System matters and free kriegsspiel

[chaochou]

Let's say I want to run an game where I'm going to create the illusion of agency for the players. Let's say I'm going to create a game where all the important decisions have been scripted by me the GM and that what the players are asked to do is provide some cosplay, a bit of witty dialogue and some combat tactics and dice rolls. however, I'm going to fudge it and stitch it all together to present the game to them as one where their decisions really mattered and impacted the outcomes.

To be functional, that game also requires 'High Trust'.

In this (and the FKR) usage 'trust' is a one-way street deployed as a demand by the GM of the players. It's not a mutual currency shared around the table equally by all the participants. It's an authoritarian construct rather than a collaborative one.

My games require high trust too, but it's a shared trust. A trust from me that everyone is going to bring it, to play with heart and integrity and passion, not to turtle and stonewall and play Mary Sue, to create characters with flaws and responsibilities and vulnerabilities and failings as well as strengths and brilliance, and a shared trust that everyone is in a friendly, happy-go-lucky environment and is comfortable for the game to go where the players collectively take it.

I would also note that earlier on I offered to GM in this thread using the FKR playloop for a poster claiming it provided them agency. Obviously, they declined and then stopped responding. However, in one reply they said they were declining because of the 'difference in high trust to low trust playstyle'.

Nowhere was there a suggestion that I wouldn't adjudicate their action declarations in accordance with the play loop under discussion.

What I wasn't trusted to do was provide the illusion of agency.

 

[Manbearcat]

Let's say I want to run an game where there's I'm going to create the illusion of agency for the players. Let's say I'm going to create a game where all the important decisions have been scripted by me the GM and that what the players are asked to do is provide some cosplay, a bit of witty dialogue and some combat tactics and dice rolls. however, I'm going to fudge it and stitch it all together to present the game to them as one where their decisions really mattered and impacted the outcomes.

To be functional, that game also requires 'High Trust'.

In this usage 'trust' is a one-way street deployed as a demand by the GM of the players. It's not a mutual currency shared around the table equally by all the participants. It's an authoritarian construct rather than a collaborative one.

Sounds like you’re depicting “Illusionism Infinity (and beyond!)” rather than “Tactical Infinity!”

 

[S'mon]

When I'm GMing I want the players to trust they have agency; ie the actions of their PCs affects what happens. This trust can be inculcated by objective transparent adjudication of mechanical systems - eg no fudging hit point tallies. It can be inculcated by transparency in making free judgements, too.

I always roll my wandering monster checks in the open, so everyone can see that if eg the die comes up a 6, that means an encounter.

The players need to trust the GM, the GM needs to strive to be worthy of that trust. For me it feels lot like leading a tutorial group in my day job. I'm the guy at the front of the room, I'm the one with the authority. The students in the tutorial need to be confident that their participation is meaningful, eg that I will really engage with what they say, and react based on what I think of their arguments, not (eg) their dress sense. All of them, not just my favourites.

 

[Numidius]

On the topic of trusting the GM, this is from DitV (p 89), under the heading Ambush:

What’s at stake: do you get murdered in your bed?

— The stage: your room at night. A possessed sinner creeps into your room without waking you.

— You roll only Acuity, because you’re asleep. I roll Body + Will.

— My first Raise will be to hit you in the head with my axe. I get my axe dice too! I’m rolling a lot more dice than you, so probably you have to Take the Blow. But check it out — that means you take Fallout and get to say how, it doesn’t mean you’re dead. You aren’t dead unless the whole conflict goes my way.

— So let’s say that you take the blow: “I hear him coming even in my sleep, but he gashes me bad...” Then it’s your Raise, and you can escalate: “...I come awake already in motion, with blood in my eyes and my knife in my hand!” Away we go!

I should tell you, in an early playtest I startled one of my players bad with this very conflict. In most roleplaying games, saying “an enemy sneaks into your room in the middle of the night and hits you in the head with an axe” is cheating. I’ve hosed the character and the player with no warning and no way out. Not in Dogs, though: the resolution rules are built to handle it. I don’t have to pull my punches!

(You’ve GMed a bunch of RPGs before, right? Think about what I just said for a minute. You know how you usually pull your punches?)​

I think this is relevant to thinking about how different allocations of authority over the fiction, and different processes for working out what happens next, produce different RPG experiences.

My goal, reached running a realistic Cthulhian campaign, but still work in progress in my OSR, is to have exactly the above kind of exchange at the table, without any rule or dice roll (ok, maybe one at the end sometimes).

Disclaimer: I own a copy of DitV and ran it. I'm also proud of having run a Vampire adventure using Dogs' resolution and escalation of conflicts with mostly D10 pools.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My goal, reached running a realistic Cthulhian campaign, but still work in progress in my OSR, is to have exactly the above kind of exchange at the table, without any rule or dice roll (ok, maybe one at the end sometimes).

How does that possibly work without the GM pulling punches or filtering for desired outcomes (ie, Force)? I mean, walk through that with what you're thinking and how you're adjudicating the axe-wielding sinner catching the paladin asleep as to how it works out without you pulling a punch or pushing an outcome?

ETA: I'm not saying it's not possible, just that I don't see how you get there. I'm very interested in hearing, though, because relatively recently a style of play I didn't think was possible turned out to be possible and now I love it, so maybe there's a leap here I'm not seeing.

Disclaimer: I own a copy of DitV and ran it. I'm also proud of having run a Vampire adventure using Dogs' resolution and escalation of conflicts with mostly D10 pools.

I don't see how that works, but okay.

 

[Numidius]

Let's say I want to run an game where I'm going to create the illusion of agency for the players. Let's say I'm going to create a game where all the important decisions have been scripted by me the GM and that what the players are asked to do is provide some cosplay, a bit of witty dialogue and some combat tactics and dice rolls. however, I'm going to fudge it and stitch it all together to present the game to them as one where their decisions really mattered and impacted the outcomes.

To be functional, that game also requires 'High Trust'.

In this (and the FKR) usage 'trust' is a one-way street deployed as a demand by the GM of the players. It's not a mutual currency shared around the table equally by all the participants. It's an authoritarian construct rather than a collaborative one.

My games require high trust too, but it's a shared trust. A trust from me that everyone is going to bring it, to play with heart and integrity and passion, not to turtle and stonewall and play Mary Sue, to create characters with flaws and responsibilities and vulnerabilities and failings as well as strengths and brilliance, and a shared trust that everyone is in a friendly, happy-go-lucky environment and is comfortable for the game to go where the players collectively take it.

I would also note that earlier on I offered to GM in this thread using the FKR playloop for a poster claiming it provided them agency. Obviously, they declined and then stopped responding. However, in one reply they said they were declining because of the 'difference in high trust to low trust playstyle'.

Nowhere was there a suggestion that I wouldn't adjudicate their action declarations in accordance with the play loop under discussion.

What I wasn't trusted to do was provide the illusion of agency.

Let's say I'd like to partecipate in a game of shared trust of yours, and you run it tonight for me and some new folk.
You don't have time to prep before, nor to explain rulesets at the table.
Would you run it extemporarily, freeform, free kriegsspiel, Gm-decides, whatever rule you see fit in the moment, aware of your experience and sensibility?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Let's say I'd like to partecipate in a game of shared trust of yours, and you run it tonight for me and some new folk.
You don't have time to prep before, nor to explain rulesets at the table.
Would you run it extemporarily, freeform, free kriegsspiel, Gm-decides, whatever rule you see fit in the moment, aware of your experience and sensibility?

This is trying to create an implausible set of circumstances to show that there's only your answer that could work here. Firstly, this fails your answer as well because character creation and the playloop of describe/declare/resolve are still actually rules that you cannot impart (I assume this must be exempt, though, so your thought experiment is aligned). But, primarily, if you have to concoct such an extreme and implausible scenario to show where the suggested play shines doesn't that cut against rather than for?

 

[Aldarc]

My goal, reached running a realistic Cthulhian campaign, but still work in progress in my OSR, is to have exactly the above kind of exchange at the table, without any rule or dice roll (ok, maybe one at the end sometimes).

Disclaimer: I own a copy of DitV and ran it. I'm also proud of having run a Vampire adventure using Dogs' resolution and escalation of conflicts with mostly D10 pools.

In what sense are you using "realistic" in this context?

Let's say I'd like to partecipate in a game of shared trust of yours, and you run it tonight for me and some new folk.
You don't have time to prep before, nor to explain rulesets at the table.
Would you run it extemporarily, freeform, free kriegsspiel, Gm-decides, whatever rule you see fit in the moment, aware of your experience and sensibility?

The idea that I don't have time to explain the rules at the table feels detached from any reality or experience in which I have played TTRPGs, board games, or any sort of games.

 

[Numidius]

This is trying to create an implausible set of circumstances to show that there's only your answer that could work here. Firstly, this fails your answer as well because character creation and the playloop of describe/declare/resolve are still actually rules that you cannot impart (I assume this must be exempt, though, so your thought experiment is aligned). But, primarily, if you have to concoct such an extreme and implausible scenario to show where the suggested play shines doesn't that cut against rather than for?

Byzantine No, I just meant that sometimes things are just easier done than discussed.

I'm pretty confident that anyone of you folks could Gm such a game easily, in a principled manner with satisfactory results.

 

[Numidius]

In what sense are you using "realistic" in this context?


The idea that I don't have time to explain the rules at the table feels detached from any reality or experience in which I have played TTRPGs, board games, or any sort of games.

Realistic as in Not Pulpy.

Ok, then Don't have time is implausible, maybe Don't want to explain them for whatever reason?

See above