D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[prabe]

If the GM narrates mountains with giant nests in them, it's obvious that the GM is interested in giant birds of prey. That's the whole point of the soft move!

The contrast with (say) AD&D played using wandering monster tables is obvious: when I roll fire beetles as a wandering monster, no one thinks that I as GM am especially excited by fire beetles. It's just what I happened to roll!

A minor quibble (with apologies). If the GM in your second case, here (the fire beetles as a random encounter) wrote up that table, then it seems reasonable to say they think the fire beetles belong in that place. That doesn't necessarily imply eagerness, I agree, but there is some decision and/or authorship there.

Similarly, your first example--narrating the giant nests into a mountain scene--might imply a sense that giant eagles belong in fantasy mountains, more than an active interest in having the PCs encounter them--though again, there is an authorship-type decision happening, here.

I dunno why I'm quibbling--I don't really disagree with you.

 

[pemerton]

For the sake of argument, let’s set aside the premise that the GM is only doing this to drop the character into a premade dungeon and thereby completely switch paradigms.

I don’t have experience with DW, though I have a little experience with Monster of the Week. My understanding is that following a miss, the GM can follow that up with a hard move. As long as it was established that one of the fauna in the mountains were giant eagles (which could have been done as part of scene-framing or otherwise), a legitimate hard move would be for the GM to use the separate move and have a giant eagle fly off with the character in its claws. But if that is too much, how about a variation using the same move. The character causes an avalanche or a rockfall (a common danger for mountaineers). The party escapes unharmed, but the rockfall has separated them into two groups.

Is that a use of GM Force? If not, is the only reason it is not a use of GM Force because the GM did not preplan separating the party so he could run prepared encounters for each?

Using the separate them move isn't Force. That's like saying a GM whose monsters deal damage to the PCs in a D&D combat is using Force! It's just the rules of the game.

In one of my Cortex+ Heroic games the PCs encountered a Crypt Fiend. They were fighting it. The Doom Pool reached 2d12 and I spent those dice to end the scene - in the fiction, the PCs were teleported deep into the dungeon, and started the next scene with a d12 Lost in the Dungeon complication. That's not Force - it's just playing the game.

Not long after the PCs came to a room where I narrated - inter alia - a Strange Runes scene distinction, because I thought that seemed like it could be fun. One of the players made a check that incorporated that distinction and succeeded - in the fiction, he realised that the strange runes were a type of map and description that told him where he was; mechanically, he eliminated the complication on his PC.

I would expect DW to play fairly similarly in this sort of circumstance, though the mechanical minutiae would be different.

Talking about Force or Railroading in this sort of play is just a category error. There's no step in framing or resolution where the GM is entitled or expected to use backstory as a touchstone for saying what happens next. So there's no "curtain" to hide ad hoc decision-making behind. There's just the back-and-forth of the conversation and the dice rolls.

 

[Malmuria]

One definition of GM Force I’ve seen in this thread requires redirecting the players back to the GM’s predetermined notes, but to me, these are two separate axes: one that goes from heavily planned to more improvisational play, and a second that goes from the GM forcing the narrative to the GM being flexible and an active listener and following the PCs where their actions lead them (which perhaps a third axis goes from games that are setting-driven to those that are character-driven).

This is an interesting point if I follow you--basically, that GM improv can still appear like Force or railroading even if there was not a pre-planned set of events. That is, just by the nature of the role the GM has more authority to direct the narrative even if they are improvising within the bounds of the conversation. I'm sure there are probably GM-less story-now games; are there any that have gained traction/an audience? I could see that being an ideal for some groups

 

[pemerton]

A minor quibble (with apologies). If the GM in your second case, here (the fire beetles as a random encounter) wrote up that table, then it seems reasonable to say they think the fire beetles belong in that place. That doesn't necessarily imply eagerness, I agree, but there is some decision and/or authorship there.

I had in mind the Gygax tables in Appendix C, which at least in principle reflect the rarities in the MM (I've never actually checked their accuracy in this respect).

I also think a judgement about belonging is different from a judgement about I want this now.

Similarly, your first example--narrating the giant nests into a mountain scene--might imply a sense that giant eagles belong in fantasy mountains, more than an active interest in having the PCs encounter them

In my view that would be bad GMing of DW.

 

[prabe]

In my view that would be bad GMing of DW.

It would probably be bad GMing in DW to narrate giant eagle nests into the mountains, just whenever, I agree.

I don't think it would be bad GMing either as a soft move, or as part of a player move that allowed them to notice potential threats around them (I don't remember if Discern Realities gives the GM this opportunity).

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Is “overrides world mechanics” an equitable criterion though? It seems to me that it would unjustly favour PbtA games rather than prepped games. After all, if nothing is prepped, the clue only exists once it has appeared onscreen, whereas in a more prepped game, the mere fact that you are inserting clues pointing back is considered GM Force.

I'm not trying to favor anything. As I said above, I'm actually trying to neuter GM Force, as I don't want it associated purely negatively.

I am associating prepped games with more likely to use GM Force. But I am also trying to say GM Force is OK when in service of the higher level "player input" on what they prioritize. The AP is the easiest example. But even a home brewed game that relies on prepped encounters, you hopefuly have the session 0 that says "this is the kind of game I'll be running. Because of X,Y,Z I usually do some prepping of encounters, clues, etc. Sometimes I'll use llusionism to use these." and the players are saying "Yes, I agree. Please use Illusionism/Gm Force if you have to because I want you to save time and we usually have a better experience when you prep then when you do pure improve or use random tables. The 'better experience' can trump the immediate agency or world mechanics if needed." [some tables also add -- please minimize the use if you can and only illusionism]

Now, tables don't always have these discussions as frankly but the tables that run smoothly I believe have agreed to this at some level.

I am trying to save value judgement for GM Force and Illusionism for the times it is done without player social contract.

GM Force and Illusionism in service of player social contract = Participationism

GM Force and Illusionism at odds with player social contract =Railroading

From my experience, Story games tend to have very little GM Force because they aren't heavily prepped and the GM "moves" are part of the game structure.

 

[Malmuria]

re: Participationism

I understand the definition people here have provided, but I do find it a bit confusing, perhaps because it is not (afaik) an autonym. My perception is that, like railroading and illusionism, these terms are commonly (though not exclusivly) used as a negative, i.e. how to produce gameplay that is not that. So, for example, is ten candles an example of participationism, given that everyone knows what's going to happen to a certain degree? What's at stake there seems to how it all goes down. In that way, it strikes me as similar to what is fun about even a very trad horror game like CoC.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

re: Participationism

I understand the definition people here have provided, but I do find it a bit confusing, perhaps because it is not (afaik) an autonym. My perception is that, like railroading and illusionism, these terms are commonly (though not exclusivly) used as a negative, i.e. how to produce gameplay that is not that. So, for example, is ten candles an example of participationism, given that everyone knows what's going to happen to a certain degree? What's at stake there seems to how it all goes down. In that way, it strikes me as similar to what is fun about even a very trad horror game like CoC.

Well, we don't really have consensus and we can't really articulate the value of agreeing on a set of definitions either!

I'm trying to establish Railroading as the only negative one.

GM Force and Illusionism can be in service of either Railroading (negative) or Participationism (positive) depending on the social contract.

But not sure it's caught on!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm talking about a "hiearchy of input". And it's the other way. The non-immediate input is likely the "priority" input and actually less okay to violate. Timing is important only in so much as the first inputs at session 0 likely contains overriding input, but of course that overarching input can change if the table agrees. See the AP social contract example.

This was unclear, and I don't see how this does anything but directly weaken the concept by introducing even more arbitrary points into it. Again, timing of the ignored bits doesn't really do much for the definition. Creation of a heirarchy also doesn't do much, especially if it's based on time. All this does is introduce arguments about what is valued when and by who. That's not useful.

I am trying to neuter the definition of Force, not have it be negative off the bat.

Heh, if you mean make more neutral then that's not what neuter means.

The definition I'm deploying is not negative. It's observational. I can look at play and say Force happened or it did not happen. The value judgement is elsewhere, especially when I've outright stated Force is a tool in the box and tolerance for Force is going to be up to the individual.

 

[Scott Christian]

Because it only happens as the result of a die roll. It’s not the GM forcing the game to go in a specific direction or toward a specific outcome. The dice call for a GM move. Yes, the GM selects what move to make and what it entails, but that doesn’t mean it’s Force.

Like a wandering monster table with monsters and other types of events?