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

[Numidius]

Thanks [MENTION=6972053]Numidius[/MENTION]. When you had said "puzzle solving using real-life psychology" I at first though you had meant the GM had (deliberately) posed a puzzle to you that he expected you to solve by application of real life psychology. But now I realise that you meant that the whole at-the-table situation, including the Gm, confronted you with a puzzle which you solved by application of real life psychology by coming up with a plan that would enable you to get things moving.

I hope you're able to have a fruitful conversation with your friends. The play that you're describing sounds really painful!

Seems to me that players are kinda waiting for the info dump by the Gm before even starting to think of stating goals, while this info is not gonna come and instead the Gm already is playing, slowing introducing things/Npcs... and if players don't actively declare, he goes on that way

 

[pemerton]

Seems to me that players are kinda waiting for the info dump by the Gm before even starting to think of stating goals, while this info is not gonna come and instead the Gm already is playing, slowing introducing things/Npcs... and if players don't actively declare, he goes on that way

A GM in actor stance can be a dangerous thing!

 

[Maxperson]

There is not a shred of a reason to think that this claim is true.

Right. There's not a shred of reason to think that because rules don't preclude my fighter's longsword from detonating with a nuclear explosion every time he hits something, that explosion is included. Except that there is. Things like the above being true if your claim is correct are far more than a "shred of reason" to think that my claim is true. You don't get to just say that this thing that isn't precluded is automatically included, but not that nuclear explosion over there. Failure to preclude does not mean inclusion.

 

[Maxperson]

Why give autor stance that label? Because the player, in moving his/her "piece" in a way that gives effect to his/her priorities, is also authoring the character by establishing appropriate mental states in the fiction that, within the fiction, make sense of the character's actions. A pretty typical example: in the first session of a D&D game, a player decides that his PC approaches the other PCs in the tavern, declaring that "My guy thinks that pair of elves looks pretty interesting, and so I introduce myself to them" - the player's real world priority (of getting the party together) is what actually motivates the action declaration, but the player retroactively imputes a motivation to his/her PC ("those elves look pretty interesting").

To declare actions in actor stance, those motivations already need to be established, so that there is sufficient material to infer actions without needing to introduce the player's real world priorities.

You are inventing this need for motivations when Actor stances does not have them. Period.

Here it is for you again, since you keep missing it, "In Actor stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have."

See? Not one word about motivation. Character knowledge and perceptions are the only criteria. Once again, you are attempting to redefine something to suit your personal argument in order to poo poo on what someone else is doing.

No it's not. Where does your PC's motivation to look for a trail come from?

That's not required for actor stance.

Choices and decision are grounded in motivations. The player can either decide for his/her PC using real world motivations ("priorities"), in which case we have author stance. Or can decide using only the PC's mental states and extrapolating from them, in which case we have actor stance.

Sure, but the motivation can be as simple as, "I want to go look at those woods." When my PC, without any background or any other knowledge was placed in front of those woods, I used his knowledge and perception that the woods existed to make an actor stance decision to go to those woods. That decision automatically included the motivation of "I want to go look at those woods." There is no need for this deeper "richness" you keep trying to insert into actor stance.

The key assumption throughout all these games is that if a gaming experience is to be intelligent (and all Fantasy Heartbreakers make this claim), then the most players can be relied upon to provide is kind of the "Id" of play - strategizing, killing, and conniving throughout the session. They are the raw energy, the driving "go," and the GM's role is to say, "You just scrap, strive, and kill, and I'll show ya, with this book, how it's all a brilliant evocative fantasy."

It's not Illusionism - there's no illusion at all, just movement across the landscape and the willingness to fight as the baseline player things to do. At worst, the players are apparently slathering kill-counters using simple alignment systems to set the bar for a given group . . .; sometimes, they are encouraged to give characters "personality" like "hates fish" or "likes fancy clothes"; and most of the time, they're just absent from the text, "Player who? Character who?" . . . The Explorative, imaginative pleasure experienced by a player - and most importantly, communicated among players - simply doesn't factor into play at all, even in the more Simulationist Fantasy Heartbreakers, which are universally centered on Setting.​

Wow. Even at the worst roleplaying I took part in, when I was in junior high and didn't know any better, we weren't engaging in that. No wonder people dismiss Ron Edwards and the Forge so often, if that's what he's claiming happens "most of the time." But yeah, that's not at all applicable to my game or the descriptions I gave above about actor stance. Nor does it apply in any way to refute what I am saying about actor stance. I will refer you to the Forge's actual definition of actor where motivation isn't a part of the definition. Probably because motivation automatically gets inserted into every decision.

To build on what Edwards says here, of course one can trivially "convert" pawn stance into actor stance if one posits that one's PC has no motivations other than those of Edwards's "Id": a drive to "win" by killing and looting. But the goal of post-D&D "simulationist" FRPGs like RQ, C&S and the like is to enable actor stance in a richer sense than this, by providing sufficient context (psychological and/or social) to permit a relatively rich inhabitation of the PC and resultant actor stance action declarations.

This is precisely an example of Edwards's "Id". There's no character here, no in-fiction motivation. Just raw drive, which is indistinguishable from the player's desire to succeed at the game by beating the dungeon.

Which simply does not apply to anything that I've said on the subject of actor stance. You are conflating hack n' slash games with a non-hack n' slash game that simply lacks "richness."

Of course, but that tells us nothing about stance. If those motivations are determined as part of the process of action declaration - which in RPGing they very commonly are - then we have author stance.

No. In author stance the motivation is the player's, not the characters. If the motivation is a part of the action declaration and is the PC's, it's actor stance, as 1. motivation is not required for actor stance, and 2. the motivation is the PC's.

Basically, to be author stance the motivation has to be the player's AND there is no attempt at all to act based on the PC's knowledge and perceptions. If you are acting based on the PC's knowledge and perceptions, then it's actor stance, which automatically has an in-character motivation for the act.

Similarly, if your decide that your PC looks for a trail through the woods because you, the player, are thinking about what seems like a sensible thing to do in a wargaming sense, and you then impute to your PC a belief that trails lead to safety, that is author stance too.

Sure. I didn't do that. I looked to the woods, because based on m character's knowledge of the situation and perceptions, it was the what he wanted to do. There was no "wargaming sense" sense. It was simply an in-character motivation to 1. see the woods, and 2. find safety. There was no attempt on my part to use a "real person's priorities" to make the decision, so no author stance could happen.

For instance, my priority could be to have encounters and gain levels, but the decision my PC made at those woods was to see the woods and find safety. Those are two different motivations and I only made the decision based on actor stance.

An author deciding what Spot does next, and a player deciding what his/her PC does next, are very similar (in some cases perhaps identical) decision-situations, and both can be approached in actor or author stance as defined by Ron Edwards. (You can't write a story in pawn stance, at least if your character is to have any inner life at all.)

The difference is in what motivates the declaration. If it's the player's desire, it's author, unless you go back and motivate after the fact, then it's pawn. If it's the PC's knowledge and perceptions, then there is no retroactive motivation going on as the motivation is included WITH the declaration and it's actor stance.

When Kubasik says "Modules disintegrated the moment a player got the bright idea of having his character become a lord by courting a princess," he is talking about courting the princess being the actual substance of play. I have played Prince Valiant session in which courting noble ladies has been the principle focus of play. The system supports that. It supports romantic rivalry, whether between PCs or between PCs and NPCs. B2 doesn't: as Kubasik says, D&D "offered no rules for courting a princess". In B/X and Gygax's AD&D there are rules for fighting, for searching doors and walls, for opening doors, for encountering and evading rival armed bands, and for determining the reaction rolls of de-contexualised strangers. There are no rules for courtship or for romantic rivalry. And a game which is The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth will not, cannot, have courtship and romance as its principal focus of play.

So it was a colossal Red Herring. You're bringing up something that doesn't apply to the discussion at hand as some sort of what, evidence?

Nonsense. When I play Burning Wheel, I'm nearly always declaring actions in actor stance. Here's an excellent description of the process by Eero Tuovinen (again, he doesn't use the particular terminology but he describes the phenomenon well in the context of what he calls "the standard narrativistic model" of RPGing):

The rest of the players [ie all but the GM] each have their own characters to play. They play their characters according to the advocacy role: the important part is that they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. . . .

[O]nce 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.​

Burning Wheel has formal elements of PC build that help establish these PC motivations. For instance, my character Thurgon has the following relevant elements on his PC sheet:

Beliefs
*The Lord of Battle will lead me to glory
*I am a Knight of the Iron Tower: by devotion and example I will lead the righteous to glorious victory
*Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more!
*Aramina will need my protection

Instincts
*When entering battle, always speak a prayer to the Lord of Battle
*If an innocent is threatened, interpose myself
*When camping, always ensure that the campfire is burning

Relationships
*Xanthippe (Mother, on the family estate at Auxol)
*Aramina (sorceress companion)

Reputations & Affiliations
*+1D rep (last Knight of the Iron Tower)
*+1D rep (infamous among demons - intransigent demon foe) [This one was earned in play]
*+1D aff von Pfizer family
*+1D aff Order of the Iron Tower
*+1D aff nobility​

That was a whole lot of effort to prove nothing about what I said. Here again is what I said. I'll bold the important part.

"This idea that you have to have incredible richness in order to achieve actor stance results the achievement of actor stance being a snipe hunt."

You do not have to have that richness to achieve actor stance. Showing me an example where you achieved it with incredible richness does nothing to disprove what I said. It only proves that you can also have actor stance with incredible richness.

But actor stance is eminently possible in games without these sorts of formal elements. In one RM campaign, one of the PCs was a rather powerful sorcerer who had been born a slave, bought his freedom, and climbed the social ladder. He had a nice townhouse that he leased, and had aspirations to become a magistrate of his city. These features of the character made it easy for me, as GM, to present situations that could be responded to in actor stance.

And there are obviously other ways to approach this outside of the scene-framing method that I personally incline towards. For instance, if the setting is rich, and the PC is built by reference to that setting (see, again, RQ for an example) then - provided the player understands the setting and his/her PC's place in it - then actor stance is relatively easy to achieve.

It's easy to achieve simply by making decisions based on character knowledge and perceptions, just as the Forge definition states.

Of course, it's always possible for a GM to frame a situation that is, from the perspective of the player adopting actor stance, a non-sequitur. If the GM doesn't describe a situation that speaks in some fashion to the motivations established by a player for his/her PC then the player will have to drop out of actor stance and adopt some other stance (see eg @Numidius's post about his/her (? sorry, I'm not sure what the right pronoun is) WHFRPG game, where to make things happen it was necessary to declare actions in pawn stance). Or in a setting-based game, if the GM's situation doesn't engage the player's understanding of the setting, the result might be pawn stance, or even the degenerate case of the player asking the GM What would my character do in response to such-and-such?

Um, no. Again you're attempting to redefine the term to suite your needs and poo poo on other styles. Now we have to play the game your way in order to even be able to achieve actor stance? We must frame scenes around PC motivations in order to achieve it? Not even close.

I'm going to stick with what actor stance really is and leave you to your personal definition that only applies to @pemerton.​

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], I'm picking up on just one aspect of your post.

You are inventing this need for motivations when Actor stances does not have them. Period.

<snip>

The difference is in what motivates the declaration. If it's the player's desire, it's author, unless you go back and motivate after the fact, then it's pawn. If it's the PC's knowledge and perceptions, then there is no retroactive motivation going on as the motivation is included WITH the declaration and it's actor stance.

A choice requires a motivation - the standard analysis is that an action is the result of a belief plus a desire.

In the terminology of "stances", as coined by Ron Edwards, the motivation comes either from the player ("real person's priorities") or is found within the character. If the character's motivations are not established, then no motivation can be found within the character (as per my example of Spot upthread). Hence there can be no actor stance.

It's not a complicated point, and obsessing over the words that Edwards uses to state his ideas doesn't change it.

Edwards does not consider "Id"-driven play, which he expressly connects to the classic D&D paradigm, to be a paradigm of actor stance. He sees it as pawn stance pure-and-simple.

I looked to the woods, because based on m character's knowledge of the situation and perceptions, it was the what he wanted to do.

That makes no sense. The character can't author itself - it's a fiction. The motivation had to come from somewhere. Either it flows from the established charcter - eg one knows, given how REH establishes Conan as distrusting and despising the insipid corruption of civilisation, that Conan would ready himself against treachery when entering a town - or else it is authored on the basis of a real-world priority (eg "I think it would be cool to play a woods-y guy").

Author stance doesn't become actor stance because the player doesn't reflect on his/her priorities, or because it's done really quickly!

 

[pemerton]

In an RPG, if something isn't precluded by the rules, it is NOT included in the game at all unless the DM says it is.

There is not a shred of a reason to think that this claim is true.

Right. There's not a shred of reason to think that because rules don't preclude my fighter's longsword from detonating with a nuclear explosion every time he hits something, that explosion is included. Except that there is. Things like the above being true if your claim is correct are far more than a "shred of reason" to think that my claim is true. You don't get to just say that this thing that isn't precluded is automatically included, but not that nuclear explosion over there. Failure to preclude does not mean inclusion.

First, the rules of most FRPGs do preclude that a longsword can detonate a nuclear explosion every time it hits something.

Second, even if they didn't, it's not the case that the issue of whether or not that's part of the game would have to be resolved by the GM. Eg it could be done by table consenus.

I can even give an example: Classic Traveller has no rules (except in an obsucre supplement which I hadn't read at the time) for the damage suffered by a character exposed to a corrosive atmosphere. In the third session of my campaign one PC was exposed to such an atmosphere. I told the players what the rule was for damage from vacuum, and on that basis suggested a (lesser) figure for damage from the atmosphere. They agreed with my suggestion, and thus we went ahead with it.

So, as I said, there's not the a shred of a reason to think that it must be the GM who decides these things. Perhaps that's how things work at your table, but it's not any sort of universal truth about RPGs and RPGing.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Long term you might be right. Short term, though, I can enjoy many things that I wouldn't want to do long term. For example, I really don't enjoy games that are comedic at heart. Not long term anyway. I prefer a more serious type of game, but one that can and does sometimes have humor. However, short term I do enjoy comedic games. I once had a blast playing in a D&D game where we rolled up 1st level versions of any TV or movie character you could think of. I went with Mr. Roarke. I was a 1st level conjurer, since wish was conjuration, and started off with a white suit that never ripped, wrinkled or got dirty. I also had a halfling sidekick who had +10 to his spot checks to see flying things.

Blades might not be my cup of tea for a year long campaign, but I think for a session or three I could enjoy it. I won't know, though, unless I give it a fair shake. And who knows, I've surprised myself before and enjoyed things I didn't think I would like, just as I've disliked things I thought I would enjoy.

I think that you absolutely should give the game a try. It's a blast. I'd say to start as a player first, if possible, before trying to GM, but either way, I think it would be really eye opening. I know that it was for me.

Some of the concepts are really odd-seeming coming to that game from a predominantly D&D playing group. My players had to kind of adjust to the player driven nature of selecting scores and to some of the other elements. Here's a few.

Stress is a resource that each PC has. They can "take Stress" to use certain abilities, or to push themselves to increase their chances for success or the results when they do succeed. They also can take Stress to avoid negative consequences of one of their actions. So if the GM decides that a poor roll on their part results in an enemy harming them, they can override that Gm decision and reduce the amount of harm they take by Resisting the Consequence, which potentially has a Stress cost. The amount of Stress you can take is finite, and when you take your 9th point of Stress, you're out of the score (knocked out, left for dead, otherwise removed from action depending on the fiction) and you also develop a Trauma, which is an ongoing mark of some kind from your ordeal. It's a really powerful way for the players to influence the fiction. I think my players found it odd at first, and kind of mistook Stress for the game's equivalent of Hit Points, which it kind of is to an extent, but once we played and they saw it in action, they grasped it pretty quickly. I mean, it's a resource to be used when needed much like many elements of D&D, so it's familiar in that sense.

Another element is the way gear is handled. At the start of a Score, each player declares the size of the load they will be bringing: light, normal, or heavy. The size of the load you choose to carry indicates how conspicuous you are and can impact certain actions you take that may require speed or stealth. Each load size grants you a certain number of inventory slots and each character has a list of possible items they can have, and that list indicates how many inventory slots each item takes up. You don't need to select what items you have until you actually decide that you need to use the item. So if the crew is infiltrating a rival gang's base, and they find themselves needing to climb a 25 foot wall, one of the characters can mark off "Burglary Gear" which lets them have a rope. Nice and simple.

Flashbacks took a lot more adjustment, but they work in a similar way to Load/Gear. When they were getting ready for a Score, the players would start discussing details and plans, and for the first few sessions, I let this happen. But I started giving them less time to prepare and discuss how to go about the Score, because the game wants you to get to the action, and then work out the plan as you play. Very much like how a heist movie will alternate between scenes of the crooks on the job with scenes that show how they prepared, the game allows you to Flashback to earlier and take actions in the past that help deal with how you face the challenges during the Score. The idea here is that your PCs are capable and would prepare and plan accordingly, but the game doesn't want to spend time with players staring at a map and talking about entry points, and endlessly debating variables. So this allows you to avoid that, and then focus your prep retroactively depending on what actually comes up.

There are more elements to the game that really put things in the players' hands, but these are the big three off the top of my head. My players found each one to be different than what they're used to as players, but as they got used to them, I think they've found them really interesting. The design of the game and the theme are deftly woven, as [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] mentions above, and I think seeing how the desired experience is supported by the game's design is also really enlightening.

I can't recommend the game enough, just for the fun of it. It's really enjoyable and my D&D players are really digging it. In addition, I think it would also add to these discussions we have online; I think one of the main reasons these talks devolve the way they do is because some folks are talking about all games, and others are talking only about one specific game. I think if you see some of these mechanics in play, you'll better appreciate some of the points others have brought up.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As your example shows, there's nothing pejorative or inferior about Pawn Stance. At least in some scenario designs, especially fairly traditional D&D-style ones, it's crucial for actually making the adventure happen!

Right, all it means is that the scenario is fairly 'gamist' in terms of its framing. That is, the terms of the conflict or opportunity are framed in player-centered terms and not character-centered ones. As you say, this is VERY common in TSR-era D&D modules, most of which started out life as tournament scenarios. They were designed to be playable by a group of pick-up characters with very little introduction and fairly fast paced and highly directed play with an assumed goal. Some of the later ones were a bit less this way, but it was never really the 'job' of a module to spell out how things fit with PC motivations and such. If you injected one into an ongoing campaign then things could often move into 'actor' or 'author' stance. This could be problematic in ways you already described in your last post about B2.

This is all another reason why I direct players in HoML to describe a goal, a strength, and a weakness for their characters, plus some contacts (they can describe other traits instead if they want, but these are usually pretty good starting points). Since they can be leveraged, and you start with inspiration, there's a tendency for these things to push play right from the start, even though I must admit that there is often a lot of 'myth' involved in the setting I usually use which might get in the way. Usually I just start new games in a new unexplored area of the map.

 

[pemerton]

I direct players in HoML to describe a goal, a strength, and a weakness for their characters, plus some contacts

When I started my 4e campaign, I told the players to come up with a loyalty for each of their PCs, as well as a reason to be ready to fight goblins.

BW uses Beliefs, Instincts, Affiliations and Reputations, and Relationships for this purpose.

MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic uses character "milestone" ie thematically/character-oriented events that, if they occur in the game, give the character XP (and thus incentivate the player to engender those events in play).

Etc, etc.

Given the relative thinness of both character mental states, and setting/situation information, effective actor stance requires some degree of alignment between player (in PC build) and GM (in establishing situations). The most obvious contemporary form of this is some type of "scene-framed" play. But the earliest "traditional" form is setting- and/or metaplot-heavy play, in which the character's connection to/location in the setting and/or metaplot allows the player to proceed from PC mental states within the context of the GM's set-up.

 

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]A choice requires a motivation - the standard analysis is that an action is the result of a belief plus a desire.

Such as, "I want to see if I can find a path in the forest," yes.

In the terminology of "stances", as coined by Ron Edwards, the motivation comes either from the player ("real person's priorities") or is found within the character. If the character's motivations are not established, then no motivation can be found within the character (as per my example of Spot upthread). Hence there can be no actor stance.

I proved this false upthread. You do not need to establish motivations in advance for you to engage in a character's motivation. "I want to see if I can find a path in the forest." is 100% the PC's motivation. MY motivation is to roleplaying my PC, gain exp, treasure and levels.

It's not a complicated point, and obsessing over the words that Edwards uses to state his ideas doesn't change it.

Nor does continually trying to add pre-established motivations and "richness" as some sort of prerequisite for actor stance. You don't NEED either of those, even if they do help out.

That makes no sense. The character can't author itself - it's a fiction. The motivation had to come from somewhere. Either it flows from the established charcter - eg one knows, given how REH establishes Conan as distrusting and despising the insipid corruption of civilisation, that Conan would ready himself against treachery when entering a town - or else it is authored on the basis of a real-world priority (eg "I think it would be cool to play a woods-y guy").

The motivation automatically came from the PC, because it did not come from the player. The player decided based on the PC's knowledge and perceptions that the PC wanted to go into the forest. That is 100% an actor stance declaration.