D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Ovinomancer]

Eh, you just plan situations that can easily framed into different contexts and triggered by events that are likely to happen eventually. And you can guide players actions by framing. Like that example in old thread about a room that had a painting that was described to immediately make players' attention to focus on it.

Nope. Doesn't work.

The person who controls framing and has power to introduce whatever complications on bad rolls has a massive power to direct the narrative.

Not really, no. Because whatever is introduced as a complication, the players can attack and succeed and redirect play. Initial framing has to follow the players' lead for what situation is framed, you do not have carte blanche. Same with complications -- it has to follow. The freedom to introduce complications that aren't directly following from the fiction in the scene have to leverage something about the character -- like you could put something offscreen at risk for a complication, but you can't just freely establish whatever fictional point you want on a complication, just like you can't just do whatever you want as a scene frame.

 

[pemerton]

Scene framing seems like that's an imposition on the trajectory of play and the GM still has a large role to play in scene framing.

What principles for scene-framing do you have in mind?

Here are some that can be used:

* In a "backstory first" game, frame scenes that follow from the pre-established backstory;​

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* In any sort of game, frame scenes that the GM thinks are interesting and exciting;​

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* In a "situation first" game, frame scenes that place pressure on the PCs in the ways their players have signalled;​

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* In a "situation first" game, take suggestions from the players and frame scenes based on those;​

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* In any sort of game, frame scenes that will push events towards the GM's desired endgame.​

Not all of those can be followed at once, of course. Only the last one seems like it is inevitably Force.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nope. Doesn't work.

Not really, no. Because whatever is introduced as a complication, the players can attack and succeed and redirect play. Initial framing has to follow the players' lead for what situation is framed, you do not have carte blanche. Same with complications -- it has to follow. The freedom to introduce complications that aren't directly following from the fiction in the scene have to leverage something about the character -- like you could put something offscreen at risk for a complication, but you can't just freely establish whatever fictional point you want on a complication, just like you can't just do whatever you want as a scene frame.

It is fantasy fiction. You can always make it seem like it follows. If not instantly, then in couple of steps. It's like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. If you have destination in mind, I'm sure you can get there eventually in a way that seems organic.

In fact, in PbtA the GM has in certain ways far more freedom to introduce stuff than in traditional games. In traditional, somewhat simulationist approach what consequences can organically happen is far more limited.

 

[prabe]

What principles for scene-framing do you have in mind?

Here are some that can be used:

* In a "backstory first" game, frame scenes that follow from the pre-established backstory;​

​

* In any sort of game, frame scenes that the GM thinks are interesting and exciting;​

​

* In a "situation first" game, frame scenes that place pressure on the PCs in the ways their players have signalled;​

​

* In a "situation first" game, take suggestions from the players and frame scenes based on those;​

​

* In any sort of game, frame scenes that will push events towards the GM's desired endgame.​

Not all of those can be followed at once, of course. Only the last one seems like it is inevitably Force.

Did you mean to leave out any consideration of previous events in-game? That seems as though it could be either, but it seems important.

 

[pemerton]

Did you mean to leave out any consideration of previous events in-game? That seems as though it could be either, but it seems important.

I guess I thought of that as being covered in the first bullet point, and/or by the use of "some" which doesn't necessarily mean "all and only"!

 

[Scott Christian]

Ah - I didn't realize those were hard-end points.

I assumed an open-ended campaign and thus took them to be jumping-off points for whatever might come next; which would be storyboarded out in due course once play had progressed some and you had an idea where things might be going (at the very least, once you sort-of knew which "end point" you'd likely be jumping off from).

I mean technically, yes, they could be jumping off points. But they do conclude the adventure unless the DM added some other threads.

 

[Scott Christian]

I'd be that player who fairly quickly veered down the road. It seems I've never met a red herring I didn't like.

I'm also not very concerned about pace of play. They can talk to the shopkeepers all night if they want, no skin off my nose.

Our pacing has much more to do with not wanting to spend a year on a campaign than each individual session. There are times we spend an hour with the shopkeeper, it's just that we know seek out the storyline more often than not. Our character arcs and, story arcs for that matter, have a finality. It is very satisfying. It is, say The Hobbit, as opposed to Wheel of Time.

The more you describe this campaign the more I'm starting to see it as something of a railroad that hits a few junctions along the way and can thus lead to three different stations (but you can only go to one). No problem with this, of course - you've defined it as a fairly hardline AP and if that's what your players signed up for, all is good.

I have played in groups that are less hard-lined. I have DMed those groups too. Out of about 12 campaigns, none ever were finished. It was great fun while playing, but had an unsatisfactory tinge to it as well.

First sessions - and even first adventures - often* require a Forceful push to get things going.

I have found the same. We did run a huge hexcrawl that had almost no forceful push. But it took it awhile to get rolling, and then ended around the six month mark.

 

[Scott Christian]

Ah, another huge difference between us, then. Our campaigns are considered well underway after 4-8 twelve-month years.

That is awesome and crazy at the same time.

 

[Manbearcat]

What's your technique/thought process for cutting to the action and providing obstacles in blades in the dark? I haven't asked my players this, but I wonder if they experience that aspect of play as me saying, "now this happens" (even with the engagement roll and obstacles being based in what's already happened in the fiction). Framings around PC priorities and connections might work, but at least initially those are rather thin (playbook, heritage, vice, etc). But even if you do that: introduce a PC contact or a rival faction or a ghost, I could see how that could feel like the GM saying "ok now this happens". Snowballing using consequences also works, but there too there's a fine line between a score turning out to be a major success or a Fiasco. Things like "keep the meta channel open," "hold on lightly," "PCs are never incompetent" are helpful but are somewhat high level, almost correctives for when the dice/mechanics produce a situation that feels inorganic.

None of that is a knock against the game, btw. I love the game. As I've run it more our group has established a really nice rhythm. I can't always tell if my players like it or are just humoring me, but I love the intense focus, and the gm advice is something that I will take with me into other games. Those are just places where what falls under the rubric of "framing" feels very similar to what in a different game might be considered gm introducing prepared content.

@Ovinomancer answered some off this, but my GMing is bog standard Blades in the Dark:

* Play to find out.

* Make the world real, compelling, and dangerous.

* Follow their lead (ask questions > use the answers, present opportunities > follow, telegraph threats > tell them consequences > present decision-point and ask > resolve > follow through, present thematic/dramatic need based choices).

* Follow the rules > lead an interesting conversation > follow the fiction > create an atmosphere of curiosity and transparency.


A typical play loop will look like this:

ME: Alright what is the Crew up to?

US: We collectively consider the accreted fiction to date, particularly the recent stuff. They look at the Setting/Faction Clocks that are online with particular attention paid to the stuff that is about to go boom and/or the most dangerous stuff with the worst downstream consequences. They look at their own agendas as it relates to their dramatic needs or their Friends or Rivals. They look at the Claim map.

THEM: They winnow down a list of maybe 2-3 things from a menu of maybe 5-6 things they could focus on.

US: We discuss what that would look like in the fiction, win cons, loss cons, implications on the current gamestate and fiction (eg Hold lost for a rival gang, shutting down a dangerous clock, downtiering a supernatural plague, eliminating a rival, starting a setting clock or increasing the dice pool of an existing one to help a problem, gaining faction with someone, getting a persistent asset for their loadout or a Claim, etc etc.

THEM: They winnow it down further to the Score they want to focus on for the evening.

ME: I ask them questions about what each of them are doing, what their cohorts are doing. If its just simple Info Gathering then they pick a Contact or Friend or an allied Faction and they make an Action Roll and we get a result. If its more complicated than that and/or if they're still kind of musing between a few Scores I'll just say "alright how about this...and we'll talk about a scene opener which includes a place and people and situation and then we'll run a fast-paced Free Play scene."

RESULTS: This stuff will crystalize (a) the Score target (which carries a lot of info in it from Tier to Scale to consequence space)/goal/detail (eg route, entry or attack point, the social connection...etc), (b) the locale/people involved/situation, and (c) the Engagement Roll dice pool. This stuff will create opening Position (threat level of the framed situation to open the Score) and constrain all aspects of my decision-space for framing fairly significantly. I'll have a little bit of wiggle room, but not much (and that wiggle room is, again, constrained by all other aspects of system and its all table-facing). They'll decide Loadout for each of them right before this and off we go.

CONVERSATION: From there its just the typical conversation. We'll perform any firming up of the situation that needs to be done for actions to be declared. I'll tell them the potential consequences most of the time. Sometimes, its obvious. Sometimes its more open-ended (eg if you're in Six Tower with 3 rating Occult and your Enemy is a Demon who just reconstituted via a Setting Clock that wasn't disrupted...they're now on the table to deploy). We'll sort out Effect by tallying relevant factors. One or more people will roll dice (Setup before primary Action? Group Move? Assist? Push? Cohorts involved?). If there is success, we'll move the fiction along by following it based on all of the above and the Effect (if they've got sufficient Effect to resolve the obstacle, we move to another obstacle...obstacle space is relevant to locale to Score type to Score target to locale to present goings-ons with the Crew or with the ward they're in...to whether things were complicated during Info Gathering - which is transparent conversation...if they don't have enough Effect to resolve the obstacle, either its a Clock and they need 4+ticks to resolve or if they have Limited or Standard Effect and they need Standard or Limited to resolve, then the situation will change and we'll continue until that obstacle is resolved). If there is a complication, then they'll choose to Resist and how and we'll resolve that. Etc etc.

And this is all Score dependent. If its a Transport Score through a Ward, we use a Ward map and draw a route with obstacles (and they reroute if things get hairy on their current route). If its a Social Score, then I'll tell them the Clock that gatekeeps the next Clock and if we're Tug-of-War or Mission Clocks and if the NPC is a Master Level Threat (so I'm just putting Complications on them that they can choose to Resist or not). Etc etc.

All of this continues until the win con of the Score is achieved (they make it to the destination in the Transport Score, they exfil after their infil if there is a complication at the end of their Stealth Score, after they've scorched all the earth they had set out to scorch in an Assault Score, after they've completed the Clocks to win a Social Score...etc etc)...or they bail because things have gone south...or everyone Stresses out or perishes or a mix.

PAYOFF/FACTIONS/CRIME BOSS/HEAT/ENTANGLMENT/DOWNTIME - We resolve collectively per Blades 101. The most abstract part of this is Faction and Crime Boss and we discuss together per normal conversation. Basically extrapolation of the Fiction for relevant fallout and who would be the power broker in the ward that would be most interested in/perturbed by the Crew's Score on their territory...or if there even is one.


Rinse/repeat until the Crew is toast (2 of my recent games have been crushed due to the game of spinning plates overwhelming the Crew and leading to death of members/arrests/dispersal of the Crew and the other one was just a clustereff of an early Score leading to the Crew's demise). One of them is still online and going strong at Tier 3. One is starting up just now as an Untouchables/True Detective game that is investigating the huge uptick of child abductions (its an inquisition by the state Church of Ecstasy into possible apostasy) in Duskvol. We'll see how that goes.

 

[pemerton]

And this is a perfect example of what really gets under my skin about this type of system: once the Wizard says there's a forge there (and not even presented as a certainty, merely as "I believe...") there is no chance at all that the Wizard can be completely wrong

That isn't what I'm getting out of this. From what I've been reading here, there is no chance that the forge doesn't exist.

This is one of those cases where it would help to think through how the game under discussion plays.

Here is the Spout Lore move and some commentary on it (pp 21, 66 of my DW pdf):

Some moves . . . Give you a chance to say something about your character and their history. When you spout lore you may get asked how you know the information that the GM reveals. Take that opportunity to contribute to the game and show who your character really is. Just keep in mind the established facts and don’t contradict anything that’s already been described.

. . .

Spout Lore
When you consult your accumulated knowledge about something, roll+Int. ✴On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. ✴On a 7–9, the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful. The GM might ask you “How do you know this?” Tell them the truth, now.

You spout lore any time you want to search your memory for knowledge or facts about something. . . .

On a miss the GM’s move will often involve the time you take thinking. Maybe you miss that goblin moving around behind you, or the tripwire across the hallway. It’s also a great chance to reveal an unwelcome truth.

Just in case it isn’t clear: the answers are always true, even if the GM had to make them up on the spot. Always say what honesty demands.​

So let's revisit @Manbearcat's example:

the Wizard might say "I believe there is an ancient dwarven forge nearby that we can use to repair the Paladin's ruined armor."

2) When you do it, you do it and AW games so we roll Spout Lore because the trigger is up. Here are some possible results per principally guided DW GMing.

10+ (Interesting and Useful) - "The legend says the forge is in a dugout notched under the glacier near Camp 2. It is ever-burning so where there is meltwater, you will find the forge."

7-9 (Interesting) - "The legend says the forge is in a dugout notched under the glacier near Camp 2."

6- (Its there but here is some further suckitude to frame a decision-point as well) - "The legend says the forge is in a dugout notched under the glacier near Camp 2. The fires of the forge were quenched long, long ago...as were the lives of the dwarves who worked it. Whatever did the quenching likely still lurks within."

Manbearcat has suggested, as a "miss", the revelation of an unwelcome truth: ie that the Dwarven forge is long-extinguished by something that still lurks.

There are any number of other things that Manbearcat could have suggested - eg maybe (if prior play underpins it) the unwelcome truth could be this: As you think about it more, you realise that Attar was teasing you all those years ago, with tales of the unquenchable Dwarven forges. There was no more truth to those tales, than there was to Attar's claim to have been an archmage. (This might be a doubly unwelcome truth, if it tells us not only that there's no forge, but that Attar was an even bigger charlatan than anyone thought so far.)

It's the GM's job, in this sort of game, to come up with ideas that (i) are interesting, and (ii) maintain the pressure on the players via their PCs, and (iii) honour and build on the prior events of play.

As @hawkeyefan and @Ovinomancer have posted, there's no a priori reason to favour the GM's conception of (i) or (iii) over the players'. If the players think a Dwarven forge is interesting, that's a good reason to run with the idea. The alternative I've suggested doesn't, though - I'm gambling that further developing Attar's charlatanry will also be found interesting.

@Lanefan's suggestion - On further reflection you realise that all the forges there once were must be extinguished - if you want to repair the armour you'll have to go back to town - seems likely to fall short on points (i) and (ii), but we can't know a priori that it would never be a good GM call.