D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[iserith]

I don't think force is inherently problematic or problematic at all.

I'd be willing to bet that whoever coined the term "force" to describe the particular phenomenon under discussion knew that it would frequently be interpreted as connoting problematic play. One only need look at the response to its use to see that it does, unless the reader happens to buy into certain theories that have been making warring tribes out of the gaming community for a couple decades now.

 

[pemerton]

as you go into more story-oriented play, especially if you have a lot of intrigue, and therefore a lot of improvisation (another characteristic of that kind of game is that it goes much faster because there is much fewer combat, so you get much much faster into unknown territory leading to improvisation), I'm sorry, but these devious tools become critical and almost a necessity.

And I'm sorry, but this is not bad DMing, in any way shape or form because by stepping into that kind of game (actually by wanting it) the players agree that these tools might be used, when necessary. How else can the DM play all the evil geniuses keeping track of their plots ? Are you all evil geniuses able to run all the intrigues in parallel ?

So deviousness becomes necessary, in particular metagaming about hearing what the PCs are planning to do and retroactively creating the plots that make these ideas into interesting storylines

I don't agree with this, for much the same reasons as have been posted by @Campbell and @Manbearcat.

To be a bit more precise about that: I don't think the GM has to be devious when improvising. You just say stuff, and do your best to keep track of what you've said, and do your best to make sure that what you say will be interesting to the players, given the way they have - either expressly or implicitly - signalled what they care about via the build and the play of their PCs.

Flipping it around to the player perspective: when my GM frames my PC's meeting with his mother, my GM is not being devious. He's just responding to the stuff I've written on my PC sheet, about Beliefs and Relationships and the like. And back in the GM perspective: when I'm GMing 4e D&D and place a temple of Orcus which the Raven Queen devotee PCs discover, I'm not being devious: the players know - if they give it a moment's thought - why the game is all about fighting Orcus cultists. It's because that's what they asked for when they built their Raven Queen devotees!

 

[pemerton]

the pc's are in Hamletville, and can chose one of three sidequests (or just leave and go to Townsborough): there's an orc camp to drive off, a fay-touched cave to explore, or rumors of a banshee to investigate.

The dm has prepped a cool ogre encounter. The dm has decided, ahead of time, that whichever side quest they choose, they will encounter the ogre along the way.

Is that railroading? Illusion of choice? Bad dming? I would say no to all three: the choice was never "do you want to encounter an ogre?" The choice was orthogonal to ogres, and is still valid.

The potential of an ogre encounter is only materially relevant to a meaningful choice being offered to the players if they are predicating the choice, at least in part, around its potentiality.

If the the meaningfulness of a choice doesn't rest on the potential existence of monsters in between the decision point and the destination, then the presence or absence of monsters in the event is not materially relevant to the choice. It is orthogonal to the choice.

The existence of an orthogonal rider to the outcome of a player choice (meaningful or not) does not railroading make in and of itself, nor does it make the GM deceitful.

I think I agree with these posts, at least to an extent. It depends a bit on further expectations: eg if it's well understood at the table that random-ish/interlude encounters are a thing, and the GM decides on this occasion to drop in an Ogre before the PCs get to the real site of the action, that seems fairly harmless. I reckon a lot of post-1984 AD&D play looks like this. It's strong GM authority over situation/scene-framing, with an expectation that the scenes framed will be at least coherent with the GM's pre-authored backstory. Overall it's pretty GM-driven play.

On the other hand, if the players are expecting that the next scene framed will be the one at the site of the action, and the GM delays that by first framing the Ogre encounter, that looks like it is bad GMing, although not so much because it's negating a player choice as frustrating the players' hopes about what will happen next.

Then there are "intermediate" cases: if the rules of the game specify that a check is needed to get to your desired site of the action (eg Undertake a Perilous Journey in DW), then if the check fails an imposed encounter is permissible. But then there is a further constraint on what counts as good use of situational authority, beyond it being coherent with backstory. It also has to respect the unfolding trajectory of play, which in these sorts of RPGs normally includes a good bit of player-infused purpose and theme.

let us deal with the issue of the two doors, each leading to the nasty ogres upon the other side.

<snip>

Take the two doors. Both lead to the ogre encounter. Consider the hypotheticals of the situation.

Basics: GM has prepared an ogre encounter and included a bunch of details that he believes will make the game more fun. He wants to include this for personal satisfaction and player enjoyment. The GM offers Door A and Door B, and there's a sign that says, "Ogres beyond! Choose wisely!"

Situation #1: No matter door the PCs select, they will stumble upon the ogres due to GM fiat.

Situation #2: Door A leads to ogres and Door B leads to freedom. The PCs choose Door B. The GM allows the PCs to exit, then later on has the PCs stumble into the ogre encounter in a different context.

Situation #3: GM's notes say that there is a 1-in-6 chance of a random ogre encounter once the PCs enter the next room. (This is similar to how Moldvay's Basic works: roll to see if there are monsters in the room.) GM rolls a 6 and the ogre encounter occurs regardless of which door is chosen.

Situation #4: Door A and Door B lead to ogres. The sign was lying, and it is revealed upon inspection that both exits into the ogre room can be retraced back to the initial room.

Situation #5: No matter door the PCs select, they will stumble upon the ogres due to GM fiat. The GM improvises that the sign was lying, and it is revealed upon inspection that both exits into the ogre room can be retraced back to the initial room.

Which of these is most egregious?

I don't see that any is egregious per se.

1 and 5 seem to suck pretty badly in the context of classic dungeon-crawling play. 3 is also a bit sucky in this respect: I think it's pretty weak in Moldvay play to have something so potentially important (a Moldvay Ogre is a big deal for 1st level PCs) gated behind a random roll, which means that mapping, interrogating other dungeon denizens, etc can't yield precise information.

4 seems fine in a Moldvay-esque dungeon, and a pretty classic trick.

2 seems a bit weak in a Moldvay-esque dungeon, not because of the room but because of the determination to enforce the encounter without regard to the map-and-key or the wandering monster clock.

Similar sorts of analyses could be performed relative to other sorts of play goals and expectations, much like I've given earlier in this thread for the Ogre on the way to the real destination encounter.

Unless the players and the GM have agreed in advance that unpredictable things won't happen (or that certain kinds of unpredictable things won't happen, or that they won't happen except via procedural mechanics), then when unpredictable things do happen (such as the GM deciding on the spot that there is a monster down both paths the PCs can choose when it's immaterial to their choice), then the players have no business calling it "railroading".

This is not to say that the players aren't allowed to be upset. But a mismatch between player and GM expectations or preferences is not ipso facto illusionism

Right. There are ways of being a sucky GM other than illusionism. And framing pointless or time-wasting situations - like the arbitrary Ogre encounter when the players really just wanted the action to move to <whatever it is they care about> - is a pretty cardinal GM sin! @Hussar's post upthread about the "anti-framing" by the GM in the KotB game is an especially egregious example.

if the fed-up PCs decide to give up on their quest and decide to go do something else, is it reasonable for the DM to have whatever option the PCs choose to extricate themselves simply work? What about if giving effect to the PCs' high-level choice to leave requires making their lower-level choices about how to extricate themselves all lead to the same place?

As an illustrative example, if the PCs are trying to resolve political intrigue on an island, but get fed up with all the factions and decide to depart, the choice of which boat captain to approach for passage to the mainland should be significant--depending on which faction the chosen boat captain belongs to, they may not want the PCs to leave! Is it reasonable for the DM to instead have any boat captain approached allow the PCs to escape the island, thus giving effect to the decision to leave at the cost of using illusionism regarding the choice of boat captain?

I don't see what the illusion would be. The players declare an action - We approach a boat captain, etc. The GM has the boat captain respond in a friendly fashion - if this requires some deft narrating to integrate that with past factional shenanigans, the GM narrates away. And now the PCs are off the island! There's no illusion there, just some colour used to place an ingame figleaf over what everyone can see is the real world desire to change the situation.

Now there are some approaches to play where this might be considered "poor" - eg a challenge-oriented hex crawl where the players are expected to make their own luck. But if everyone decides that now is the time to cast challenge to the winds in favour of having a good time, that's their prerogative! On the other hand, if the GM tries to maintain the pretence of challenge (eg pretends to make a reaction roll for the captain the PCs approach) while in fact just deciding what happens - well, that would be illusionism. Whether it is harmful to trust at the table or not would be pretty contextual, I think.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is still nebulous though. It is GMs job to decide what is possible or appropriate, set DCs etc. So GM can easily 'negate player choice' by simply making the thing they want to do impossible or very difficult. And what is fair and reasonable is pretty subjective.

Force isn't about violating rules or authorities. You have the authority to declare rocks fall and everyone dies, but this isn't considered normal play, yes? Forget about the definition being somehow permissive -- it's not. It's descriptive. When we talk about the GM exercising their authority to state outcomes, we can separate that into situations where the GM is engaged with the fiction the players are creating through action declarations and moments where the GM is doing whatever they want with disregard to the players. Force is describing the latter. This is all.

Perhaps. I still feel your assessment of that game in this regard is far too generous, especially considering very broad definition of force you're using. But this is D&D forum and I don't want tot talk about a game I don't play.

As I recall, you have no experience with that game, so I don't feel bothered by your opinion of it at all. Suffice to say, I'm 100% confident that you cannot deploy Force in Blades without it being obvious, and that Force is against the rules of the game. This assessment is extremely limited and very narrow -- it even says nothing at all about whether this is a good or bad thing. It's not either. It's A thing.

I've talked about D&D quite often, and I've tried to be extremely clear. You questioned, repeatedly, my statement that improvisation is not tantamount to Force -- and it is not. You would not take me at my word, and insisted I actually mean the opposite of what I said. I deploy Blades not to discuss a non-D&D game, but as proof positive that improvisation does not require Force as I have presented it. Feel free to disagree, but actually put forth a cogent argument for it rather that just misrepresenting what I say or trying to dismiss what I say with strong hope but no argument.

So what would make it force then?

I feel I've said this, but disregarding player input or choice. You've already ditched mechanics resolutions, so we don't have to worry about that. The situation you've presented is a blank choice, made up on the moment and with nothing at all behind or for it. It's a null as far as agency goes. I don't think you can create Force here because of that lack of agency -- you don't actually have player choice and player input seems similarly lacking.

If, however, you described one door in your improve as having the strong, fetid odor of ogres, and the other as having no odor, and the players said, "well, we don't want to fight an ogre right now, let's go through the door that doesn't smell of ogres," and then you decided that that door does have an ogre, that would be in Force territory -- you've now offered the appearance of an actual choice and gotten play input and you've chosen to disregard both.

Please keep in mind this example is only about the thought experiment you've provided of a completely improved choice (as you presented it) and an outcome. In other situations, the choice of door may very well be enough of a choice to matter. Here, without the extra information kicker, it's just "hey, choose heads or tails, I'll make up the same thing either way."

I absolutely don't. I'm just puzzled by why so many other people are bothered by these things and create countless incoherent definitions for them.

Cool, explain what's incoherent about it. Better yet, explain what Force means according to how I've been using it! Let's see if you've even bothered to try to understand the concept and grasped it firmly enough that you can articulate why it's incoherent (it isn't) with an argument that just doesn't misrepresent or try to dismiss it via vigorous waving of hands.

 

[Hussar]

For what I am looking for when it comes to roleplaying games where I care about the unfolding narrative I view other players (including the GM) trying to impress their vision on all of us a violation of trust. Not our trust in them, but their trust in the rest of us. They are showing they are afraid we are going to screw it up and be poor collaborators.

This explains what I mean by the DM acting in bad faith far better than I said it. Totally agree with this point right here.

 

[Lyxen]

To be a bit more precise about that: I don't think the GM has to be devious when improvising. You just say stuff, and do your best to keep track of what you've said, and do your best to make sure that what you say will be interesting to the players, given the way they have - either expressly or implicitly - signalled what they care about via the build and the play of their PCs.

And praytell, how are you improvising the intrigues of supra-geniuses like Orcus and the Raven Queen or even their minions ? The answer is you don't if you're not at least a bit devious, otherwise you can of course play a game which is heavily focussed about combat like the examples that you have provided.

Because I don't make the claim that I'm an (evil) genius, I can't have all the ideas that they would have, or keep track of what they are doing. What I do is collaborate with my players in a sort of hive mind to get there, and use their ideas as well.

But surely, and obviously, you can, so you are multiple evil geniuses rolled into one...

Flipping it around to the player perspective: when my GM frames my PC's meeting with his mother, my GM is not being devious.

Yeah, right, even your mother is an evil genius... Look, obviously, in that kind of case, not deviousness is needed. I'm not advocating using tricks all the time. The only thing that I'm saying is that in and of themselves, they are not bad or evil, and that they can be very useful in some cases. And that a DM using them is not a bad GM, nor does it imperil his friendship or whatever rule of the social contract. The DMs in our groups have for the most part been running games with these kind of tricks for almost 40 years, so I completely reject any insinuation that it's inherently bad.

What I can tell you I find really, really , REALLY bad is players deciding to slam the door on a DM's face for a bit of railroading. That is humanly absolutely unjustifiable and the mark of a level of entitlement that none of them members and GMs of our groups would suffer. Especially for DMs who were probably beginners or unsure of themselves.

I'll stop here, because it makes me extremely angry once again that some of you dare to use these examples as if you were proud of your behaviour as players. In terms of respecting people, it would make me incredibly more ashamed than I would ever be about using a bit of railroading because I don't know how to deal with the situation that players have decided to play.

Again, If I'm a beginner DM offering to run "Keep on the Borderlands", which is a basic a module as ever written, and do it out of the box, what makes you think I feel up to improvising a heist in the nearby town on the spot ? Who violated the social contract first there ?

So yes, it makes me very angry that you dare castigate people for using in game things which are not inherently bad (and very probably for good or even more probably at least understandable reasons) and that you dare behave like j...ks in the real world, with real people.

He's just responding to the stuff I've written on my PC sheet, about Beliefs and Relationships and the like. And back in the GM perspective: when I'm GMing 4e D&D and place a temple of Orcus which the Raven Queen devotee PCs discover, I'm not being devious: the players know - if they give it a moment's thought - why the game is all about fighting Orcus cultists. It's because that's what they asked for when they built their Raven Queen devotees!

Indeed, it's about fighting in your case, with fights lasting a full evening (again, this from your summaries).

But when I'm keeping tracks of the actions of dozens of arch-devils and Demon Princes, not to mention Rakshasa, Night Hags, Ultro- and Arcana-daemons, archmages, etc., all of which are devious and scheming against each other and against the PCs, I'll use every trick I know of to create verisimilitude, and make the players feel the threat of all that scheming.

And it will make them feel extremely good when they outscheme their foes, or when they best them through sheer heroism or deviousness on their parts, because they know that they were not underplayed as just brutes to fight in a physical combat like Orcus or Ygorl in your campaigns.

And yes, whereas the players give themselves inspiration when they do something cool (once per evening) and where I also give the DM's inspiration to a player once per evening, but there have been multiple cases of the players giving inspiration to me because they were blown away by the turn of the plot(s). And they accept that an adversary will have technical advantage over them once (I rarely use it, though).

Moreover, listening in on the plotting and discussions of the PC and building on this makes sure that I'm listening to them. And of course, I will use this to create even better plots, because using 7 brains is much better than using just mine to generate great ideas.

But obviously, just because the PC make the choice to do a heist on Graz'zt domain does not mean that I will let that happen because, like it or not, there is an uber-arc and plots and scenarios and ideas and hooks to manage, and it might cause all of that to crash down, including other parts which are dear to the PCs as well. Fortunately, I am fairly experienced at this, and there are many, many tools at my disposal, more or less devious. So please don't dare judge people on the use of these tools, they are just tools, and the players know that there is a possibility I'm using them, just as I know that the other DMs in our groups are possibly using some of them when I play, and I appreciate it because it makes plots even more sinister and dangerous.

But then, I trust my DMs, and I'm absolutely ready to be understanding and forgiving if something is not entirely up to my expectations. Can you say the same ?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Force isn't about violating rules or authorities. You have the authority to declare rocks fall and everyone dies, but this isn't considered normal play, yes? Forget about the definition being somehow permissive -- it's not. It's descriptive. When we talk about the GM exercising their authority to state outcomes, we can separate that into situations where the GM is engaged with the fiction the players are creating through action declarations and moments where the GM is doing whatever they want with disregard to the players. Force is describing the latter. This is all.

We can? Easily? Clearly? Certainly almost anything the GM describes is somehow related to the fiction players are creating and their action declarations. Players: "We enter the Ravine." GM: "Rocks fall, everybody dies." Directly based on player action declaration, so not force?

As I recall, you have no experience with that game, so I don't feel bothered by your opinion of it at all. Suffice to say, I'm 100% confident that you cannot deploy Force in Blades without it being obvious, and that Force is against the rules of the game. This assessment is extremely limited and very narrow -- it even says nothing at all about whether this is a good or bad thing. It's not either. It's A thing.

I've talked about D&D quite often, and I've tried to be extremely clear. You questioned, repeatedly, my statement that improvisation is not tantamount to Force -- and it is not. You would not take me at my word, and insisted I actually mean the opposite of what I said. I deploy Blades not to discuss a non-D&D game, but as proof positive that improvisation does not require Force as I have presented it. Feel free to disagree, but actually put forth a cogent argument for it rather that just misrepresenting what I say or trying to dismiss what I say with strong hope but no argument.

I am not trying to misinterpret you, you merely were not being clear. This is probably due you trying to apply some crisp definitional framework to the muddy reality of RPGs as they're actually played and that usually just doesn't work.

I feel I've said this, but disregarding player input or choice. You've already ditched mechanics resolutions, so we don't have to worry about that. The situation you've presented is a blank choice, made up on the moment and with nothing at all behind or for it. It's a null as far as agency goes. I don't think you can create Force here because of that lack of agency -- you don't actually have player choice and player input seems similarly lacking.

If, however, you described one door in your improve as having the strong, fetid odor of ogres, and the other as having no odor, and the players said, "well, we don't want to fight an ogre right now, let's go through the door that doesn't smell of ogres," and then you decided that that door does have an ogre, that would be in Force territory -- you've now offered the appearance of an actual choice and gotten play input and you've chosen to disregard both.

Please keep in mind this example is only about the thought experiment you've provided of a completely improved choice (as you presented it) and an outcome. In other situations, the choice of door may very well be enough of a choice to matter. Here, without the extra information kicker, it's just "hey, choose heads or tails, I'll make up the same thing either way."

Yet a lot of people here think blind choice quantum ogres are force and railroading. Also, again, in reality the difference between blind and informed choices is not crisp and clear. Players may expect all sort of things, they may have made conclusions, those conclusions may be completely erroneous.

Cool, explain what's incoherent about it. Better yet, explain what Force means according to how I've been using it! Let's see if you've even bothered to try to understand the concept and grasped it firmly enough that you can articulate why it's incoherent (it isn't) with an argument that just doesn't misrepresent or try to dismiss it via vigorous waving of hands.

Most of the clear distinctions you seem to assume do not exist in practice. Furthermore, I was not merely referring to you, these discussions always devolve into pointless semantic quagmire as not one can agree on what words even mean.

Ultimately for agency related issues to only thing that really matters is whether the players feel that they have sufficient impact on the events of the game. And determining that is more about reading the room than applying some theoretical framework.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The potential of an ogre encounter is only materially relevant to a meaningful choice being offered to the players if they are predicating the choice, at least in part, around its potentiality.

While this is true, I generally find that most players feel choices of the type "investigate location X," "take direction Y," or "go to Z first" have such a predicate built-in. That is, if players are presented with a fork in the road and asked, "Which direction do you want to go?", they assume (a) the two paths go to different places, unless some justification says otherwise (e.g. the paths could converge again later); (b) because you're actually offering the choice, instead of abstracting it out,* it must actually be relevant to their interests; and (c) they will experience different consequences depending on whether they choose one path or the other.

This is one of the reasons why I work, very hard, to provide supporting justifications for things well in advance, and on the occasions where I slip up, I do my best to empower my players to find out and adapt. E.g., it is a well-established fact in my DW setting that there are Very Nasty Monsters that live out in the desert, especially the deep desert where travel routes don't typically go. Hunters in the wastes (Rangers and Slayers) have a centuries-old tradition of hunting these fell beasts, but there's never really an end to them. The desert conceals many things, and the monsters' origin is one of them. Thus, random encounters are well-established, and the party knows if they're gonna make a journey, they should try to learn about the location so they can be prepared for likely dangers. They expect "quantum ogres,"** in the sense that they know there's always a chance it could happen and they know to prepare for that possibility consistently.

In other cases, if I "fudge" mechanics or the like, I always make it clear to the party that something weird is happening, and provide them with the opportunity to learn what it is, and how they can respond to it (whether learning to prevent it in the future, making use of it themselves, weaknesses induced by it, etc.) So, to use the classic "the party got a lucky string of crits and blew away the cool boss fight I made," if I felt it was that important to keep the fight around long enough for something to happen, I would make up something and the party would be able to observe it. E.g. if it's an evil wizard, "You land crushing, telling blows--the wizard is caught completely off-guard by your attacks. His face contorts into an ugly expression as you land what should have been a lethal wound, yet somehow, he still stands. He draws from his robe a golf ball-sized globe, which seems to be filled with fire and...possibly blood? He crushes it in his hand and you smell burning blood and the faint trace of brimstone. His wounds are knit shut by sutures of fire and his eyes glow with a baleful light. He's clearly determined to defeat you...no matter what it might cost him." That makes it so the players know their actions SHOULD have worked, but something got in the way (in this case, the powers of hell). It gives them the opportunity to learn, and later on, prepare.

Note that I used quotes above on "fudging." I do not consider this an example of fudging proper, because (a) it isn't secret, I'm telling the players something is happening, and (b) the players have the opportunity to learn from it. They might bungle that opportunity. Such is the nature of any dice-based game. But they have something to work with. It's very, very important to me as both a player and a DM that that opportunity exists.

The existence of an orthogonal rider to the outcome of a player choice (meaningful or not) does not railroading make in and of itself, nor does it make the GM deceitful.

Sure. But, as noted, I find that such orthogonality is relatively rare in the things pro-illusionism GMs care to speak of. The illusory fork in the road, where both paths end up at the same place, is clearly not orthogonal to the choice of which path to take. Fudging the numbers for a rules resolution (be it combat stuff or non-combat), whether for or against the players, clearly isn't orthogonal to the choices they made that triggered the need for resolution. And (for what I consider the worst out of a bunch of bad apples) secret retconning is emphatically not orthogonal to the players' choices, since you're literally changing what the world is.

(The example I usually give for "secret retconning" is the changing killer in a mystery story. That is, you've set up a murder mystery where there are multiple suspects, and you know who is guilty. Say the Crown Prince has been murdered, and his sister the (now-Crown) Princess, his step-father the King-Consort, the Duchess, and the Baron are all implicated, but you know that the Baron is the real killer. You have prepared clues to that effect, and the party has collected some of them. One player then, in a flash of insight, figures out the full story...when you're only a third of the way through. It would be secret retconning to change it so that no, the Baron was always innocent but being framed by the Princess, even though the party had found evidence that, prior to this change, was 100% legitimate and pointing toward the correct killer. Such actions are justified by (at least some) pro-illusionism GMs as "maintaining the fun" or "making sure the game is satisfying" or whatever. I, of course, don't really accept those justifications.

In the game world, just as in ours, unpredictable things happen that don't relate back to the things our PCs contrive to do. But because we can only ever incompletely model the game world, these things happen as a result of some procedural game mechanic (procedural content generation before or during play, action-resolution mechanics that introduce complications during play, or what-have-you) that someone (usually the GM in D&D) has to willfully invoke, or by GM or player discretion (i.e. simply narrating that the unpredictable thing now happens). In D&D, where the players are not assumed to be able to author the fictional world beyond their PCs (and to their PCs' backgrounds, to some extent), player authorship of random events in the game world is not assumed to be available except perhaps at a superficial level.

While this is all fair, my issue lies in the rather unrestrained use that gets folded into "GM...discretion" here. That is, fudging, secret retconning, and illusionism all depend on the DM having absolute and unlimited justification for changing literally anything, no matter how integral to the play experience, whenever they feel like, for whatever reason they feel like, and to then prevent the players from ever having even the possibility of knowing that such changes occurred. It is this arbitrary and secret exercise of power which concerns me so much.

*As one does with a myriad of uninteresting "choices" that occur (e.g. which mundane clothing you wear that day under your fancy stuff, or what specific meal you choose to eat for breakfast, what time you bathe etc.) That is, "choices" which of their very nature definitely don't matter and don't have consequences worth investigating in over 99% of cases.
**Properly speaking, ogres are part of both civic and non-civic culture in this region, so it wouldn't be quantum ogres, more likely quantum chimaera or quantum bandits. But that's kinda splitting hairs.

 

[Manbearcat]

Did I ever say that you have to ? The only thing that I'm saying is that they can help and that it does not make the game a bad game and the DM a bad DM, since in the end, the players were always very pleased. And we've been playing in my current groups with some people for almost 40 years now, and we are still having tons of fun, as players and DMs both, alternating between the roles.



Hum, you know that you do sound a bit patronising, don't you ? Because I've been playing this mode for very probably as long as you and possibly longer, with various groups and DMs and clubs on 4 continents. And yes, for discussing it with them, I know that a good number of them employed these tricks now and then, in particular the "taking into account the players discussions" part, because honestly it would be a shame to let all these good ideas that float around die in vain.

But then, I'm sure that you are more highly proficient than all of them. And that you can play a plethora of evil geniuses in parallel, since you are obviously one. I'm just teasing you here, obviously, but maybe re-read your sentence above ?

With respect, your post is almost impossible to respond to. But I'm going to try.

To start with:

1) You're responding to a post from someone who expressed a lot of sympathy with you for the likelihood that you're feeling cornered and dogpiled upon. Then you respond with the above. Lets start with that.

Understand that now...after this post. You do not have my sympathies for the dogpiling you are receiving. I retract it. In RPG terms...you have lost faction with me!

2) The bit I've bolded in the first paragraph? This is you word for word (which I quoted in the thread you quoted):

Lyxen said:
But as you go into more story-oriented play, especially if you have a lot of intrigue, and therefore a lot of improvisation (another characteristic of that kind of game is that it goes much faster because there is much fewer combat, so you get much much faster into unknown territory leading to improvisation), I'm sorry, but these devious tools become critical and almost a necessity.

Let me repeat for those in the back:

"I'm sorry, but these devious tools (Illusionism and Force) become critical and almost a necessity."

Do we need to do that again? Alright, lets do it again.

"I'm sorry, but these devious tools (Illusionism and Force) become critical and almost a necessity."


THIS. This. This is what I'm disputing. This is your claim. This is what I'm disputing.

This claim is not true. It is empirically not true. These tools are not critical for "story-oriented play, especially if you have a lot of intrigue, and therefore a lot of improvisation" (your claim).

How do I know its not true? Because I don't use them and I do exactly what you say. There are plenty of people on this very forum who have been PCs in my game who can corroborate. There are plenty of other GMs who do the exact same thing without the deployment of "these devious tools" as you put them.

Its not patronising to point this out. There is no way to dispute your claim rather than either (a) playing with you and having you witness it first-hand or (b) bringing up multiple independent lines of evidence to corroborate the reality that your claim is empirically not true.

So that is what I've done (b). You can feel about that however you'd like, but its not me patronising. And no, this is clearly not a mode of play ("Play to Find Out" Story Now) you've been playing for a very long time (referencing your 2nd paragraph). If that were true, you wouldn't make this empirically untrue claim in the first place and we wouldn't be having this conversation!

I've made wrong claims in my life. I've drawn wrong inferences. I've told people who have done a thing or born witness to a thing that I doubt their conclusions. They've proven me wrong and I've revised my opinion. They weren't patronising me. They were just disputing my claim. And later, when I realized I was wrong...I was glad for their correction.

This is normal stuff.

 

[Ovinomancer]

We can? Easily? Clearly? Certainly almost anything the GM describes is somehow related to the fiction players are creating and their action declarations. Players: "We enter the Ravine." GM: "Rocks fall, everybody dies." Directly based on player action declaration, so not force?

Sigh. Did the players make a choice that included "we die" or was there actual choice about something else? This is the mistake you're making -- you're just trying to get to a place where you can link "choice" with "outcome" in any nebulous way and declare victory (which is odd).

This is pretty much the same thing as saying "which door do you pick, BAM! Ogre!" It's not actually a choice you've offered the character, you stripped agency out of this from the start just to narrate the ending. If the rocks were going to happen no matter what, this is Force, because you've offered an illusionary choice to the characters that isn't really a choice. Develop this example more and perhaps there's a different outcome.

I am not trying to misinterpret you, you merely were not being clear. This is probably due you trying to apply some crisp definitional framework to the muddy reality of RPGs as they're actually played and that usually just doesn't work.

I was clear, man, very clear. There's no way you could get to "so improv means Force" from what I said without just utterly failing to grasp it. The misrepresentation set in when, after I pointed this out, you kept going with that interpretation. When someone says "no, you have that entirely backwards" and even gives further examples, continuing to insist that you have the right of it with a badly flawed reflection of the argument made is misrepresentation -- you're on notice and have chosen to ignore it. Effectively, were you a GM, you were trying to Force an outcome. However, you don't have final authority over the fiction here, so I have remedies.

And, I play RPGs. Quite a few. I'm in 4 games right now -- a 5e game, a Kids on Bikes game, an Aliens game, and a Blades in the Dark game. I'm not engaged in theorycraft, I'm talking about the framework I use to think about, prepare, and play all of these games and that help me improve in all of them and be aware of what's going on. This isn't words for some idealized version of play, it's stuff that's applicable to my play at all levels -- prep, play, post, and in the muck of immediate play, meta-play, and discussion of play.

I am laser focused on discussion of games that actually addresses what's going on in the game and that's applicable to the muddy, mucky, dirty moments of actual play.

Force is a concept that I'm keenly and always aware of when I run 5e, and that I usually am prepared to ignore when I play (because that helps me shrug off the feeling of unfairness that I usually get and keep enjoying play for what else I like there). It's something I consider, both in prep (should I use Force here?) and in play (can I avoid using Force here, what's available to me if I don't?). So, yeah, you're entirely wrong about this not being immediately useful as a structure for analysis of play, even in the moments of play.

Yet a lot of people here think blind choice quantum ogres are force and railroading. Also, again, in reality the difference between blind and informed choices is not crisp and clear. Players may expect all sort of things, they may have made conclusions, those conclusions may be completely erroneous.

It is Force. It's not railroading to me at all. I don't have a problem with the use of Force, so if you're arguing with me over Force because you think I'm using it as a club in the argument, you're very off base. It's like any other tool in the box -- don't overuse it. What's overuse? Ask the table, because they're the judge, not me. For me, I prefer very, very little use of Force, but can tolerate quite a lot of it (within bounds).

Players have made mistakes is perfectly fine -- in fact, I love those moments where they realize they've done this despite everything. I often say that I can give the players my notes and they'll still screw it up by the numbers! So long as I haven't shorted them or cheated them into believing the wrong things, I'm perfectly happy to watch my players burn everything to the ground in a fit of mistakes.

You seem to have a very antagonistic view towards arguments where you've placed people on sides and then make arguments against the sides rather than what's being actually said.

Most of the clear distinctions you seem to assume do not exist in practice. Furthermore, I was not merely referring to you, these discussions always devolve into pointless semantic quagmire as not one can agree on what words even mean.

They do, actually, because I see it all the time, in real time, in play, in various games and how those things lay out. This isn't something that actually breaks down in the face of play -- it would be useless to me as a concept if it did that. Concepts for me have to first actually describe something and be useful in describing my own play and the play of others, before I'll stand up for them.

Ultimately for agency related issues to only thing that really matters is whether the players feel that they have sufficient impact on the events of the game. And determining that is more about reading the room than applying some theoretical framework.

And this is the heart of what Illusionism does -- it provide the look and feel of that agency without there being any agency at all. And, so long as that works out, everyone is indeed happy. I could not care less about that, though, because I'm not talking about whether or not you're very successful or not about pulling this off at you table. I say that because, like I've said often, tolerances for these things is very table/player specific. I can say that I'd probably notice it, because I'm keyed into these things, but I might not. And I'd notice it because of this "theoretical" framework, which I can apply in realtime during play, both as a player and a GM.