Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Maxperson]

Max you ruined it, I was making a joke - nothing more

It can be so hard to tell here!!

 

[Nagol]

That right there is an example of Player Force. We are gonna need a whole new thread for that.

I've had similar things happen at my table. In many campaigns, I introduce Lion Rampant's Whimsy Cards which are player tools for applying force/authorship. The players get creative with "Abrupt change of events", "Moral dilemma", and "Unexpected Ally" a fair bit.

 

[Nagol]

The players knowing there was a frame on the crown prince would certainly have changed the tone of the adventure completely. They wouldn't have told the king he was in fact guilty, for one. They might even have caught the actual perpetrator for another.

That was an unexpected outcome that altered the environment and made them a long-term enemy.

 

[prabe]

I've had similar things happen at my table. In many campaigns, I introduce Lion Rampant's Whimsy Cards which are player tools for applying force/authorship. The players get creative with "Abrupt change of events", "Moral dilemma", and "Unexpected Ally" a fair bit.

I've done it as a player, in a homebrew system that gave players authorship authority. I had a player do it when I was running something with that idea bolted on, and ended up with a short arc of stuff so creepy the PCs were brushing their teeth with their guns drawn. At this point I'm at least a little more reluctant about players having authorship on anything but the characters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The bolded portion is exactly what is wrong with it. Framing is dependent on being unknown and then discovered for its enjoyment. If the players know about it ahead of time, it highly colors their thinking and how they play their PCs as the plot unfolds.

What's wrong with it is that it destroys the plot and it's not worth running it at that point.

Depends. If you are running D&D, not it is not the best use of resources. If you are running Joy Killer the RPG, then sure.

What mystery?

DM: "The king calls you in. He says the Prince was arrested for...

Player interrupting: "He was framed for killing someone! Who did he supposedly kill?"

DM: "..."

There's no mystery. The point of a framing scenario is that the players have to discover(or not) the frame and then do something about it(or not).

The above DM/Player interaction is hyperbole and would not play out that way, but the point stands. There is no point in the prince being framed. The mystery in a frame under those conditions is only in which of the 4 suspects other than the prince did the murder, the same as if there was no frame and you had a murder with the same 4 suspects. The "frame" need not be present and has no mystery.

There's no reason that you can't set things up this way. If you have each player create a couple of NPCs who might be suspects for framing the prince, and then you also create a few of your own, then there's still plenty to discover. Who was killed? Who actually killed the person? Why did they frame the prince?

Having played in a game that has included this kind of stuff, I can say that it absolutely can work just fine. In fact, I think it worked quite well because each of the NPCs in question was familiar to at least one player and PC.....so we had a certain amount of information to start with, much like the PCs would have had. The players were very invested, and it enhanced the game quite a bit.

Sometimes, in a scenario like this, unless you're using long standing NPCs that the players are already familiar with, introducing a list of suspects for a mystery is very challenging. It's hard to give so many NPCs a unique voice and have them seem meaningfully different from the others. "Hey here's 10 NPCs.....figure out which one of them did it!" That can be really tough. Not impossible, of course, but tough. It helps if there's some prior connection, and actually creating the NPC can serve that purpose for a player.

 

[Fenris-77]

The further you lean into player input into the fiction, the further you lean away from pre-plotted adventure. This is why most PbtA games specifically say not to plot anything before sessions - the fiction unfolds from player decisions. You can have threats and factions and all sorts of things, but you can't have "the Illusionist did it". The trick is finding middle ground if you don't want the full monty of PbtA.

Those NPCs in the thread above shouldn't be designed to fill a plot hole, they should be designed to fill the characters circle of people they know or know of. One of those NPCs certainly could turn out to be a bad guy, but you can't ask the characters to make the four suspects. The value of those NPCs lies in the ability of the PCs, should they find out that the prince is being framed, to have some idea who could possibly be responsible so they can take the reigns and start investigating without having to be force fed the clues.

Since this whole idea goes back to a post I made many pages ago, I'll elaborate. There's immense value in having players help write NPCs and factions. Most games that have this as a feature suggest that the NPCs in question for each character should be 'within their orbit' or people they would likely know. So the thief takes charge of writing up some stuff about the Thieves Guild or other outlaw types, A Cleric might write up some major figure in the settings religious hierarchy. There's another handle for those beyond class though, and that's background. So someone with the noble background could help write up court factions, for example. Beyond that there is family and acquaintances. Lots of room to maneuver.

Those NPCs haven't 'done anything' when they're created, they just flesh out groups and factions the character would reasonably know about. If there's intrigue or mystery afoot the players can tap those NPCs for information, or investigate them as suspects, or whatever. The key is not correlating the the player produced NPCs with GM determined plot action. In a D&D game you could design the intrigue after the NPCs, that's very cool, but you shouldn't do it before hand as it does take some of the mystery out of things.

 

[Sadras]

I've had similar things happen at my table. In many campaigns, I introduce Lion Rampant's Whimsy Cards which are player tools for applying force/authorship. The players get creative with "Abrupt change of events", "Moral dilemma", and "Unexpected Ally" a fair bit.

Interesting tools - will take a look into it.
For my own table, I love using new gaming tools in a limited way to surprise players. For instance I could easily incorporate this into one of the sidestories or when they're pursuing something related to their background. That way I'm not leaping headfirst into an entirely new gamestyle but dipping my toes in it and creating a novel experience for the players.

That is why I immediately jumped on Hussar's idea of the 5 NPCs - knew it would work for my table. It is not something I'm going to keep on allowing hence the hard 5 limit. Perhaps later on the in the game, I might reward a player with an additional creative slot, who knows

It can be so hard to tell here!!

LOL! Yeah, trying to lighten the tone.

 

[Nagol]

I've done it as a player, in a homebrew system that gave players authorship authority. I had a player do it when I was running something with that idea bolted on, and ended up with a short arc of stuff so creepy the PCs were brushing their teeth with their guns drawn. At this point I'm at least a little more reluctant about players having authorship on anything but the characters.

One of my main hesitations revolve around indirect PvP. In my experience, authorship devices will be used to exacerbate player conflict. In two different Ars Magica campaigns, several PCs were lost because a player played a Whimsy Card to make a bad situation worse. Whereas only one PC was saved by Whimsy Cards. The rest of the uses were some mix of cosmetic, strategic, or interest signaling.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[prabe]

One of my main hesitations revolve around indirect PvP. In my experience, authorship devices will be used to exacerbate player conflict. In two different Ars Magica campaigns, several PCs were lost because a player played a Whimsy Card to make a bad situation worse. Whereas only PC was saved by Whimsy Cards. The rest of the uses were some mix of cosmetic, strategic, or interest signaling.

The one I did as a player, the GM and I worked to make sure it didn't nerf another PC (though it sandbagged an NPC quite nicely). The one I was running, PvP wasn't on the table. That said, I can see how in come games/at some tables, PvP could be a problem, and player authorship should probably be strictly limited in those cases.