D&D 5E Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e

[FrogReaver]

So I think I've made it pretty clear that backstory/setting is just that. Everyone knows that in any RPG that uses backstory or setting at all (maybe there are some that don't, eg Toon?) some of that setting is written before play starts, and some is written as play unfolds, between sessions, etc - Gygax suggests doing it this way in his DMG, and it is the explicit process set out in the AW rulebook, and I've given examples of situation => backstory which obviously means that backstory is being established during the course of play.

This is interesting because to me I would never describe backstory as what is written as play unfolds (just another case of jargon getting in the way of communication IMO). (But I will use it that way some when speaking with you).

More importantly though, I don't feel there's a very clear line for when something goes from backstory first to non-backstory first. It kind of feels like it's a catch all term for anything that isn't situation first or character first? IMO, All/Most RPG's involve backstory, situation and character and all these things in all/most rpg's work in unison together to create the playstyle and feel of that particular instance of the game. Metaphorically it's as asking if we are assigning different priorities to the chicken and to the egg.

You've not contributed any analytical terminology.

I don't want to create terminology unless it's absolutely necessary.

Your description of the process of play is players do stuff: you don't distinguish categories of action resolution

In a living sandbox players have their characters do stuff. That's generally the exclusive way they have of interacting with the game. I'm not seeing any categorizations of player actions that help explain the living sandbox play and experience. There's just the one.

which I'm pretty confident in your "living sandbox" play are resolved differently (eg I attack the Orc which I would guess is resolved via a player-side dice roll, vs I look under the sofa which I would guess is resolved by the GM consulting notes, or perhaps a random stuff-under-the-sofa table, and then telling the player what the PC finds). In fact, you haven't really talked about who has authority over the consequences of declared actions at all, nor what principles might govern the exercise of that authority.

There are many methods for resolving player actions in a living sandbox, which makes resolutions alot more challenging to categorize than your story now examples that generally have a single method for resolving a particular player action. 1 action to many resolution methods vs 1 action to 1 resolution method. Which is just one reason why I keep iterating that living sandbox play doesn't yield itself favorably to doing the type of analysis that you are used to doing. It's not that it can't conceivably be done, but that it gets so complex so fast that it's not really practical to do.

I think I'm working pretty hard to keep up my end of the conversation.

But in the playloop that you yourself stated, that new backstory feeds back into situation and resolution as an input. At that point, it is pre-authored: it is authored prior to the framing and resolution of the situation. It is drawn upon both to establish what scenes are framed; and to resolve at least some of the action declarations that are made by the players of the PCs in these scenes.

Then I must ask, is there any backstory that isn't pre-authored? If so what makes it not pre-authored?

The same thing doesn't happen in "situation first".

Assuming you are referring to using backstory to feed back into situation as an input. That doesn't seem to jive very well with the DM ethos of story now games that have something like 'honor success' as one of their fundamental DMing criteria. Honoring success requires that backstory gets fed into situation else there is no way to honor success.

OK. I'll wait for your account of the difference between play that is driven by situation, and play that is driven by setting/backstory.

Sure. If I had to explain the difference between those categorizations. I'd say that all rpg's have backstory and situation. A game being driven by situation primarily leaves the backstory variable free and fills in those details as the need arises in a given situation. A game driven by backstory primarily leaves the situation variable free and fills in those details as the need arises from the backstory.

That said, let's imagine for a moment an infinite gameworld where the players get to choose a) where their character goes in that world, b) what they do in that world, c) can choose what their character 'cares' about within that world and d) a GM that isn't pushing for any particular story/quest. That gives the players the tools to push the game to almost any kind of situation they want to explore (though probably not as directly as they could do in story now). There's 2 ways one can approximate an infinite world. 1) have a huge area of pre-authored content and hope the players never reach the boundaries (basing situations on backstory) and 2) procedurally generate content as you need it (creating backstory as the situation drives). Living Sandbox play is a blend of those 2 methods for approximating an infinite world and thus it's a blend of backstory first and situation first.

 

[pemerton]

I think some of you look at play reports and toss them in basket A or basket B or basket C. For those of us not invested in those categories, it makes providing play reports something of an exercise in futility, because no matter if I say that the above experience felt like there was a lot of player agency and authorship over "situation," it's possible that you all will come in and say, "nope, basket A."

I posted my first actual play report on these boards in early 2011.

My memories of my motivations 10 years ago are a bit hazy, but I think my idea was that it made sense to shift discussion from a prior theory crafting to actual examples. For instance, as that post concludes, "I learned that while sandboxing might rely heavily upon exploration, exploration can be done without sandboxing." I've run some Classic Traveller scenarios (links upthread, I think) in the past year or two that resembled this.

If others don't want to past actual play that's their prerogative. But I generally don't take very seriously claims about what is or isn't possible in RPGing that isn't based in play. For instance, in this thread (and maybe another parallel one?) it was asserted that playing D&D will tend to generate a need for Force in order to manage improvisation and/or pacing. I don't think that claim is based on a serious attempt to try an alternative, because I have tried alternatives (using AD&D and RM, which as best I can tell are not saliently different from 5e D&D - or if they are, no one has posted about it) and they worked.

If someone doesn't want to try "situation first" RPGing of course that's their prerogative. That doesn't mean it can't be done, or that it's no different from what they're doing.

 

[FrogReaver]

If others don't want to past actual play that's their prerogative. But I generally don't take very seriously claims about what is or isn't possible in RPGing that isn't based in play. For instance, in this thread (and maybe another parallel one?) it was asserted that playing D&D will tend to generate a need for Force in order to manage improvisation and/or pacing. I don't think that claim is based on a serious attempt to try an alternative, because I have tried alternatives (using AD&D and RM, which as best I can tell are not saliently different from 5e D&D - or if they are, no one has posted about it) and they worked.

Might I suggest that for a game that can map a single action to N resolution methods (or really a single anything to multiple things) that trying to glean any generalization from a single play excerpt is only going to be a bigger hindrance to discussion than no excerpt at all. Such an excerpt isn't going to be sufficient to describe what the game is and how it plays on a meaningful level but it will serve to pigeonhole in others minds what that game style is capable of.

*Then there's also the issue of DM facing mechanics that's going to further limit the ability of players in such campaigns to give you adequate details.

 

[pemerton]

Then I guess maybe I'm objecting to the idea that a GM is only considering one thing. Or always priotitizes the same thing.

Well, AW states multiple principles, including: say what honesty and prep demand; be a fan of the characters; respond with [trouble] and intermittent rewards. But the core orientation is pretty clear: drama, not in-fiction causation. This is driven home by the way the player-side moves work, by the principles around misdirecting and never naming a GM move, and by the many examples of play.

That's a reasonable use of the framing. It was kinda what I was getting at upthread when I described the possibility of describing a scene in some detail before turning something violently loose therein. The harm that could come to the civilians (lack of a better word) are at least one available consequence for ... failing to stop whatever violence is ensuing.

An interesting approach to this is Marvel Heroic RP. The threat or the reality of harm to civilians would be a scene distinction, and there are rules that govern when and how the GM can introduce scene distinctions. Some of it requires judgement calls - crowds of bystanders fleeing as Magneto lifts the skyscraper out of the ground might be just colour, but Crowds of Bystanders Threatened by Falling Girders would be a scene distinction.

The less formal and more relaxed the process whereby the GM can turn colour into significant consequences (like a bystander being squashed by a falling girder), the greater the risk that the players will feel railroaded, I think. BW doesn't use formal processes here like MHRP does; it relies on principles for narrating success and failure. AW uses the "soft move", "hard move" sequence of narration.

This also bleeds into the issue of "offscreen failure".

I think a "living sandbox" is going to tackle this pretty differently from MHRP, BW or AW. The GM has a different sort of licence to extrapolate consequences without filtering them through the scene-framing and action resolution process. That's not a trivial difference, in my view.

 

[prabe]

Well, AW states multiple principles, including: say what honesty and prep demand; be a fan of the characters; respond with [trouble] and intermittent rewards. But the core orientation is pretty clear: drama, not in-fiction causation. This is driven home by the way the player-side moves work, by the principles around misdirecting and never naming a GM move, and by the many examples of play.

Yes. A GM in Apocalypse World is told by the game to use a single set of principles. A GM in another game might use a different set, or multiple sets, possibly depending on the situation. The players might prefer a GM who was not so rigidly bound to choose what the GM thought would make for greater drama.

The less formal and more relaxed the process whereby the GM can turn colour into significant consequences (like a bystander being squashed by a falling girder), the greater the risk that the players will feel railroaded, I think. BW doesn't use formal processes here like MHRP does; it relies on principles for narrating success and failure. AW uses the "soft move", "hard move" sequence of narration.

Whether the players feel railroaded in the instance of a bystander (better word than "civilian") being maimed or killed is likely to depend on things other than the bystander's loss of the third dimension. My expectation is that it'd likely correlate pretty directly with the extent the players thought the bad outcome was preordained.

 

[FrogReaver]

@prabe

Going back to pacing, do you think it's fair to note that one of the major differences with story now and living sandbox play tends to be the pacing at which dramatic events are arrived at?

(Though it may be interesting to attempt a living sandbox that drove straight to those dramatic style events).

 

[Xetheral]

Frankly, I'm having trouble seeing this line of argument as genuine engagement and not just looking for a means to dismiss.

I see. Well, if you aren't willing to take me at my word regarding my intentions, then I'm not sure more words are likely to help. I'll go ahead anyway and try to provide a specific response to your objections, but if you're convinced I'm being disingenuous then I can't be sure how my answer will come across to you. I'll just lay it out as straightforwardly as I can and hope you read my explanation the way it's intended.

The argument that the distinction regarding backstory being possibly still axiomatic even after detailed examples of play analysis have been shown, offers to examine other play excepts have been made, testimonies of people doing the different approaches have been heard -- well, it seems like just saying "I don't know, you could still be a liar. I guess we'll never know!"

You haven't engaged the analysis at all. You've just repeated questioning if it's axiomatic or not -- ie, arbitrary for the purposes of saying these and those without any value in analysis of play other than categorization. This is in the face of multiple, detailed posts walking through the differences.

I haven't engaged the play analysis/reports because they don't appear to answer my question regarding the broader utility of the "Backstory first" categorization.

The analysis/reports instead seem to be focusing on emphasizing the distinction between Situation-first play and Backstory-first play. I agree with that distinction and appreciate the effort that went into conveying such detail. Even though I'm generally less willing to draw conclusions from anecdotal data than I suspect those posters are, I agree that the play analysis/reports establish that Situation-first play exists, and is a broadly useful category because it appears to identify a range of playstyles that lead to similar play experiences. (I think it could have been more-intuitively named, but that's strictly a question of terminology.)

What I don't necessarily agree with is that Situation-first being a broadly useful category necessarily makes Backstory-first similarly useful. As @pemerton noted here (after your post that I am replying to), they don't do much Backstory-first play, and as they are the most prolific poster of actual play reports there's a comparative dearth of such reports for Backstory-first play. Indeed, if there were any reports or analysis in this thread intending to show that Backstory-first play identifies a range of playstyles that lead to similar play experiences, I missed it. To the contrary, there have been claims that Backstory-first does not necessarily lead to similar play experiences, and I am not aware of anyone who has asserted otherwise. So, because I agree that Backstory-first has been effectively contrasted with Situation-first, but has not been otherwise claimed to have descriptive power on its own with regards to expected play experiences, it appears to me that Backstory-first is effectively defined as a residual category.

Residual categories are useful! They're particularly useful as a label when discussing the category or categories they are a residual of. But a residual category of playstyles whose members' primary commonality is that they don't fit into any of the other categories--and don't otherwise lead to common play experiences or have some other descriptive trait in common--is necessarily an axiomatic category.

That's the explanation for why I don't think the existence of the analysis/reports of Situation-first play makes it in any way unreasonable to observe that Backstory-first may be defined axiomatically. Next I'll address your perception that I'm implicty casting aspersions.

And, yet, your choices here aren't "ah, but I disagree with this bit of analysis because x, y, and z," but rather to put forth the possibility the analysis is actually in bad faith, or has a bad foundation. These are just accusations. The bits where you hint that you're avoiding a genetic argument while clearly pointing out a genetic argument are icing to the bad faith cake you've baked. It's clear that there's little interest in engaging the many words of analysis and explanation here, just intent on making sure everyone has a handy term to dismiss it -- and one that cannot be challenges because, at the end of the day, how do you know we're not lying?

First off, I do not in any way intended my observation that Backstory-first may be defined axiomatically to imply bad faith or untruthfulness on anyone else's part. As I see it, it's a natural consequence of focused interest in any category A (of anything) that the residual category B takes on salience as a point of comparison. Pointing out that the residual category B is apparently defined axiomatically merely helps explain why others whose interests lie within B may quite reasonably not consider B to be analytically useful. In other words, from their standpoint, if B is axiomatically defined broadly enough to encompass the entire range of their disperate interests, B necessarily lacks useful descriptive descriptive power for them. That doesn't mean that those instead focused on category A are in any way wrong or acting in bad faith when they quite naturally describe A in terms of its differences with B.

Sure, my observation that Backstory-first appears axiomatically defined implicitly suggests that it's not as broadly useful a category as it could have been if it instead had more descriptive power. But I see a large gulf between questioning the descriptive power of the residual category and accusing its proponents of bad faith.

(And for the record, I only brought up the broader controversy when you strongly implied that I lacked the necessary historical context to make my opinion valid. I was trying only to rebut your implication, not use the reference to the broader context to attack anyone else.)

Does any of that help you understand where I'm coming from, or help you to believe me when I describe my intentions?

 

[Lanefan]

But, then the Hound shot at it, from about 10 paces away, and rolled all 1's. A clean failure! However, you do not ever narrate incompetence as part of a failure in Blades -- the PCs are assumed competent!

Then where's the silliness and slapstick humour supposed to come from?

 

[Lanefan]

That's on you, then, isn't it? If you're attached a value judgement that others are not, are they responsible for your attachment?

If it's just one reader making that attachment, then no. If the poster knows or suspects it's likely that many readers will make that attachment, then yes; and a whole lot of terms carry baggage whether warranted or not.

 

[Lanefan]

Another common form of situation first play that happens all the time in my experience are those moments where a player or set of players say something along the lines of "I want a scene where PC X confronts PC Y about their feelings for NPC Z" and we then fill in the details of how that scene came about as we start playing it.

If this is an organic continuation of established play (e.g. there's just been a scene involving the PCs and NPC Z and this is its aftermath) then fine; but if it comes up out of the blue unrelated to whatever scene is happening now it'd be more than a bit jarring.