the diplomat can try to thwart the barbarian from killing. But, if they are fighting a pivotal bad guy - he probably shouldn't.
<snip>
Some social encounters are scripted. If you don't run any that way, good for you. But many are - specifically pivotal NPC's. A scene where players meet the Captain of the guards, and notice she has a commanding presence and all her actions indicate a no-nonsense NPC that doesn't take well to intimidation. She is surrounded by guards asking the PC's to check on some missing guards. It is made clear she is reaching into her own coin purse to pay the players. If the players decide they want their barbarian to use intimidation, the roll needed would be much higher (or near impossible) than if they showed her respect. This NPC is pivotal. She will be in and out of the adventurer's lives for three or four sessions. Her demeanor is made clear. If the players don't pick up on it, or if the barbarian is "bored" and wants to thwart the diplomat's chance to shine, so be it. But, in the end it's not being considerate.
As I stated earlier. This is not a random NPC. It's not the tailor or blacksmith or barkeep the barbarian is using intimidation on to stay open an extra hour. It is a pivotal NPC. And pivotal NPC's are where the main storyline take place. Maybe we should name them NPC and npc to denote the type.
This whole approach seems to start from a different assumption about play from my normal one. You seem to be envisaging a
main storyline that the GM is presenting/narrating, and that as part of that main storyline certain events “have” to take place, and have to resolve within a certain range of parameters. Hence these ideas like
pivotal bad guys and
pivotal NPCs. As you present those notions, the status of being “pivotal” seems to be the result of a choice made by the GM in advance of play.
It seems to me from my own experience with improvisation that it would encourage you to hold back on details. After all, the more the PCs hear about the Captain after they enter town, the less freedom you have to improvise as in the example. Once they hear that he's loyal to the baron, it's established. Whereas, when I prep an area I can be quite generous with the details. That lends depth to the world, IMO.
This is very different from my own experience. An approach to play in which the details of the situation are established by the GM as part of responsive framing and in an interplay with action declaration and resolution creates a very high degree of immersion and vibrant, evocative fiction. To give a concrete example: the giant steading in my Cortex+ game that I posted about uphtread was more “real” and vibrant in play than the G1 steading that it was inspired by – precisely because the description (including its smell, its wolves, the barn with the giant oxen, etc) were all established as part of the dynamics of play rather than being narrated unilaterally by the GM from a pre-authored description.
I don't agree that just because the players rolled a good check, that the world suddenly changes to make the loyal Captain flip on his boss. Now, if the Captain is disloyal or I haven't determined his loyalty, that's one thing. But my game world doesn't necessarily change just because the players rolled well.
It doesn't matter whether the players are aware of the information or not, if it is something I've established then it's unlikely to change just because they rolled well. If I haven't established it, then it's absolutely open to a good roll like you've described.
What does this buy me? Verisimilitude - an increased sense that the world exists outside of and isn't simply being generated for the PCs.
Yup, the big difference is that I treat my notes as (reasonably) set in stone regardless of whether the players are aware of them
I don't necessarily consider my notes completely immutable, but I do need a very good reason to disregard them. Primarily for reasons of verisimilitude, as I described.
Putting these posts together, I gather than when you refer to
the world and
my game world, you mean something like “the stuff that’s written down in the GM’s notes” together with “the stuff that the GM extrapolates in imagination from his/her notes”.
And you seem to be saying that that stuff includes
outcomes of action resolution – that is, the GM’s predetermination, or decision on the spot by extrapolation, about what NPCs will or won’t do when sincere action declarations are made with the goal of influencing those NPCs.
That’s very different from how I run my games (be those D&D or other systems).
I think plenty of interesting play experiences can arise from sticking to your notes. Having to deal with an offended baron isn't necessarily any less interesting than having the Captain depose him.
I’m not sure what you mean here by
having to deal with.
The way I see it is this: the players encounter the baron. In the ensuing interaction, the players try and influence the baron. The GM decides – based on extrapolation from his/her notes – that as a result of one aspect of that attempt (eg the insult) the baron is now offended and wants to punish the PCs.
What has happened there is that the scene has transitioned from one of
negotiation to one of
coping with a threat of punishment simply by way of GM decision-making. The players didn’t want the situation to transition that way, but the GM decided anyway without the use of any action resolution framework that would determine whose preference about the fiction should prevail.
That is a
very high degree of control exerted by the GM over the unfolding of the ingame situation
The guard captain who was an orphan saved by the orphanage and has a soft spot for all the orphans there is simply not going to burn them all to death regardless of what you try when you attempt to influence him to do so. It's not railroading to simply inform the player that there's no chance of success.
This goes right back to @FrogReaver’s point that I pick up just below, and my response is very similar (and consistent with what I’ve already been saying in this post):
why is the GM including this NPC in the scene, given that the players (for whatever reason) regard it as important to burn down the orphanage?
The GM could include a guard captain with whatever motivations. Or could have the strength of the captain’s feelings be established
as an outcome of resolution rather than
as an input into resolution. So why include this particular captain? What effect is it meant to have on the play experience?
a DM can always put an impossible NPC in place for any PC that is being played toward anything other than survival and accumulation of wealth. If the DM wants he can place an NPC in front of any such PC that will be impossible for them to handle. Or stepping back a bit from the absoluteness of impossibility we could talk about a high degree of unlikeness to be able to handle that NPC - which doesn't actually change where this is going - that changing up an NPC to not be impossible or nearly impossible or very very difficult for your PCs to succeed in social interaction with is easy, whereas demanding the PCs accommodate any such NPC you come up with or "lose" ultimately forcers the players to play characters that could plausibly be played such that they could potentially accommodate any PC.
Thus, this notion of needing PCs primarily concerned with survival and accumulation of wealth to actually be flexible enough to deal with whatever the DM decides to throw at you is actually a weak point in most D&D games and really pushes the game into the murder hobo direction IMO.
I think that the bit I've bolded should be NPC. With that correction, I completely agree. Setting up impossible/inflexible NPCs whose reactions are pre-scripted pushes the players towards expedience - what you call
survival, accumulation of wealth and a murder-hobo direction. And the NPCs becomes puzzles to be solved within this motivational framework.
I think a better comparison here would be to say that not every npc can be swayed to take any position or reveal any kind of information. There are limits, just as combat has limits regarding what you can do. Some monsters are immune to fire, just as some npc's are reluctant to give up certain bits of information, or to betray certain allies. In the case of the Burgomaster, he had one line that they could not cross, and they crossed it.
<snip>
It is important that your players know what they're up for, so they can make smarter choices.
The difference between the unswayable NPC and the monster that is immune to fire is captured by FrogReaver. Having to find a way of defeating a monster without using fire is an optimisation problem. But having to make friends with a NPC whose goals you oppose is about compromising your principles. Hence this sort of rigidity in establishing and narrating NPCs pushes the game towards expedient play.
The same thing is present in the idea of making "smarter choices".
Smarter here means expedient. What about making
passionate choices?
