What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?

[Celebrim]

The boundaries seem pretty clear to me as far as the rules of the game are concerned, but in any practical sense who may establish what is going to vary quite a bit from table to table. While I take a hard line on what the rules say, at the table I may be perfectly willing to accept Frances is an old friend of a character if the player makes that offer.

I might as well. I might very well agree that the encounter is more interesting if it turns out that this otherwise nameless mook is the potentially important NPC "Francis the Guard". But then, in both cases it is the GM making the judgment call here, not the player.

There are games that allow the player to narrate details about the setting, but they then generally have some sort of rules that limit how that player may do so.

A game that does not limit what a player may narrate about the setting, violates Celebrim's First Law of RPGs: "Thou shalt not be good at everything." Specifically, unlimited unregulated fiat power granted to a player would mean the player does not have finite resources, and if the player lacks finite resources and lacks therefore boundaries on play, then you've dropped the game pillar out of RPG and properly what you have left is play, little different than a group of first graders playing make believe or (in a slightly more advanced for) a group of writers passing around a notebook and adding to a story one page at a time.

There is nothing wrong with either of those things (I've done both) but it's not an RPG by most definitions, and it will certainly strike most participants as surprising if their expectations of play are set by most traditional RPGs. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with Storytelling Games (as they are sometimes called) or Theater Games where you engage in the theatrical equivalent of passing a notebook around adding content to it, and there are few I wouldn't mind playing. But RPGs support more than one aesthetic of play, and to do so requires that they limit how setting information is added to the environment and often, who gets to do so.

I'm baffled by posters that try to argue otherwise, or even that you can take a traditional RPG and support the proposed process of play just because you'd like to do so. It's one thing to assert you are the sort of GM that would always roll with a "Francis the Guard" call out. Ok, I might buy that, but at least I'll take you at your word until I have reason to believe otherwise. It's quite another to argue that this example proves the general rule and a GM wouldn't have to (and even shouldn't!) exercise judgment regarding player call outs about the setting, and could always answer "Yes" or even "Yes, but..." to everything in a cooperative social game with multiple players, particularly if you have a typical range of players with typical aesthetics and goals of play. And it's bizarre to attempt to twist statements from the rules to try to prove that that is the intention or compatible with the normal process of play.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I mean, I get why someone would want to find their preferred playstyle is supported by the rules, but I think we'd need to look to D&D 4e for that, not D&D 5e. In the former, I'm way more open to players establishing fiction outside of their characters because the rules of that game support it. In D&D 5e, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Of course, in 5e the DM can allow players to establish as much fiction (their own backstory, environment, equipment, relationships to NPCs, etc) as he feels fits the group's style and makes for a good game experience. The system doesn't 'support' it in the sense of requiring it or providing specific mechanics, but it's wide-open to it. You even could graft FATE's tagging of aspects, for instance, directly in if you wanted to, just by making it part of declaring an action on the player side. (It might seem silly to those unfamiliar, but for a simplistic example, if the DM describes a room as 'shadowy' the player could tag that aspect to enable sneaking through the room unseen.) Or a DM could make fleshing out the details of the scene part of declaring an action, with the better the improv, the more likely you'll get success narrated (or at least a lower DC or favorable modifier/Advantage).

 

[iserith]

I might as well. I might very well agree that the encounter is more interesting if it turns out that this otherwise nameless mook is the potentially important NPC "Francis the Guard". But then, in both cases it is the GM making the judgment call here, not the player.

Right. The player should have no expectation, at least not by the rules of the game, that the offer must be accepted.

There are games that allow the player to narrate details about the setting, but they then generally have some sort of rules that limit how that player may do so.

A game that does not limit what a player may narrate about the setting, violates Celebrim's First Law of RPGs: "Thou shalt not be good at everything." Specifically, unlimited unregulated fiat power granted to a player would mean the player does not have finite resources, and if the player lacks finite resources and lacks therefore boundaries on play, then you've dropped the game pillar out of RPG and properly what you have left is play, little different than a group of first graders playing make believe or (in a slightly more advanced for) a group of writers passing around a notebook and adding to a story one page at a time.

There is nothing wrong with either of those things (I've done both) but it's not an RPG by most definitions, and it will certainly strike most participants as surprising if their expectations of play are set by most traditional RPGs. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with Storytelling Games (as they are sometimes called) or Theater Games where you engage in the theatrical equivalent of passing a notebook around adding content to it, and there are few I wouldn't mind playing. But RPGs support more than one aesthetic of play, and to do so requires that they limit how setting information is added to the environment and often, who gets to do so.

I'm baffled by posters that try to argue otherwise, or even that you can take a traditional RPG and support the proposed process of play just because you'd like to do so. It's one thing to assert you are the sort of GM that would always roll with a "Francis the Guard" call out. Ok, I might buy that, but at least I'll take you at your word until I have reason to believe otherwise. It's quite another to argue that this example proves the general rule and a GM wouldn't have to (and even shouldn't!) exercise judgment regarding player call outs about the setting, and could always answer "Yes" or even "Yes, but..." to everything in a cooperative social game with multiple players, particularly if you have a typical range of players with typical aesthetics and goals of play. And it's bizarre to attempt to twist statements from the rules to try to prove that that is the intention or compatible with the normal process of play.

Generally speaking, my experience has been that the limits of a game that makes liberal use of "Yes, and..." tend to exist as an agreement between the players and DM, explicit or implied, about what kinds of things the player can establish and when. Often this is for color or to flesh out the PC's background during play. Sometimes it's to establish a thing in the environment for use (e.g. a chandelier in the tavern to swing from that was not mentioned in the DM's description of the environment). Typically, the players are not establishing things that attempt to subvert the challenge the DM is presenting. As I argued on the D&D 4e forums years ago now when in the context of that game I suggested DMs make liberal use of "Yes, and...", players that do circumvent challenges by establishing new details outside their role are basically saying that the challenge is not interesting to them and they want to move past it as quickly as possible. That argues for clearer communication before play about what sorts of challenges the group enjoys more then anything in my view.

 

[iserith]

Of course, in 5e the DM can allow players to establish as much fiction (their own backstory, environment, equipment, relationships to NPCs, etc) as he feels fits the group's style and makes for a good game experience. The system doesn't 'support' it in the sense of requiring it or providing specific mechanics, but it's wide-open to it. You even could graft FATE's tagging of aspects, for instance, directly in if you wanted to, just by making it part of declaring an action on the player side. (It might seem silly to those unfamiliar, but for a simplistic example, if the DM describes a room as 'shadowy' the player could tag that aspect to enable sneaking through the room unseen.) Or a DM could make fleshing out the details of the scene part of declaring an action, with the better the improv, the more likely you'll get success narrated (or at least a lower DC or favorable modifier/Advantage).

So, change the rules and you're good to go? Hardly controversial, right?

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, change the rules and you're good to go? Hardly controversial, right?

Not change, interpret and fill-in. The rules say the DM describes the situation, the player declares an action, the DM decides how to resolve it and narrates the results. The DM can decide what he needs from the player to constitute an action declaration. You want to see a clear (or at least clearly implied, I assume) goal & method, for instance. Other DMs might want to see a bit of drama, or a clear (or implied) motivation based on the character's Bond/Flaws/etc(there's gotta be a nice shorthand for that sub-system), or even see the player calling out the skill/spell/tool/item/weapon to be used very clearly. It's not too much of a stretch (though it's a stretch from D&D tradition), to expect/reward an action declaration that includes improv which builds on the existing scene.

And, no, changing the rules outright should /not/ be controversial in a 5e forum. It's a DM's prerogative to change the rules.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

Not change, interpret and fill-in. The rules say the DM describes the situation, the player declares an action, the DM decides how to resolve it and narrates the results. The DM can decide what he needs from the player to constitute an action declaration. You want to see a clear (or at least clearly implied, I assume) goal & method, for instance. Other DMs might want to see a bit of drama, or a clear (or implied) motivation based on the character's Bond/Flaws/etc(there's gotta be a nice shorthand for that sub-system), or even see the player calling out the skill/spell/tool/item/weapon to be used very clearly. It's not too much of a stretch (though it's a stretch from D&D tradition), to expect/reward an action declaration that includes improv which builds on the existing scene.

If by "improv" you mean the player engaging in what the rules define as the DM's role, that's not really interpreting and filling in - it's changing the rules. Which is fine, but let's call it what it is.

As for the shorthand on personal characteristics (which is what they're called as a whole), I've seen the acronym BIFTs used by a number of people.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not telling the player how his or her character thinks. As I've said several times, the player is welcome to have the character think and say the guard is his or her old friend. But the DM is under no obligation to make that true nor does the DM need to say that the character is delusional. A DM might narrate the result of the adventurer's action with "The guard doesn't respond to being called Frances and doesn't recognize you as a friend - what do you do?"

Likewise if the DM describes a pile of copper pieces and the player has his or her character think and say it's gold, only to find out that the local merchants do not agree, is that the DM telling the player what his or her character thinks? No. No it is not.


My position hasn't changed. I hope I clarified it for you though.

So, you chose to cut it off exactly where I thought you would.

But you haven't answered the underlying question. Does Francis the Guard exist? Can the player track them down in that town, now that they have pulled that from their backstory?

I see three major paths: 1) Frances exists and is a guard, the player changed the world. 2) Francis did exist, but either quit the guard or was eaten by wolves, players backstory was true, but things have changed and you are denying them a friendship within the guards. 3) Francs does not exist, and never did, you are telling the player their memories of their past are false.

This is more-or-less a repost of what I said: it seems to me quite hard to (i) allow that PCs have friends and family like Frances, and (ii) have those friends and family be part of the ingame situation, and (iii) maintain a strong player/GM divide over narration of the environment, yet (iv) never have the GM tell the players what their PC's think and feel.

In the case of equipment, the exact same problem is resolved by relaxing (iii) - the game permits the players to narrate those bits of the environment. My conclusion, in a post a few days ago based on a close reading of the 5e Basic PDF, is that the game assumes that (ii) is false - ie the game assumes that the action happens in places where the PCs are strangers and hence that friends and family won't be part of the active, ingame situation.

Yeah, I saw that.

It is one way to play, but I think it has some major flaws since it really cuts players off and makes caring about things other than themselves far more difficult.

Also, it seems to go against a lot of background traits and flaws. How are you supposed to deal with being the black sheep of a noble family, or contend with figures in your church as an acolyte, if you are so far away you never meet family members or people you knew growing up.

I think that portion of the Basic rules is more about establishing a land of High Fantasy, than it is telling DMs they should cut off PCs from home, friends, and family.

Do me a favor and leave me out of your gotcha posts against other posters. Thanks.

Wow. I'm sorry that I saw your answer as reasonable and a fair point to the disconnect I was talking about. Next time I won't include your name when I quote a relevant passage that I agree with.

That depends. Was it established before play began that the player character was raised in an orphanage, or is this call being made spontaneously during play? Normally, a player should expect to have his backstory vetted by the GM before play, and any major points of play he wants to be established in the fiction should be included in the backstory. For example, a player ought not to expect that they can insist that they are a traveler from another dimension ("Earth") or that they are a cartoon character that was animated by a powerful magic, or anything else that would be wholly and completely novel in the setting without buy in from the GM. Indeed, pretty much everything in a backstory ought to be negotiated with a GM before play. Once the backstory is established as being in fiction and part of the setting, both the GM and the player can expect to make calls using it, but GM's should be careful about trying to impose new backstory on a player against their wishes and respect their wishes if the player strongly objects. Likewise, if a player calls something new based on his backstory, the player should expect that certain calls which are inappropriate to the setting or story or which seem to be being made solely for gamist reasons (ei, to gain some mechanical advantage) might get vetoed.

If it's established that you were an orphan, it's probably a reasonable call that you were raised in an orphanage.

Was it in the player's backstory prior to the beginning of play? If so they were correct. If it wasn't, they are only possibly correct. In general, if it was established that the player grew up in an orphanage, there is nothing unreasonably about claiming that you knew someone named Francis (assuming Francis is the sort of name NPC's have in the setting).

So, at my table, I don't necessarily disagree with any of this. I would say that it is a bit harsh to lock a player into only the backstory they come up with before play begins, but only because I often have players who can't come up with a backstory until two or three sessions in. In fact, even on fairly robust backstories, I, myself, and my players have found new inspiration which led to refining and adding details to those. So, knowing my full backstory is locked after session one is fair, but not something I would do personally.

However, I also feel the need to point out, I was posting these questions for iserith. And, iserith has said that backstories in their games should be kept to the size of a tweet. That is about two sentences, maybe three. More details can be pulled from that, if I remember their position correctly, but combining that with their insistence that one can never tell a player what their character thinks, led me to establishing the absolute base before moving my way up.

Here is where things get really dicey. It's generally considered poor form to try to use your backstory to gain mechanical advantage above and beyond what is written on your character sheet. 5e D&D has no built in "contacts"/"circles"/"allies" check and no built in way to list such things as preexisting in the setting. In a game that did have such things, "Francis" would need to be written down in a column somewhere which had a finite number of called out allies, and a suitable description establishing that they were a guard in a particular location. In that case, the player by calling out "Francis" from his character sheet would be doing something similar to calling out the rope in his backpack that was part of the preestablished fiction. The player would have some mechanical device for negotiating with the GM regarding the narrative and establishing the truth of something in the fiction. He might perhaps get a "circle test", and might have some reduced difficulty of some sort because Francis was a known established resource. Then the fortune mechanics of the game would establish whether this was indeed Francis in a way that everyone had agreed was fair and reasonable prior to play.

None of this is true of 5e. There is no mechanics available to the player for negotiating what is in the setting. This means that the situation has to be resolved by fiat, and in D&D, only the GM has fiat authority. Players can't establish things by fiat. They can only propose things that they want their character to try to do. The general rule about this is, "Could you as a real person cause someone to be someone you wanted them to be merely by wanting it to be so?" No, you can't imagine the way you want reality to work, and therefore make it so. Since normal people can't simply alter reality with wishes, your character needs some sort of explicit power or resource that they can call upon to alter reality. Essentially, they need some sort of packetized narrative force (like a spell or power). No such power exists in D&D so far as I know, short of something like spending a Wish.

So chances are, the player is NOT correct this is Francis. The player can make a call like, "Is this guard Francis?", but the GM has no way of deciding that in D&D except by fiat, so he has to make a ruling. Since rulings are outside the written rules, it's entirely up to the GM how to handle this and none of the ways are wrong. He might say "Yes." He might say "No." He might give a flat percentage chance that it is so? (If that is the case, in some games the player might have some power of Luck that modifies random rolls, and that might be applicable.) Or he might invent some sort of test on the spot that seems good to the GM. But while you can propose, "Is this guard Francis?", you can no more make it so than you can propose, "I jump over the Ocean in a single bound." Less, because the second is an action, while the first is simply a question.

Imagine the consequences of violating this simple and obvious interpretation of the process of play. If a PC can propose, "This guard is Francis.", can they also propose, "This chest contains 10,000 gold pieces?" Can they propose, "I once saved this Red Dragon's life by healing it of Dragon Pox." Are you seriously advocating for a process of play where every statement a player makes about the environment is a statement of fact? Such a process of play might be suitable for Toon - but even Toon has the rule "only if it is funny" - but probably not for a game intended to be serious.

No, I am not advocating for this style of play. In fact, in the original post, you will note this is where I said the likely break point was, because it is the point between the player establishing minor details and the player establishing a major point in the scene.

However, if you cannot tell a player what they think, which was iserith's position both in this thread with the orc elder telling stories about monster weaknesses and the insight thread, then even getting to this point can be troublesome. Because the player may have established that the guard named Francis does exist.

IF we cannot ever tell a player what they think, and they state "I once saved this Red Dragon's life by healing it of Dragon Pox" then we have a disconnect in the game reality. The player believes this, something must have triggered this belief, but the DM says it never happened. So why does the player have these memories? This is where the "false dilemma" you see comes from.

In my games, I just tell the player no. "Sorry, that sounds like a cool idea, but it doesn't fit with what we have going on, your character never did this/this never happened" and because I, and my table, are fine with occasional overlap, we establish that the PC does not actually believe these things happened. The Character is not delusional, the player is simply trying to eke out an unfair advantage by calling upon their backstory in a way the game does not support. But, if I cannot tell a player what their character thinks, then either the player backs down, or I am forcing the situation to turn to "the Character is delusional and has memories of events that never happened"


Honestly, part of what drew me into this example was how close it was to the Elder telling the character how to slay various monsters when they were a child, which everyone on one side accepted this was perfectly fine, but this example raised an outcry of players far overstepping their bounds and declarations they would be better off playing a different game. The difference between the two, in a narrative sense, is minimal. The only difference is one establishes knowledge a player likely already had and would use in fights, and the other gives them a social benefit in a situation.

 

[iserith]

So, you chose to cut it off exactly where I thought you would.

But you haven't answered the underlying question. Does Francis the Guard exist? Can the player track them down in that town, now that they have pulled that from their backstory?

I see three major paths: 1) Frances exists and is a guard, the player changed the world. 2) Francis did exist, but either quit the guard or was eaten by wolves, players backstory was true, but things have changed and you are denying them a friendship within the guards. 3) Francs does not exist, and never did, you are telling the player their memories of their past are false.

Per the DMG, after the DM settles on what the campaign is about, the players work with the DM on how their characters' backgrounds and histories tie into the campaign. The DM is encouraged to say yes - if he or she can. If he or she can't, the DM is told to suggest alterations to the character's story so it better fits the world or figure out a way to weave the first threads of the campaign into the character's story.

So, essentially, a collaborative effort with the DM's override prior to the game kicking off is how the game envisions the establishment of NPCs like Frances, not during play. Therefore, a player trying to establish Frances' existence during play is going against the game's expectations in this regard. And, as already established, the DM is under no obligation to accept the player's offer either before play or during. I make no judgment as to whether should or shouldn't accept the offer - that will depend on the DM's or group's preferences.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If by "improv" you mean the player engaging in what the rules define as the DM's role, that's not really interpreting and filling in - it's changing the rules. Which is fine, but let's call it what it is.

So, I think the following would unambiguously follow a typical interpretation of the basic rules you & I are always touting:

DM: Count Mephisto descends the grand staircase, fixing you with a malevolent gaze, … blah... blah, lotsa cool dramatic stuff but not a huge amount of detail about the environment.
Player: Does the room have a chandelier?
DM: Er, sure, yeah, it's a grand ballroom, our campaign's a trifle anachronistic.
Player: How high is it.
DM: Well, the ceilings 18' and the chandelier is, oh 4 or 5' from top to lowest elements, and the chain it's on would be similar, so maybe about 8' off the ground.
Player: so if I were to swing on it, I'd be working with a 10'r arc. and could get up onto the staircase where the count is?
DM: You could attempt it.
Player: Ok, I'm going to take a running leap, swing on the chandelier, and attack the Count!

(Cheesy, I know, but bear with me.)

Now, what I was getting at was a DM who would not only tolerate, but encourage or even require, in a systematic way, the alternate:

DM: Count Mephisto descends the grand staircase, fixing you with a malevolent gaze, … blah... blah, lotsa cool dramatic stuff but not a huge amount of detail about the environment.
Player: I'm going to take a running leap, swing on the Grand Ballroom's chandelier*, and attack the Count right on the stair!

The rules don't, for an instance near & dear to your heart, spell out that the player must provide a goal & method in declaring an action. That's filling in what the DM expects from the player declaring an action, it formalizes that segment of play a bit. But it's not changing the rules.

DMs could take their interpretation or formalization of action declaration in different ways. A DM could, as above, tolerate (or even require) the players to add to the scene as part of a formal/valid action declaration. He could require the Player nominate a stat & skill he intends to use in the action. He could require a declared weapon/tool/implement/environmental feature be engaged in any valid action (I'm not sure why, but he /could/). Limits are the DM's imagination (and ego, and sheer unmitigated gall), and the players' willingness/ability to find an alternate DM. ;P

Ultimately, 5e's written in natural language and leaves it to the DM to interpret the rules, even the most basic of 'em. Those rules put a /lot/ of 'power'/responsibility on the DM, but they in no way dissuade him from delegating bits of it to the players, formally or informally, systematically or on the spur of the moment.

As far as the line between interpreting and changing a rule: it's moot. It's the DM's game. If a DM changes a rule and calls it an a interpretation, it's an interpretation, if he interprets a rule in a fairly conventional way, but lists it as a variant it's a change.

As for the shorthand on personal characteristics (which is what they're called as a whole), I've seen the acronym BIFTs used by a number of people.

Thanks!

So, essentially, a collaborative effort with the DM's override prior to the game kicking off is how the game envisions the establishment of NPCs like Frances, not during play. Therefore, a player trying to establish Frances' existence during play is going against the game's expectations in this regard.

Nod. OTOH, there's no way any such pre-game establishment of backstory could cover every detail of the character & his connection to the world. DMs don't set their worlds in stone in every detail before play begins, if a new aspect of the world is revealed that may have had some bearing on the PC's backstories, that might be seen as re-opening that collaborative effort.

FREX: The DM might have established that the campaign-home-Kingdom has fought many wars with it's neighbor, Nepharia, and that a player may have established that his father was killed in one of those most recent wars. Now, if the DM later introduces a powerful Nepharian champion renowned for his death toll on the battlefield of the last war, the player might just come up with the idea that it was /that/ villain who killed his father. Instant retcon vendetta. (Hey, it's not like stuff like that doesn't happen in fiction!)

If the DM is very proprietary about control of the details of his setting, then the player might introduce that idea with a series of leading questions:

Player: If he's such a great hero, how come we've never heard of him before.
DM: Oh, you've heard of him all your lives, he's infamous.
Player: And he fought in the most recent war?
DM: Yep, renowned for his savagery and sheer body count on the field.
Player: Did he fight in all the battles of that war?
DM: All the major ones, he was seen as virtually invincible.
Player: Including the battle where my father was killed?
DM: Definitely.
Player: Could he be the one who killed my father?

(And the DM could totally roll with it: /Yes/, that's the family story. And, now, looking at him, you can believe it.
or not: No, you remember the king's messenger saying your father took an arrow to the heart, this guy's strictly a melee type.)

A DM with a different style might be so inclined to roll with such ideas that his players realize they don't have to resort to leading questions to get an idea in there. He may even be up-front an encourage it. Maybe give inspiration for RPing that instant vendetta without even clearing it first.