A Question Of Agency?

[robconley]

So in AW the constraint is "once is all you get". In your approach the constraint is the GM's sense of how much time there is available.

I view that is a negative as that a convention of the game rather reflecting the reality of the setting. Similarly I am not keen on how mechanics are activated like Second Wind, or the dice pools that accompanies the 5e Battlemaster variant. Both only make sense as part of a game not as a reflection of the reality of the setting.

To be clear the reality of the setting can something fantastic like a RPG like Toon which is about roleplaying characters in a cartoon world. It not about being realistic in terms of how our world works.

Nor reflecting the reality of the setting has to be detail in the way that GURPS with all the combat option is detailed. It can be highly abstract as long it can tied back to how the setting work as if you were there as the character.

So I view mechanics like "once is all you get" as a game convention.

I'm not sure how you define major events. But I infer from this that you are OK with GM authoring of maps - topography etc - but not GM authoring of weather.

Events that potential or certain negative consequences for the character that they zero control over. In my experience it doesn't end will over the long haul if that handled through fiat. Players are far more accepting of the results if it occurred because of random generation. And they know that these tables are being used as part of the campaign. So they factor the risk into their plan.

I'm not sure what the point is that you're making here. I had a set-up from the Prince Valiant episodes book that I wanted to use. It happens in a forest. So I framed the PCs into a forest - I think there were and maybe still are forests in Dacia/Transylvania/Romania.

Players are more aware than one would think that the referee just happened to create a forest in front of them to adventure in. It can be gotten away with is done sparely but done over and over it become a noticeable pattern. It doesn't mean it doesn't work for how you run your campaigns. But it does take away from running a sandbox campaign.

Why? Because it takes away from the challenge knowing the referee is creating something out of whole cloth right then and there.

Now this doesn't mean you have to make 1,000s of pages of notes. But it helps if it already on the map, and you have a sentence or two about it, even though you have to take a breather to create something or pull something off the shelf in order to supply details if the players choose to explore it.

This is based on my observation of doing this for decades with multiple groups of players. I first noticed this when I switched from using the World of Greyhawk to Judges Guild Wilderlands in the early 80s. The players considered what happened to be more fair knowing that many details were there ahead of time. That I wasn't just making naughty word up to spite them.

Keep in mind player can and do make a bad plans. Underestimate the opposition or overestimate what they can do. And suffer negative consequences for it. In short in my campaign there is the possibility of failure. But if you are going to have possibility of failure then you need to be a fair referee. And it more fair to have a certain level details already defined about the setting. In practice it doesn't have to be much.

It doesn't have even be as wordy as my Blackmarsh setting. It works with stat blocks similar to what Traveller uses.

What do you see as important about randomising an encounter rather than choosing it?

Because the bias is minimized as a result. So the result is perceived as more fair. Provided of course the random table itself is perceived as fair. If you say on a 1 you met a goat, 2 to 6 you met Smaug the Golden. Well players will call out you out for using a dumb ass table. Unless of course is happens to be one for around Erebor. Then it fits what been said about the locale. But if a referee uses this for the Shire well they deserve the player's scorn.

A storyteller certificate isn't a metagame mechanic. It's an auto-success on an appropriate action - in this case, finding something. I as GM allowed that there was something to find - following the players' lead in that respect - and narrated it.

But it something that earned and saved to be used later by the player? The character in the world of Prince Valiant has no idea they he or she possesses a storyteller certificate. It does represent something ethereal like luck, faith, karma? If it doesn't tie back to the setting and it meant to be use as the player discretion not the player acting as their character then it is a meta-game mechanic. If it ties back to something within the reality of the setting (luck, faith, karma) then it not.

Hope that clarifies my view.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The phrase 'storytelling' does seem to be a bee in some bonnets, yeah. Those same people tend to dislike emergent fiction as well, while I think that sounds like something you flash from under a beige overcoat. I can sympathize with people not wanting story to be a focus though, and there are conceptions of how that looks that can feel like you, as a player, are some how beholden to to the group in a way that in many games you aren't, or shouldn't be, because in many cases while each player is playing their character, and responding in character to the events in game, they aren't making any kind of conscious attempt to 'tell a story'.

Personally I don't have an issue with the term, and I never had an issue with words like story being used to describe the stuff that happens. Where it came to be an issue for me was strictly in online conversation, where you would use it to mean 'stuff that happens' but someone arguing with you would use it to equivocate. I encountered this in a number of different instances. I think the one where I found it the most infuriating, was me using language or agreeing to language like RPGs are shared storytelling or about a form of storytelling, and then someone responding with a point like 'if RPGs are shared storytelling, then the mechanics should result in good stories' or 'you should run a game that tells a good story'. Neither of these are outcomes I am particularly interested in, and sort of pivots on the two or three meanings of storytelling to trick someone into agreeing with a mechanic they might not like, or rejecting a style of play they like. That said, this really is a strictly online thing. Among most people I play with, if they say 'plot' or 'story' they just mean stuff that happened in play. Online though I think this term gets wielded more forcefully. So as an example I have been in conversations about running adventures where the players fail to reach the 'final goal' or where the end result is anti-climactic (say they confront a big villain, and get lucky and cut off his head in the first round). In many of those conversations, people would use my use of 'story' and 'storytelling' to argue this isn't a good story, so therefore you should have run that scenario differently (either through making sure in the prep that your villain couldn't have his head cut off like that, or through fudging, etc).

 

[Aldarc]

I view that is a negative as that a convention of the game rather reflecting the reality of the setting. Similarly I am not keen on how mechanics are activated like Second Wind, or the dice pools that accompanies the 5e Battlemaster variant. Both only make sense as part of a game not as a reflection of the reality of the setting.

The reality of the setting is shaped by the mechanics. It's worth considering the idea that 5e and its Battlemaster reflects a different reality/setting than one that speaks to your own aesthetic preferences.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The reality of the setting is shaped by the mechanics. It's worth considering the idea that 5e and its Battlemaster reflects a different reality/setting than one that speaks to your own aesthetic preferences.

I haven't played 5E really much, but my sense when I read it and with what little I have played, is it is about proportion. It really bothered me having these kinds of mechanics more widespread in the 4E system, but when they were not as prevalent, it wasn't as much of a problem. This again, is why I think these kind of conversations somethings cause us to paint our selves into rigid corners. It is very easy in a back and forth to start taking logical, principled stances, based on the points people make in a text based discussion, and it is is easy to miss flaws in the nuances of our own assumptions that we build through that. With mechanics like that, mechanics like class powers, it really comes down to how does the game feel overall to me.

 

[Campbell]

So I think the timing of scenario design is not all that important. If the GM is coming up with the forest now or 10 months ago does not matter to me. What matters to me is the thought process behind it. What are they prioritizing? Are they trying to create a challenge? Are they framing something that provokes action? Are they trying to create something that should be interesting to explore? Are they guided by what they think will make the best story? For some GMs timing can matter because they feel more temptation to skew things away from what they really want to prioritize if they make that decision in play, but that experience is not universal.

 

[Aldarc]

I haven't played 5E really much, but my sense when I read it and with what little I have played, is it is about proportion. It really bothered me having these kinds of mechanics more widespread in the 4E system, but when they were not as prevalent, it wasn't as much of a problem. This again, is why I think these kind of conversations somethings cause us to paint our selves into rigid corners. It is very easy in a back and forth to start taking logical, principled stances, based on the points people make in a text based discussion, and it is is easy to miss flaws in the nuances of our own assumptions that we build through that. With mechanics like that, mechanics like class powers, it really comes down to how does the game feel overall to me.

That's fine, but the point is that the issue may not necessarily be that the mechanics don't reflect reality, but, rather, that they reflect a different reality that lies outside of one's aesthetic preferences and/or sensibilities. If there are a number of players can imagine using BM superiority dice from the perspective of their character as if they were there (as I imagine there likely are) but estar cannot, then the problem may not be whether the mechanics actually reflect perceived notions of "reality."

 

[Campbell]

I haven't played 5E really much, but my sense when I read it and with what little I have played, is it is about proportion. It really bothered me having these kinds of mechanics more widespread in the 4E system, but when they were not as prevalent, it wasn't as much of a problem. This again, is why I think these kind of conversations somethings cause us to paint our selves into rigid corners. It is very easy in a back and forth to start taking logical, principled stances, based on the points people make in a text based discussion, and it is is easy to miss flaws in the nuances of our own assumptions that we build through that. With mechanics like that, mechanics like class powers, it really comes down to how does the game feel overall to me.

From my perspective they are all over the place in 5e. Channel Divinity, Bardic Inspiration, Sorcery Points, Ki Points, Daily Barbarian Rage, Battlemaster Dice, Second Wind. The game is filled to the brim with loosely correlated mechanics that are much harder for me to personally justify than martial powers were in 4e (which have some features that feel like more like real human athleticism to me). Their presence as unique resources also make them feel more front and center to me personally.

PF2 is much better on this front in my experience, significantly better than either 4e or 5e in my opinion. Probably should not get into it though.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't actually have a problem with describing those games as catering more toward dramatic needs. That's a description of them we all agree on? Maybe Drama First Rpgs?

I don't really have a pet term, 'narrative game', 'narratively focused', 'story now', 'story game'. I guess 'dramatic game' works OK too, although it conjures up visions in my head of people hamming it up, lol.

 

[robconley]

The reality of the setting is shaped by the mechanics.

Or you can define the setting first and create, adapt, alter the rules to fit it. See Adventures in Middle Earth for a actual example of this in regards to 5th edition. But if the referee adopts a system 'as is' without doing anything then yes over time the much of the setting will become the world described by the rules.

It's worth considering the idea that 5e and its Battlemaster reflects a different reality/setting than one that speaks to your own aesthetic preferences.

The 5e doesn't bother trying to tie the dice pool to anything that the character perceives. Doesn't explain why at each level why the character can do only so many maneuvers. Or why they reset the way they do.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm afraid your analogy can technically be used to describe the real world. Life is just a menu of "interesting situations". Which is why I said, call it that if you want, but that's a pretty shaky foundation to draw any kind of useful conclusions from.

The real world is NOTHING like any game world (leaving aside the obvious point of not being real). The real world has a vast amount of texture to it which is lacking in any imagined space. Each element in the real world is linked in unbreakable causal relationships with a vast number of other elements, and there are a huge number of such elements. This leads to all sorts of collective behavior, emergent phenomenon, etc. which is all entirely lacking in an imagined space.

From an everyday perspective, in the real world people have actual needs, things that they must have in order to continue to exist. They also have an entire array of unconscious and involuntary elements to their psyche, personality, and physiology which largely shape their overall behavior and impose a whole set of desires, which they usually find difficult to deny, at best (imagine talking about your PC going on a diet, describing his urge to eat some potato chips is almost ludicrous, but in the real world your diet has significant impacts on your overall well-being).

The result is that imagined fantasy worlds are extremely 'cartoonish' in their character. The way elements interact and the character of the events and narrative lacks most of the character of real life, where simply fulfilling our ordinary material needs is an overwhelming consideration and we deal with mundane tasks and long term ongoing relationships as the primary focus of our lives. This is true even for a 'Thor Heyerdahl' type of guy, who had fantastic adventures. It is really nothing like the depictions of the lives of PCs in pretty much any game, even one focused on events in a world which is ostensibly meant to represent our own.

So, no, my description has nothing of the character of describing real life. A sandbox is a set piece filled with adventure hooks. Real life is not. Again, this is also the basis of my fundamental objection to the characterization of any DMing process as 'deciding what would realistically happen' or even 'what is realistically plausible'.