System matters and free kriegsspiel

[Malmuria]

I'm not seeing where FKR is being limited to constrained set pieces like dungeons that are generated before play agnostic to the characters, but rather as an approach to places where story intrudes. Like the idea of the sandbox actually being neutral, which I still find somewhat confusing in concept. If you're stepping outside the confines of a constrained set, then you've diluting the effectiveness of a neutral umpire concept because now the umpire is being forced to generate and adapt setting elements on the fly in response to the action. Given that one person is now responsible not just for the creation of adversity, but also it's resolution, we've arrived at a Czerge Principle violation from the GM side. The only thing standing in the way is this claim of neutrality, which breaks down the further you move away from a fully keyed dungeon-style prep.

Going back to that interaction between Mark Diaz Truman and Ben Milton, there was one point where Mark asked how the gm was supposed to disclaim responsibility, because they might both be a fan of the players and want to be true to the fiction. And Ben's response was that, in osr games at least, it doesn't come up, or no one cares. I can see both perspectives in that discussion. I can see the perspective that you need a system that allocates roles and power among all the players, gm included, and allows everyone specific mechanisms for adjudicating uncertainty (and those games don't have to be and are often not really rules heavy). From that perspective the principles of FKR or even osr games might seem "incoherent" because they lack consistency in practice. But I can also see that coherence isn't a necessary goal of everyone playing an rpg, and only want to adhere to a principle inasmuch as "figure it out as you go" is a principle. That is, I'm not sure it would be very worthwhile to play an FKR-style game, and the whole time worrying about whether your game truly follows FKR principles. It's like the law vs chaos of rpg design (I am neutral).

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't know the answer to this, in terms of FKR, because I don't know enough about those games other than some things I've read and listened to on the internet. But I think these questions pertain to OSR games also, in that OSR games rely on gm adjudication and rulings over rules. So if you are trying to climb a wall...roll your thief % dice? Roll a 4-6 on a d6? Roll under dexterity? Maybe gm decides to do it one way during a session in March, and another way in a session in August. I would hazard that the FKR-inspired question would be less about what resolution mechanic you use or whether that resolution mechanic is consistent over multiple sessions, and more, does it matter? OSR blogs are filled with random subsystems, mechanics, and minigames, and I don't think the point is to use all of them, but kind of take and leave them as needed. On the other hand, these games are not concerned with the gm being able to "disclaim authority" or necessarily with consistency, so if those elements are important, I don't think an OSR (and perhaps by extension, FKR) system would work.

That is a very helpful post and its the crux of what I'm getting at.

I'm trying to distinguish OSR from FKR in my brain.

Whereas OSR might generate a lot of subsystems through the course of play (encoding it in the way I depicted above; table defers to GM > GM makes ruling > ruling is either encoded or iterated upon and then encoded), what is FKR doing? And how does that doing work with "its a trust-heavy system."

Is it rulings just get made and there is an intentional absence of encoding happening (meaning, you will, by intent, see variations of resolution across a distribution of the same sort of action/conflict resolution)?

If there is that intentional absence of encoding and deviation of action resolution across a distribution of declared actions/conflicts to resolve, what does "its a trust-heavy system" look like in that scenario? Is it trust that the GM has sufficient expertise to be able to work out odds of success/fail in a way that is sensible to my own mental model (despite deviation in action/conflict resolution paradigm)? Is it trust that the GM has the humility to defer to other participants to negotiate these matters when they lack said expertise? Is it trust that we're all working toward some common goal (eg the GM will enable a play experience of Cosplay My Power Fantasy or Experience the Chilling Environment of a Pogrom or The Thrill of Free Soloing El Capitan) and all efforts poured into this thing will (somehow...even if I can't see it right now?) get there? What is the trust?

 

[Malmuria]

The term 'adjudication' is used here, but I think you mean 'invention' The GM invents stuff.

In the original Free Kriegspiel, the referee used their own battle experience to determine how far troops might move, how quickly guns might unlimber, which troops might deploy into line and how far from the enemy. Which might need to form square on their own initiative. These were adjudications based on actual experience.

What actual experience is in play when we need to know how far through a mapped dungeon the sound travels when my flying character hammers a piton into the ceiling? What actual experience is in play to determine what comes to investigate the noise, in what numbers, how quickly, how aggressively?

The answer is none. There's no reference to real experience, there's no basis in fact, or deliberation. Providing answers is just making stuff up, invention, authorship.

Sure--it goes back to the question of how fast a dragon flies. What rpg system is best for answering this question or providing the means to answer this question?

Privileging only the GM to do this is what pretty much every D&D game and D&D clone has done since 1974. I don't see the need to give it a new - and fundamentally inaccurate - name.

I get the sense that a lot of the push-back on here is in response to the way that FKR is being taken up as a label or a kind of reified style of RP. Fair enough, and maybe the pretentions of some of those bloggers don't match the actual content of their writing. I'm not sure if anyone here is actually an advocate, per se, of FKR games, so we are not positioned well to answer to this claim. It doesn't really bother me because ultimately the stakes are so low...it's a handful of bloggers in a niche corner of a niche hobby.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Do you remember when Fate and Apocalypse World / Dungeon World were new? Do you remember all the D&D players trying to figure out what these games were about and the endless threads asking questions and demanding answers. And them just not getting it because they couldn't wrap their brains around the shift in perspective? It mostly came down to traditional gamers not grokking the new style. Over time some people did. But not all. FKR is kinda like that. It requires a paradigm shift to really get it. Not everyone is willing or able to make that shift. And that's fine. But demanding trad answers of a non-trad game style isn't going to be very productive.

Exactly! I think that just reading games like Dark Empires*-

Dark Empires by D3B4G

Intrigue, death, magic in the time of Napoleon. An FKR setting and game.

d3b4g.itch.io

Is more instructive than demanding answers. Either it makes sense, or it doesn't. If it does, that's cool. If it doesn't, I don't think any amount of questions or heated debate will get you closer to epiphany.


*Playing is even better, but you have to start somewhere. Right?

 

[Numidius]

To me is quite simple:
Would I play/run Blades by RAW? Definitely yes. FKR? Probably not.
B/X, 5e, WFRP4e, PF2, any heavy D100 by RAW? Not really. FKR? Yes.
AW, pbta FKR? Might give it a try if setting and playbooks are interesting.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Nothing is ever perfect. Waiting for a perfect example is deciding to dismiss the conversation.

Not at all. I'm engaging in the conversation. But I'm going to challenge some of the assertions.

Add in the sequence of actions to the mix and make it mostly friendly characters taking up space. According to the rules, you can't have characters shuffle positions. Until there's an unoccupied square to move into, a character cannot move into that square. But two people could easily switch spots in the real world. You and I on line at the movies (wearing masks of course). We can switch spots. We don't have to move 5ft out of line, wait while the other steps into the now unoccupied square, and then move into the new unoccupied square. Put two D&D characters into a 5ft wide, 10ft long space, and they're permanently stuck there. One cannot move into the other's square. But we both know 5ft x 10ft is more than enough room for two people to move around each other. Some apartment kitchens are smaller than that. Yet two people can be in the same kitchen moving around each other freely. It might be cramped, sure. But it's physically possible. But not according to D&D. Halflings can move through threatened squares, but not end there. But the DMG has rules for climbing onto other creatures. So apparently our 5ft squares only present when we're on the ground.

You could have one of the two ready an action to swap places with the other on that PCs turn. And while yes, two people can maneuver around each other in a kitchen while cooking, we might look at that differently if the two of them were trying to kill one another.

But that is beside the point. I agree with you that some of the rules in D&D are needlessly complex. Or suffer from a purely game based turn structure being applied to them.

I don't think it's the problem that we're disagreeing about so much as what to do about the problem.

Sure. But why? Why would it need to be that complex? Why have a rule about it at all? Unless you're talking about a square body, bodies don't take up 5ft of space and prevent others from entering that space. The rules contradict reality so we have to make a choice. Which is more important: adherence to nonsensical rules or not contradicting reality? The FKR player / DM would say not contradicting reality or the fiction of the game. Rules be damned.

I think this is likely where we may see the true failing of this FKR approach. I don't think that it's unrealistic at all to assume two people standing in a 10 foot doorway can stop someone from moving through. I'm not saying it would be impossible....but I don't think the idea "contradicts reality".

But, if you said to me anyone can freely move through that space without consequence, I'd say that's a better example of contradicting reality. Still not total contradiction, though....because there's potentially lots of factors at play that would make it more or less likely.

This is why there are rules.

We have something that informs the skill of the two guards, we have something that informs the skill of the person trying to get past them, we may have something about the terrain or surface or other environmental factor. These things affect the chances.

Not sharing them with the players seems more about freeing the GM up to just make stuff up on the spot. Which may be fine....we all do this occasionally. But as an overall default approach it doesn't seem to lend itself to consistency.

I've seen "high-trust" be mentioned a lot and while I understand why it has been, I don't quite see it that way. It's more about "high-acceptance" of the GM's determinations rather than ever understanding things fully as a player.

Right. So since you trust the DM enough to come up with some rules, why not trust the DM to come up with the other rules? I mean, you already trust them enough to not say "rocks fall, everyone dies" so why not trust them to be fair with making the rules. Again, you already trust them to do this?

Because there's no need to put that all on them? The more you put on them, the more that trust is tested, and the more likely they'll fail at some point. Which hey, we all do from time to time no matter what game, but I don't see the need to open it up so much. Especially not for a payoff that I'm not really convinced is of much use.

System doesn't need to be visible. Players want it to be visible. Those are not the same. Besides, "roll 2d6, higher is better; use opposed rolls when appropriate" is perfectly visible and flexible. So why do we need anything more complex than that?

Well, I want rules to be visible as a GM as well. And I didn't say they needed to be....I said a system could be both visible and flexible. So you offered an example of one that is both. So I guess we agree here?

I'm not arguing in favor of complexity.

Not really.

Sure it is. The drawback with having codified rules in the context of FKR is that the players may get into the habit of engaging the rules rather than the fiction that the rules are meant to represent. But that's not always a problem, and when it is, there are other ways to solve it. And allowing for GM judgment to be used when the rules are either silent on something or else actively create a strange situation is not something unique to FKR. It's present to some degree in just about every RPG I can think of.

Ockham's razor. The simplest solution is the best one. It's simpler to obscure the rules from the players.

That's a pretty bold assertion. Most players I know actively want to understand the rules.

It's also really freeing as a DM. You should try it. You can run whatever rules you want, you don't have to worry about whether the system is popular or not, or whether the players have bought in or could even understand the system...it doesn't even need to exist in a language the players can read. It's infinitely easier to tell the players to roll the appropriate dice when they need to rather than explain the hodgepodge mess of house rules and variants you're using to get the style of game you want to play.

Or find a system that basically achieves this without the need to obscure it from the players? That'd be my preference. And I have played in this way at a few points in my RPG career....we never would have called it FKR, but my group definitely played a few games with as little knowledge on the players' part as possible. It added a little something here and there....uncertainty and similar.....but not enough to justify.

I haven't played or read much of BITD, so I wouldn't know. I do know enough about FKR to say that the opposite is certainly true of the FKR. Play worlds, not rules.

Well, a few of the games on the FKR list that was shared incorporated elements of Blades, so that's interesting. Blades is very much about fiction first, and works in a way that pretty much allows a player to declare any conceivable action for their PC in the same way that FKR seems to want. Then the GM has to use their judgment to determine the level of risk and potential consequences for failure, and then the dice are used to determine success.

So in my opinion, the core mechanic of Blades largely does exactly what FKR sets out to do. But it does so in a way that actively involves the player and is fully transparent to all the participants at the table.

I don't think they're nearly the opposites that you seem to think.

 

[overgeeked]

Exactly! I think that just reading games like Dark Empires*-

Dark Empires by D3B4G

Intrigue, death, magic in the time of Napoleon. An FKR setting and game.

d3b4g.itch.io

Is more instructive than demanding answers. Either it makes sense, or it doesn't. If it does, that's cool. If it doesn't, I don't think any amount of questions or heated debate will get you closer to epiphany.


*Playing is even better, but you have to start somewhere. Right?

See...it's weird. Because, for me, all I'd want is the pitch. I wouldn't want the actual game. Unless I needed to use it to get the players on board and our ideas of what we're about to do lined up. "Intrigue, death, magic in the time of Napoleon" is enough to get off the ground and go.

Interesting subtopic. The link to the game has a link to d66kobolds' FKR design challenge, which includes the line:

"You've met a person, right? How do you talk to them? Now talk to a person inside of a game in the same way."

It's like that. "But what are the rules for interacting with shopkeepers?" "Have you met a shopkeeper? How did you talk to them? Now talk to the shopkeeper inside the game the same way."

It's all like that. Tell the DM what you're doing. Let them worry about the rest.

Total aside. Holy gods do I hate the illegible death metal font the FKR movement picked. Gods I hate that. It's the ugliest damned thing.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

See...it's weird. Because, for me, all I'd want is the pitch. I wouldn't want the actual game. Unless I needed to use it to get the players on board and our ideas of what we're about to do lined up. "Intrigue, death, magic in the time of Napoleon" is enough to get off the ground and go.

Agreed- but I think it's helpful to see what the "game" looks like. But yeah, the point is that you really don't need the "game" to play the game.

Interesting subtopic. The link to the game has a link to d66kobolds' FKR design challenge, which includes the line:

"You've met a person, right? How do you talk to them? Now talk to a person inside of a game in the same way."

It's like that. "But what are the rules for interacting with shopkeepers?" "Have you met a shopkeeper? How did you talk to them? Now talk to the shopkeeper inside the game the same way."

It's all like that. Tell the DM what you're doing. Let them worry about the rest.

Exactly. But then you get into the morass of issues that arise when you have heuristic and informal rules of decision making. This either makes sense, or doesn't make sense. And for some people, it requires ... formal rules. Plus ca change!

Total aside. Holy gods do I hate the illegible death metal font the FKR movement picked. Gods I hate that. It's the ugliest damned thing.

Heh! Yeah, that's, um, hmmm.

Anyway, I think it's interesting as an approach; it's basically just another iteration of "free play" but with some more philosophy and a truly ugly font behind it. I mean, you can start using all sorts of fancy verbiage (But wait, does this mean that we have unexpected emergence?) but it's just another fun approach to gaming, after all is said and done.

 

[Numidius]

Exactly! I think that just reading games like Dark Empires*-

Dark Empires by D3B4G

Intrigue, death, magic in the time of Napoleon. An FKR setting and game.

d3b4g.itch.io

Is more instructive than demanding answers. Either it makes sense, or it doesn't. If it does, that's cool. If it doesn't, I don't think any amount of questions or heated debate will get you closer to epiphany.


*Playing is even better, but you have to start somewhere. Right?

Thanks for the tip. I had skimmed before over the entries at J. Parkin's blog, but now this one is a candidate for our Christmas session between old friends, if it will end up with me gming.

 

[Malmuria]

It's like that. "But what are the rules for interacting with shopkeepers?" "Have you met a shopkeeper? How did you talk to them? Now talk to the shopkeeper inside the game the same way."

It's all like that. Tell the DM what you're doing. Let them worry about the rest.

Total aside. Holy gods do I hate the illegible death metal font the FKR movement picked. Gods I hate that. It's the ugliest damned thing.

that reminds me that this thread refers to another thread that in turn refers to another thread about whether mechanics for social encounters are needed. And here too I can understand the perspective that 'system matters,' and that there are certain games that integrate various kinds of social mechanics into their core rules, OR that you can get by, in a game like dnd, in having social-centric sessions where no, or very few, dice are rolled. I wonder: is the social "pillar" of dnd 5e effectively a fkr-style game? Really the only structure it has are charisma checks with soft DCs; it's basically, roll a d20, roll high, and the gm interprets and adjusts in response (I think in dmg there is a structure sort of similar to position/effect that I'm sure very few people use). The gm, meanwhile, is entrusted to play the (social) world accurately and without bias, and this basically seems to work for people?