Sure, the previous fiction informs the situation and offers potential outcomes. It doesn’t decide the outcome.
No, but the Referee should use the previously established fiction to inform the newly established fiction.
“Never happen” seems like a bad way to play a game!
Only if you assume that there's a chance to do literally anything at any time, which is a rather bad assumption to make.
I don't treat conversation as mind control. You roleplay through it. If there's no way an NPC would engage or be reasoned with, there's no reason to roll. Like the Joker. Yeah. Never. The Joker will literally never be talked down. Unless it's part of his plan, a ruse or con. You can't talk a tornado down (if you have that as a superpower, yes you could, but last I checked Batman doesn't have
reach the unreachable as a superpower). To me, the Joker is a force of nature. There's no talking to him in the sense of persuading him because he's beyond reason. He's cartoon crazy. There's not enough rationality there to reach with a conversation. So yeah, never. Other Referees might, and probably would, rule it differently. But that's where I'd say no.
The Catwoman example would depend entirely on the established fiction and the roleplaying. Does Batman walk up to Catwoman, and the player just throw dice, and declare a result? That wouldn't fly. Do they roleplay through the conversation? What do they say? Is it a line of persuasion that Catwoman would buy? If, as the Referee, I didn't already have an idea of what would or would not work on her, I'd call for a roll. Not in the sense of persuasion as mind control, but rather to determine whether she bought it or not. In that case, me not already knowing how she'd react to the line, that's a great use of opposed rolls. Referee and player both chuck 2d6 and whoever rolls higher wins. If there's a tie, we sort out what a tie would look like in the moment.
We’re not trying to perpetuate a status quo to maintain a profitable IP. We’re trying to play a game and see what happens.
But we're also trying to accurately represent established characters from pop culture. Play to see what happens doesn't mean always roll and allow anything to happen. It means not planning the story. Set up a situation and see how the PCs bounce off it. That doesn't preclude having an idea of what NPCs want or need or what their goals are.
I don’t think it’s a matter of the tension being misplaced. But it all depends on what the fictional positioning is; the point at which the GM says “what do you do?”
I'm more a fan of hard framing scenes. I'd rather cut to the chase and start a scene when something's happening. When there's an interesting choice for the character to make. One of the tools I really like is BitD's flashbacks. Seeing it in print it's such a forehead slappingly obvious and great idea. Like Batman declaring that he's got a toy for that. Of course he does. He's Batman. But that wouldn't really work for Superman. But him taking a few seconds to fly to the Fortress of Solitude to fetch some Kryptonian weapon...sure. Why not?
These all seem like the GM deciding. Why?
Because the default is Referee authority.
No roll required doesn’t sound like a game to me.
Why assume that because these few example wouldn't require a roll that there's no rolls ever in the game? If you perform an action that the Referee can't determine the outcome of based on the fiction
and the action would have an interesting outcome whether you succeed or fail, then you roll. You don't need the dice to determine the outcome of every action. It just happens that I think those actions wouldn't need rolls. Batman vs a mook? No roll, auto success. Describe to me how awesome Batman is as he takes out the mook. Batman talking to Joker or Catwoman? Roleplay it out. As above about the Ref determining the outcome, which I have a solid idea of these characters, so wouldn't need to roll. Batman fighting the Joker? Bring out the dice. Batman solving a puzzle by the Riddler? Work through it as much as you can in character and in fiction...and if you're completely stuck, then roll for hints or clues. You may not be able to solve it, but Barman probably could. Batman having a heart-to-heart with Robin? Roleplay it. Batman disarm the timer before the bomb goes off? Roll it. The fiction is primary. Not the rules and not the dice. If it's obvious from the fiction what would happen, don't roll.
This is my area of concern when it comes to not having a known resolution system in place, which the players can rely on.
The resolution system is known. If you have questions about how your Referee is ruling, ask them. If you mean "there's no list of skills or list of DCs to check the Referee's work against," then yeah, no such luck. That's a feature, not a bug.
Maybe the GM thinks something’s a foregone conclusion, but a player thinks there’s a chance one way or the other.
And in that case they can talk it through. But in the end, the Referee's running the game, so their word is final.
For me, that’s what rules and processes are for. So that players can make informed decisions rather than trying to read the GM’s take on things.
You could just ask them. And a lot of this is covered in session 0s. Which version of Batman are we running? Is it Killing Joke or Batman: The Brave and the Bold? The idea is to be as close to the same page as possible to minimize disagreements. But they'll inevitably happen.
Right, this is the actual answer. The fiction cannot decide anything, it can only inform the decision. The GM decides. He decides if something is impossible, or if it’s trivial, or of we need to use dice (or whatever randomization method) to determine the outcome. This isn’t true of all FKR games, I imagine….I saw a couple that didn’t function this way. But it seems a common default.
Yes, it is.
Could we change that to the players deciding? What happens then?
Why would you want to? But sure, you could. And it would likely turn rather quickly into Fiasco. With more dice. The few times we played that it turned immediately into "I cut off your finger." "No you didn't. You can't do that." There's no rules to fall back on and there's no Referee to be the final authority. Without much rules, you need a Referee to be the authority of the fiction. You could always try to go the other way, lots and lots of very precise rules to try to cover everything, but there will inevitably be a disagreement on the interpretation of those rules...and without a Referee to arbitrate, your game's done. Depending on how dug in players get. But I'd rather just play. Someone's the Referee and they run the show. As long as they're not arbitrary and open to questions about their decisions and use the fiction as their guide, it's all good. Let's play.
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