D&D 5E Allow the Long Rest Recharge to Honor Skilled Play or Disallow it to Ensure a Memorable Story

[Ovinomancer]

They will always do that to certain degree, either consciously or subconsciously. Unless they're actively and intentionally trying to create bad story. But that would be directing the story too.


The intent was to scare the kobold. Kobold is scared. Yes, it could scram or it could not. Neither option is 'neutral.'


You're doing that too, you just prefer a differnt outcome! The only difference is that I'm honest about what I'm doing.


Nothing is changed, it is logical outcome of the player's actions. Sure, it is one among many possibilities, but that's always the case.

No. You're starting with a position that the GM is curating the story no matter what, so any option is just the GM choosing for the story anyway. It doesn't matter if the kobold screams or not, because either is the GM telling their story.

This utter ignores that the players have input, and the GM can, on a success, give the players their intent, which completely takes it out of the hands of the GM. In my toy example with the kobold, the players clearly do not want to engage the next encounter with their attempt to intimidate the kobold. If the players' action succeeds, then alerting the next encounter on this success is obviously against the intent of the players. I do not have to choose what the kobold does independently -- I can just honor the players' intent when they succeed. This isn't the GM selecting an option for how the kobold acts based on the GM's thinking as for what tells the best story, this is putting the resolution of the action on the mechanics, and then honoring what was staked there -- which is the players' intent.

You seem to discount any GM narration that follows from the players intent and the result of the mechanics and instead assume that that GM is, at all times, narrating whatever the GM wants to. This is a flawed model. You may run this way, but it's not the only way to run. And, it makes a difference in play, so the argument that you can't always avoid bias doesn't do much to address this, because this is a much larger distinction that pointing out a bit of bias.

Yes, because the GM affecting the story is not railroading. GM's job is to affect the story, if they were not, we could replace them with a stack of spreadsheets.

Oh, no, if the GM is directly the play to meet with what they think the story should be, that sounds like it includes railroading very easily. It's on you to explain how the GM always choosing to direct play according to what they think the best story is is not a railroad. You can't just say it's not when your entirely argument boils down to it being unavoidable.

Right. So you cannot be 100% neutral. That's what I am saying. You will always be curating the story, at least a little bit. And that's not a bad thing, that's the GM's job!

No. Acknoweledging I am an imperfect being and cannot avoid bias perfectly is not that same thing as saying that I consciously alter outcomes of player actions without regard to the players' intent but instead with regard to what I think best serves telling a good story. This argument of yours is essentially everything is a railroad, it's not worth trying otherwise.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't quite follow this. Let's say you as GM decide that a given NPC flees the scene rather than staying and fighting, which would make a more memorable/exciting encounter. Isn't your priority here not the excitement of the gaming experience, but fidelity to the NPC as established?

Sure. But are you claiming that at any given moment any NPC can only have only one possible logically coherent reaction? I tend to think about the motivations and psychology of my NPCs quite a lot and and I wouldn't dare to claim that. And especially if the NPC is just some random bloke who was introduced five minutes earlier.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't quite follow this. Let's say you as GM decide that a given NPC flees the scene rather than staying and fighting, which would make a more memorable/exciting encounter. Isn't your priority here not the excitement of the gaming experience, but fidelity to the NPC as established?

Best I can tell, the argument is that there's a story emerges and the GM's choice affected it, so it's all the same. There's a failure to consider the means by which decisions are made to just focus on the fact that a game occurs and the GM makes choices, so it's all the same.

A GM's judgment need not be neutral for their decision making to be based on something other than "the best story".

When you buy a car, you prevent someone else from buying that car. But that's not why you bought it.

heh.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sure. But are you claiming that at any given moment any NPC can only have only one possible logically coherent reaction? I tend to think about the motivations and psychology of my NPCs quite a lot and and I wouldn't dare to claim that. And especially if the NPC is just some random bloke who was introduced five minutes earlier.

No, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that whatever the GM decides, the reasoning behind that choice is not "this will make for the best story" but is rather something else.

 

[Manbearcat]

(Not bothering to quote specific posters, as several made relevant posts.)

The GM is always curating the story to some degree, if you think you're not, you're fooling yourself. Any situation could have countless differnt logically coherent outcomes that match preceding facts, the dice rolls and what-have-you. It is bizarre to think that there would be some one 'neutral' outcome for each situation. Consciously or not, the GM is constantly deciding and choosing between differnt options, and their narrative preferences will influence this.

I want to say that our (you and I) first interactions included me citing how fundamental cognitive bias is to gaming. So, in light of that (assuming you recall those exchanges?), it should be clear that I'm very aware of cognitive bias and its impact on gaming. Its not quite been a "pet topic" of mine for a decade+ but, its in the neighborhood.

So how does one limit the signature of cognitive bias in GMing? The same way its done in the rest of life (oddly enough):

1) You design in reminders to be cognizant of cognitive bias creep and to not be beholden to them.

2) You contract the move-space of GMs and you do it in a way that is table-facing and binding.

3) You make the product of the integration of (1) and (2) above with the rest of play work. If this stuff works to create functional gaming and the type of rewarding play that is advertised on the tin...people will (a) keep playing your game at all and (b) be incentivized to keep playing it "by the book."

---

Here is a for instance:

A game says all of the following:

• The players roll all the dice.
• Everyone must follow the rules.
• There is no metaplot. No one should impose story. Play aggressively, but play to find out what happens.
• GMs must honor success. If the players feel the GM has slipped here...call him/her on it!
• A GMs movespace should be focused on resolving/answering these particular thematic questions which are the premise of play.
• On a success with complications, the GM gives the player success with a complication (and here is how the movespace is contracted for the GM in this case).
• On a failure, the GM gets to bring about a more serious complication (and here is how the movespace is contracted for the GM in this case).

So if a player makes a Lore move about a present situation they're in and a success says (tell them something both interesting and useful) and a success with complication says (tell them something interesting, its on them to make it useful), the GM's movespace is very contracted (particularly in concert with the rest of the game). If the GM responds with something interesting but not useful (meaning the players can't put it into action right now), they'll call him on it. But again, why the hell would they do that if (a) telling them something interesting and useful makes play fulfilling/works?

On a failure, the movespace is opened up more (but not remotely fully because there are several facets of the game that still contract the movespace). Its no coincidence that, overwhelmingly, a GM's move is going to be to respond with "yes, that thing that you thought was true is, in fact, true...but here is a twist about it that sucks!" And its also no coincidence that the twist is integrated with the PC in questions thematic questions that are embedded in their character...because that is how the movespace is focused for the GM.


* Focus a GM's movespace.

* Constrain a GM's movespace.

* Make things table-facing.

* Incentivize the GM to play by the rules because the rules reliably create "as advertised results" (functional play).

That is how you limit cognitive bias in GMing.

If you want to increase the cognitive bias of a GM in a game (perhaps because you want to leverage it!), therefore increasing the GM's signature on play, you do the opposite of all of those things.

 

[loverdrive]

No there isn't.


In both situations the GM makes a choice about the direction of the story. I could just easily frame it as the GM thinking that cowardly and possibly not so smart kobold could easily panic and the dungeon is filled with denizens so it is likely that someone would hear, but because the story is kinda dragging and the characters are low on resources they let the kobold to remain calm and offer useful information so that the story can progress smoothly and we get to the climatic end battle before everyone gets bored. One option isn't any more 'curation' than another.

Just... Dude...

Are you really not seeing a difference between "unconsciously" doing things and doing things with a clear intention?

You know, like finding yourself in front of an open fringe and intentionally standing up, going there and opening it with a goal in mind.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure. But are you claiming that at any given moment any NPC can only have only one possible logically coherent reaction?

No one is claiming this. The fact there's multiple possibilities is part and parcel of the argument made -- you aren't locked into only one option, so how you make the choice between them is important and can be guided by different priorities. In this thread, the focus on on whether you're making that selection on the based on honoring the play of the players and fidelity to your prep or if you're making the decision based on what's best for the story.

I tend to think about the motivations and psychology of my NPCs quite a lot and and I wouldn't dare to claim that. And especially if the NPC is just some random bloke who was introduced five minutes earlier.

Well, you just said there's lots of possibilities, so whatever you think isn't the only option. So, you can make your choice based on a different priority -- you could choose to align as closely as possible to the players' intent and goal when they succeed. Or, you could ignore what the players' intent is and choose for whatever you think is best, but that's not a requirement and leans heavily in the direction of story curation.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that whatever the GM decides, the reasoning behind that choice is not "this will make for the best story" but is rather something else.

What else? Once you have considered all other factors and the situation could still go several ways, how do you choose?

 

[hawkeyefan]

What else? Once you have considered all other factors and the situation could still go several ways, how do you choose?

In this case, it was fidelity to what had been established for that NPC.

If I'm GMing and my gut tells me "this guy would run rather than face the PCs" and I'm not interested in making a confrontation happen in order to make the story exciting (let's say we're near the end of the session, and the players have made it clear they really want to confront this guy, etc.), then my decision is not about the best story. My decision is about what I think the NPC would do in that situation.

Now, I suppose what you're trying to say is that by having him flee, I'm still curating the story as a GM, but that's not really the case. Yes, my decision is certainly influencing the way play will go, but my decision was not made in order to make it go in that direction. I'm not choosing something based on what will be the best story.

I think the distinction is a bit subtle, but I do think it is there.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What else? Once you have considered all other factors and the situation could still go several ways, how do you choose?

Looking at the kobold example, the players declared an action to intimidate the kobold in order to get the kobold to divulge information about the rest of the dungeon. You've argued that, fine, the kobold does this, but can do it in a number of ways, some of which include alerting the next nearby encounter. You've further argued that there's no real difference between options in the sense that all of them are the GM intentionally directing the story.

However, I submit that alerting the next encounter is a clearly undesired outcome for the players. Had they known that successfully intimidating the kobold would result in alerting the next encounter, they likely would not have chosen that path, as their goal is to gain information, not start the next encounter without that information. And, so, ANY choice by the GM that includes alerting the next encounter is, in fact, narrating a failure state to the players' intentions with their action. You've chosen to not honor their success, but instead find a way to ignore it and continue with the next encounter. Thus, there's an easy metric by which to determine what the kobold does -- don't thwart the players' success.

After that, if we're talking about if the kobold whines, or pledges loyalty, or whatever, so long as these all honor the players' intent and success, there's little real difference. You haven't chosen the outcome based on the best story because the outcome was chosen because it honors the players' intent and success at that intent. The rest is flavor, not story curation.

Now, if you use this as an opportunity to have the kobold pledge loyalty so the kobold can join the party and then betray them later, you're back to story curation -- you're choosing the outcome based on a story outcome rather than the result of adjudicating the players' intent and success.

This really isn't that complicated a concept.