"Illusionism" and "GM force" in RPGing

[Doug McCrae]

Lewis Pulsipher is (was? I'm talking about stuff he weote 40 years ago) the best advocate I know of the wargaming/"skilled play" style of D&D (Gygax is the second best I know)

I agree, and I think this is a very clear statement of that style. A Guide to Dungeon Mastering Part II by Lewis Pulsipher in White Dwarf #35 (Nov 1982):

D&D is a game, the players expect to have some fun, and from this arises the unwritten rule that governs every good D&D game: if the players are wary, intelligent, and imaginative, and therefore play well, they should succeed… Your job is to make the game exciting and challenging... In the ideal session the players should escape almost literally sweating with fright, but perhaps with some reward and with no one dead (or at least, with no one irrevocably annihilated).​

A couple of things about it strike me as a bit strange. There are many games that have an element of chance, such as poker. A poker player can do everything right and still lose, if they're unlucky. So why shouldn't that also be true of D&D?

Pulsipher puts a surprising amount of emphasis on making the players feel strong emotion. That's something I associate more with a story-oriented style. In sports and games, nail-biting tension may occur but mostly it doesn't. And if it does it's down to the actions and abilities of the competitors, not a supposedly neutral arbiter.

 

[Lanefan]

I'd suggest using the wife in Burning Wheel isn't force so much as a pre-negotiated requirement.

As in, similar to a GM saying upfront there'll be no Elf PCs in this setting?

OK, I can kinda see that on the marco scale. On the micro scale, however, the no-Elf thing is done once and that's it: it never really affects the run of play at the table. The wife example, however, does affect the run of play whenever she's brought into it, as she sooner or later must be by the sound of it.

Much like Hero Games' disadvantage Dependent NPC. When defined and accepted by the GM, a contract is formed that this aspect will come into dramatic use in the game, somehow (Hero goes one step further and presents the general commonality of occurrence). Both games effectively offer some basic PC-adjacent world-building tools to the players signaling what the players want to get involved in, subject to the GM's approval.

Similar to the wife example, then - the GM is system-forced into bringing these things into play at some point.

One risk I see with this is that unless the players share lots of common interests (outside of gaming) it's almost inevitable that sooner or later one player's story-affecting character aspect (that the GM eventually has to play to) is going to bore the hell out of the others, and vice-versa: "Must we hear about your family history again? I think we know it all of by heart..."

When the GM has more input into the story s/he can read the players and try to find something that'll be more likely to engage them all.

 

[pemerton]

when the game specifically features a particular type of STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING as fundamental to the play agenda

Gygax did not for megadungeons, so his answer is the provision "The Wandering Monster Clock doesn't get checked under condition y." That, to me, doesn't look like Force.

Am I right to read this as you changing your mind between posts and now agreeing with me about the Gygax wanderers example? (Or, if not agreeing, at least getting a handle on how I'm seeing it?)

there does become a problem of a sort of "incoherency creep" when this provision isn't player-facing and explicit.

<snip>

Players not realizing that this provision isn't active might be spending strategic resources (Invisibility, Silence, or just time/Exploration Turns etc) to ensure that a Wandering Monster encounter doesn't occur

I agree it's tricky. Though I don't think it's more tricky than this advice from the Cortex+ Hacker's Guide (pp 218-19):

[Y]ou don’t have to use the biggest die for your total when making a roll with the doom pool; you should gauge the state of the heroes when making rolls and possibly keep the bigger dice for one or more effect dice. This allows you to balance the challenge if you feel there’s a need for it.​

Whether that's a "major problem with the ruleset" I'm not sure. In the Gygax case, it's the skilled play including the use of resources that is the putative trigger for the GM to suspend the clock, though inevitably there will be uncertainty around the margins.

I also think it's very important to stress that Gygax doesn not contemplate suspending/ignoring wanderming monster checks when the players actually have their PCs engaged in exploration. It's only when the players have "the expectation of going to a new, strange area" and "the party’s strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area" that the option is said to be on the table. Because at that point the wanderer's aren't doing the thing they're meant to do in the system.

EDIT: some tag trouble there, I've tried to patch it.

 

[chaochou]

Not in my view. I think the notion of GM guidance and/or manipulation to a fore-ordained goal does the job.

I think this is putting me slightly at odds with @chaochou above, which always worries me because he's a better analyst of RPGing than I am!

Hahahahaha! I didn't realise we were keeping score!

Anyway, the point I was trying to draw out was that for something to be force it must be deployed at a moment of resolution of something which had hitherto been unresolved through play.

I agree that the GM can plan to deploy force (in all kinds of ways) and adventures can contain all kinds of assumptions and instructions to generate it, but in my view the actual appearance of force is during resolution at a decision point within the gameplay.

The lack of agreed resolution systems (for example, for evading onrushing armies) is how many games help GMs disguise force, but I don't agree that subterfuge is a required element, just a convenient one. I've been in many games where force was deployed absolutely blatantly, but was still accepted (with varying degrees of semi-good natured mockery...)

 

[FrogReaver]

I know of no "offical" definition. Who would be the authority? I prefer @Manbearcat's recent formulation, as it succinctly sums up my understanding of Force:

Manipulation of the gamestate (typically covert) by a GM which nullifies (or in slightly more benign cases; modifies) player input in order to form or maintain a narrative that conforms to the GM's vision.

"Manipulation of the gamestate by a GM" - Introducing content is a manipulation of the gamestate

"which nullifies or modifies player input" - Introducing content modifies player input. Though I'm unsure of what nullifying player input would look like.

"in order to form or maintain a narrative" - Introducing content is always done to form a narrative

"that conforms to the GM's vision." - This sounds like we are trying to measure intent. How can anyone say what is being done to conform to the GM's vision? Or more appropriately - isn't everything the GM introduces part of conforming the world to the GM's vision?

I don't find this definition to be any better than @pemerton's.

 

[Manbearcat]

1) 100 % agree with @chaochou 's post above.

2) @pemerton

Here is what I'll say.

a) If (i) that provision is explicated in either the rules or as a table hack, and (ii) the actualization of it is manifestly transparent during play ("guys, this wing of the dungeon is completed; Wandering Monsters turned off"), then its not Force.

b) If (i) and (ii) aren't both true in a game where strategic decision-making is a focal point of player input...then turning Wandering Monsters off is almost surely a momentary application of Force (with downstream effects).

 

[Nagol]

As in, similar to a GM saying upfront there'll be no Elf PCs in this setting?

OK, I can kinda see that on the marco scale. On the micro scale, however, the no-Elf thing is done once and that's it: it never really affects the run of play at the table. The wife example, however, does affect the run of play whenever she's brought into it, as she sooner or later must be by the sound of it.

Similar to the wife example, then - the GM is system-forced into bringing these things into play at some point.

One risk I see with this is that unless the players share lots of common interests (outside of gaming) it's almost inevitable that sooner or later one player's story-affecting character aspect (that the GM eventually has to play to) is going to bore the hell out of the others, and vice-versa: "Must we hear about your family history again? I think we know it all of by heart..."

When the GM has more input into the story s/he can read the players and try to find something that'll be more likely to engage them all.

Not much exposition is necessary most of the time, especially after the first introduction. Think of Lois Lane or Buffy's "sister" constantly needing rescue: "Dawn's in trouble; it must be Tuesday". There are NPCs in the campaign that become natural targets for plot complications hopefully in ways natural to their station.

It certainly can be a challenge in Hero if every player of the table of 6 decides their PC will be hunted by 3 unique groups and have 2 NPCs that continually get involved in 90% of the adventures. That's an expected 10.8 NPCs getting underfoot. Every. Stinking. Adventure. And 18 different groups with different agendas for the GM to keep track of in addition to anything he wanted to do in the campaign.

Thankfully, it rarely gets this bad. Some negotiation and coordination does becomes necessary though. My longest Champions campaign I had to talk to the players about how I was altering the involvement/frequency sharply down because of table fatigue.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes. I think I said these things also. I'm not sure what you take the point of controversy to be.

If something as simple as introducing content into the game is GM Forcing then GM Forcing isn't a useful concept.

I think it's widely - not universally - accepted that PC death, and even moreso TPK, is a loss condition in D&D play. (Which is where the example of the dragon armies comes from - it's in a DL module.)

So at a table that didn't consider PC death or a TPK to be a loss condition then would the DM introducing the dragon armies content with only 1 escape route be categorized as GM force?

If so then why? If not, then the same action can be both forcing and not forcing - it just depends on the table. That makes a poor starting point for RPG theory IMO.

The fact that the players can thwart the attempt at manipulation by sucking up a loss (and presumably giving up on the module?) doesn't show that there was no attempt at manipulation. It just shows it failed!

If attempted manipulation can be thwarted then it wasn't really forcing to begin with was it?

I don't really agree with this, or at least with what all that it seems to imply.

For instance, the GM doesn't have to get the PCs into inteesting situations. The GM can begin with a situation that is interesting.

Beginning them in an interesting situation IS just a method of getting them into interesting situations.

Eg I started my Burning Wheel game with the PCs in a bazaar, giving one of them a chance to act on his Belief that he will find useful magical artefacts to free his brother form possession by a balrog, and the other the chance to act on a Belief about getting money.) The PCs can have "kickers" - ie player-authored interesting situations that provide the starting point for play.

Which fits your definition of forcing.

In my 4e D&D Dark Sun game we used kickers - the barbarian gladiator started in the arena about to behead his opponent when the crowd all looked away as the cry rang out that "The tyrant's dead"; the Veiled Alliance bard/wizard started in the stands, where the contact he was about to meet had just fallen down dead, apparently assassinated.

Also fit's your definition of forcing.

I

n my two Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy games (one Vikings, one LotR), the players - after choosing their PCs from the pregens I provided - established what their objectives were that gave them reasons to set out on a journey, and then I built on that.

Forced players to play pregens - forced the game into being one built on their objectives - lots of forcing here...

And I don't generally find that players object to the GM framing interesting situations either, as long as they follow from the fiction and respect player choices (both in PC build and prior action resolution).

Agreed - which is evidence that your notion of forcing is much too broad.

In my main 4e game the fighter PC failed a check in a skill challenge where the PCs were interacting with some witches. The player had indicated some interest in taking the Pit Fighter paragon path, and the wtitches were predicting his PC's future in respect of this, and as the consequence of failure I narrated the pulling of a cord and the resultant dropping of the PC into a pit, where he had to fight giant spiders. The existence of spiders in the witches' ruined manor had already been foreshadowed; being a pit fighter was the player's own content-introduction!; there was no objection to the way it unfolded - it was a consequecne of failure that followed from the fiction.

Sounds like it also meets your definition of forcing.

RPGing with interesting situations is possible without guidance or manipulation towards fore-ordained results in the fiction; and players can be enjoy RPGing without GM illusionism.

But in every one of your examples provided there was guidance and manipulation toward fore-ordained results in the fiction. It just depends of the level you are looking at.

 

[Ovinomancer]

"Manipulation of the gamestate by a GM" - Introducing content is a manipulation of the gamestate

"which nullifies or modifies player input" - Introducing content modifies player input. Though I'm unsure of what nullifying player input would look like.

"in order to form or maintain a narrative" - Introducing content is always done to form a narrative

"that conforms to the GM's vision." - This sounds like we are trying to measure intent. How can anyone say what is being done to conform to the GM's vision? Or more appropriately - isn't everything the GM introduces part of conforming the world to the GM's vision?

I don't find this definition to be any better than @pemerton's.

You manipulated the gamestate (you cut up the definition and pretended each was an independent clause) which nullifies or modifies player input (mine, in this case, and @Manbearcat's) in order to form or maintain a narrative (that this isn't a definition of Force because it's encompasses normal play) that conforms to the GM's vision (you seem pretty motivated here). In other words, you've engaged in Force.

Humor aside, you can't sever a sentence like this and evaluate the pieces individually to come to a conclusion that accurately addresses the sentence. This is bad analysis. Maybe not a bad point, but you need to get there a different way than how you've done it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Humor aside, you can't sever a sentence like this and evaluate the pieces individually to come to a conclusion that accurately addresses the sentence. This is bad analysis. Maybe not a bad point, but you need to get there a different way than how you've done it.

Of course you can. I just did. The severed pieces do converge to a whole - that introducing content is also forcing under @Manbearcat's definition. Why? because introducing content meets every requirement in his definition - which was the purpose of severing it to begin with - to show that this was the case.