering wheels, drive shafts and carburetors. And then insisting that a motorcycles handlebars and chain are really a streering wheel and a drive shaft.

Or that all moving piectures can be explained in terms of light projected through a film onto a screen - and then analysing a TV in those terms (I'll let someone else work out how one could even go about that analysis).

In my Prince Valiant game, there is no difference between the narration of "downtime" (OK, seasons pass, you hear rumours of Saxon invasion) and the narration of travel (OK, you travel for a few days, and you arrive back at Warwick).

In my Burning Wheel game, the action resolution for recovering resources, or recovering health, over an extended period of ingame time is no different from the action resolution for buying a sword or for bluffing a guard or for climbing a fence. There's no notion of "downtime", because there's no notion of the adventure or the dungeon expedition as there is in D&D. There are different things that players might have their PCs do, that take different amounts of ingame time, and are resolved via different ratios of ingame to real-world time.

We've already established that breaking interpersonal conflict out into distinct "combat" and "social" categories means that athletics competitions can't be accounted for; in Cortex+ Heroic there is no difference between these things at all, and - for instance - a character can cause another to wilt in shame by besting him/her in swordplay. Similarly, in the example of play for Marvel Heroic RP we see Wolverine using his Adamantium Claws in a dice pool used to inflict Emotional Stress (ie scaring off some enemy NPCs). This sort of thing is omething that D&D doesn't easily allow for. (Hence the recurrent discussions of why it is that bards are more intimidating than barbarians.)

As [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] said not far upthread, why not start trying to think about other RPGs, and the techniques and approaches they involve, on their own terms rather than through this narrow and distorting lens of 80s-style D&D.

 

[pemerton]

Re traps:

In one of my Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy sessions, is used a scene complication of Deadly Traps. Mechanically, this allowed me to add an extra die to my pools against the PCs, making it more likely I would be able to succeed and inflict adverse conditions on them. And the Scout PC was able to use his Alertness SFX to "Step back any stress, trauma or complication caused by traps or snares".

In gameplay terms, the function of this was (1) colour, which (2) provided the fictional peg on which to hang the use of a PC's special ability, and (3) an increase in the overall level of mechanical adversity confronting the PCs (and their players).

This is very different from how traps work in (say) the Tomb of Horrors. There's no exploration, solving puzzles, etc. The feel of it is more like a sequence in the X-Men's Danger Room or escaping from an ancient temple in Indiana Jones. (Which is a deliberate result of the game design.)

 

[pemerton]

Re the idea of having a trajectory or goal of play

On another thread recently a poster who is not participating in this thread (and so I won't quote directly, but rather will paraphrase) talked about playing a WotC 5e D&D AP for many sessions. The poster described the play as "directionless at times", with a lot of random following of leads, but "awesome fun" with the GM doing a good job of bringing the setting to life.

Now I assert that this sort of play literally could not happen in Dungeon World. (It couldn't happen in Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic either. And it couldn't happen in BW without manifesting at the table as a power struggle between players and GM.) For instance, there can't be random following of leads in DW, because of the Discern Realities and Spout Lore moves; and more generally there can't be directionless play because the whole game is oriented around GM moves that impart direction in response to player moves that also impart direction.

That means that for anyone who wants that sort of play ("awewsome fun") DW is not a suitable system.

And, conversely, for anyone who thinks that sounds like a terrible RPG experience (eg me) then I have a good reason to doubt that 5e is the right system for me.

 

[S'mon]

OT: Downtime as a formal concept is actually very recent for me - I've only really started using it since 2017. In my 2015-17 5e D&D Wilderlands game we pretty much played through every minute, and that's much how I recall running games from 1984 onwards (when I got into RPGs) also.

More broadly, I find 5e's "Three Pillars + Downtime" a highly functional approach to thinking about how the game works, much better than 4e's "Get to the FUN!!!" - it's obviously not the only way to run an RPG, and wouldn't work well for other systems - eg 4e does not 'like' an Exploration pillar IME, and fights me when I try to include it, while Traveller or Call of Cthulu may work better without a formal Combat pillar, and Storygames may have a completely different premise (story now) with shared world-building that requires there not be a players-explore-the-world pillar. You can explore what lies in the hearts of your fellow players, instead.