A Question Of Agency?

[FrogReaver]

What's the process by which the GM determines the food is there? Do they base on a check?

That's up to them. Sometimes they may roll a dice to decide. Most base it primarily on the environment you are in with the additional layer of whether their notes reveal anything of significance about your specific location in relation to the foraging.

So if you are in the forest in the summer you find food. If you are in the middle of a barren wasteland you don't (or maybe it's just an exceptionally high check to do so depending on the level of barrenness the DM has in mind).

Now if you are in the forest in summertime and your near something magical causing no food to be around (typcially determined by notes, but possibly via some randomization method).

Do they check against their notes? Do they think about if it should be there (make a judgement call)? Do they think about if it makes the game better? Do they have story or plot considerations? What's the real world process?

All of that is up to them. I mentioned above about a fairly typical resolution process.

 

[FrogReaver]

I have hard time seeing what purpose does analysing a decision process while completely ignoring the subject matter of the decision process would serve. Perhaps it has some use, but it seems to be so far detached from anything practical that I really can't be bothered with it.

I think I agree. There is no objectiveness to be had by subjectively excluding parts of the conversation.

It gets pretty old when I'm asked what's different between 2 things and I say and then I'm told that's a difference but because some want to limit to discussion to being about mechanical processes that such a difference doesn't matter. It's such an arbitrary limitation on the discussion that I'm amazed every time it comes up.

 

[Campbell]

I think I agree. There is no objectiveness to be had by subjectively excluding parts of the conversation.

It gets pretty old when I'm asked what's different between 2 things and I say and then I'm told that's a difference but because some want to limit to discussion to being about mechanical processes that such a difference doesn't matter. It's such an arbitrary limitation on the discussion that I'm amazed every time it comes up.

Not saying that what the rolls resolve does not matter. Upthread you chastise for calling it a mere preference, but like games are all about subjective aesthetic preferences. I'm just saying the player's process is the same. You are just seeing how the sausage gets made on the GM's side of the screen.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Really? Even as a starting point for discussion?

I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions, but I wouldn’t discard it as a piece of analysis.

I have had this discussion a lot here, so it isn't really worth getting into much. But I just don't it gives me any insight I can use at the table, and I don't feel, for my style of play, any of its thoughts on things like simulation reflect what I see in live play. I also dislike how it uses jargon. I did try to delve into it many years ago. But it just wasn't for me in terms of the content and what I wanted.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Justin Alexander's analysis might be fruitful for explaining the feelings that some people have about certain games. It has nothing to do with actual play processes and procedures. It also is so rooted in a very particular set of play priorities that it's entirely useless to people who do not share those priorities.

All I can say is, with Justin Alexander, there was tons of stuff on his blog page I could actually use in play at a game. Sometimes I could take an idea there in its entirety, sometimes I took parts (taking what I liked, ignoring what I didn't). He has a lot of interesting game ideas, and they definitely arise from actual table play. It might not be rooted in the same kind of analysis that some people here like, but that isn't the only way to think or talk about games.

 

[FrogReaver]

Not saying that what the rolls resolve does not matter. Upthread you chastise for calling it a mere preference, but like games are all about subjective aesthetic preferences. I'm just saying the player's process is the same. You are just seeing how the sausage gets made on the GM's side of the screen.

I mean, if the same process is making 2 different things, I'm not so sure that focusing on the process is really all that important.

 

[Hriston]

WIth the person you've authored him as coming to you. With the foraging/food you are authoring you are going to it...

Those are both possible descriptions of the result of a success, but not the only ones.

It seems that you would prefer the result of a successful foraging check to be “You find a bush full of berries,” but not “as you wait in your blind, a stag steps into your sights.” Do I have that about right?

 

[FrogReaver]

Those are both possible descriptions of the result of a success, but not the only ones.

It seems that you would prefer the result of a successful foraging check to be “You find a bush full of berries,” but not “as you wait in your blind, a stag steps into your sights.” Do I have that about right?

No where near.

 

[Campbell]

Justin Alexander does say lots of useful things in other places. He's just not very good about talking about play processes he has little direct experience with. In fact a lot of his articles are useful because he drops pretense and talks about the practical process of play instead of the idealized stuff we see here that assumes GMs are capable of impossible things.

These are very good articles:

Don’t Prep Plots

If you're GMing a roleplaying game, you should never prep a plot.Everyone's tastes are different. These matters are subjective. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Yada

thealexandrian.net

Game Structures – Addendum: System Matters

"Most of the campaigns I've really enjoyed have been in systems I didn't like.""A great GM can take any RPG and run a good game.""I just want a system that gets out of the way when I'm playi

thealexandrian.net

The latter article actually offers targeted analysis that points to why structured play is important and why a fair share of people who play in very typical ways underestimate the impact of system.

That does not absolve the fact that the previously linked article was an effort at erasure of non-conforming games. Sometimes people say some useful stuff and other not so useful things.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That does not absolve the fact that the previously linked article was an effort at erasure of non-conforming games. Sometimes people say some useful stuff and other not so useful things.

I think the distinction he was making in that article was a perfectly coherent one, but I definitely would have not called the two categories 'roleplaying games' and 'storytelling games'. Saying that something is not a real roleplaying game just is not an argument that will be perceived as neutral.