D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Maxperson]

\Contra what @FrogReaver posted, you seemed to have no objections to the approach taken by @hawkeyefan's GM.

I said pretty much the same thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ultimately GM decision making is often blend of different motives. “It wouldn’t make sense for this person to do X, but it would make sense for them to do either Y or Z. Doing Z results more interesting situation, so they do that.”

And I'd argue those have different implications for how much Force as its generally used here is involved. There's a difference between your example and "Y seems slightly the more likely, so from lack of a better reason, do that" or "Since there's no obvious reason to chose one of the two over the other, roll a die."

(And yes, I understand avoiding anticlimax can be a legitimate motivation; if you'll note I have a leg on both sides of this discussion. I just do think there's a difference that can be acknowledge).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Pretty much the on rails bit, but also the here's a decision which is primarily about characterization bit (Renegade vs Paragon). You make all kinds of decisions, but they are mostly just about defining who your character is. They don't actually impact what's going to happen except in very minor ways. You might get some minor callbacks, but that's it. Also big set pieces, boss battles, dramatic revelations. You can go off and explore other stuff, but nothing really progresses until you do the mission.

Okay, that's a (mostly) fair assessment of the PF2e Age of Ashes game I'm in, so I can get where you're coming from here.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

@Ovinomancer, I'm not suggesting that the Dragon Capture move is out of the blue, not foreshadowed, or done without fictional context, which seems to be the implication here:

Originally, this was a large bird, a reasonable threat capable of doing this, but now it's being expanded to a dragon (a serious threat in and of itself and a very hard move just bringing it in) AND separating the PCs (removing the PC from the climb is separation) AND then separating the PCs again by having the players watch the dragon fly off (out of bowshot range) and take the PC somewhere far away.

It's not a Quantum Dragon, so to speak, so much as it is there exists a dragon within the fiction and as part of that fiction and the resulting 6-, the player character is separated from the rest of the player characters. The criticism that traditional GM has to use force because he's waiting for a bad die roll to spring this upon the players whereas the PbtA GM is not using force because he can use it as a hard move on a 6- is a double standard.

 

[pemerton]

Next question: what if anything is wrong with the GM using the bird's destination* (which she gets to determine, as noted above) as a means of introducing new content she wants to introduce e.g. a new realm, a potential adventure site, a different type of landscape?

For example, say the party's been doing lots of inland adventuring and she'd like to see a bit more maritime content, so she has the bird go to an island offshore. Or she's come up with a neat idea for a culture and sees this as a glorious opportunity to at least get the PCs into the right neighbourhood, so she has the bird go to a craggy mountain in the middle of said culture's realm. That sort of thing.

You've had one reply to this, from @Campbell:

It's the GM, but they likely do not have the unconstrained authority to just have it take the PC wherever they want. They will be expected to frame a new scene that speaks to the dramatic needs of the character.

Here's another reply, from me.

I'll start with something @FrozenNorth posted not far upthread:

• I already gave one example: the players want to go to the Rainbow Rocks rather than the Dark Clouds. They go, accomplish want they want, and find something that makes going to Dark Clouds more pressing;
• The Adventure Path gives compelling reasons to go from A to B to C, and the players feel that is what their characters would do

See how, in @FrozenNorth's examples, whatever actions the players declare for their PCs, the GM-established fiction - either directly established by the GM, if they wrote the AP; or deemed to be part of the game by them, if they bought someone else's AP and declared this is what we're playing - pulls the action back in the GM's pre-conceived direction.

If the players try to "fight" that pull, and really keep fighting it, the GMing technique that @FrozenNorth describes will break down: either the GM has to relent, and abandon the AP, or the game busts up.

Now think about the dynamic and expectations of AW or DW. The GM narrates that the bird/dragon carries the PC from the mountain cliff to the maritime shore. And we're supposing this is because the GM has a thing for oceans - it's not the GM responding to any suggestion or goal the player has signalled.

The expectation is that the player will now declare an action for their PC, aiming at whatever it is the player has in mind for their PC. And let's suppose that that doesn't include the coast - eg suppose (as per my post upthread) that the reason the player had their PC climbing the cliff was to find the supposed paradise beyond the mountains. So the player has the PC take actions to get back to the cliff and the possibility of paradise - maybe the PC tries to persuade the bird/dragon to carry them back; or builds a gyrocopter; or whatever else makes sense given the genre, established fiction, PC capabilities, etc.

No one has provided an actual play example, involving birds and mountains, that illustrates this - but I've provided one in the neighbourhood, in BW rather than AW or DW: the GM used his authority to make Elves vs Orcs a part of the fiction; I wasn't interested in that - it was a thing the GM was into, not me - and I used my authority over action declarations for my PC to turn the focus of play back onto the things I was interested in, namely, liberating my ancestral estate.

Just as @FrozenNorth's posited game will break down if the battle of power can't be resolved, so will AW/DW or BW. If the GM keeps pushing the fiction back to the Elves, or back to the coast, every time the player tries and push the focus onto something else, either the GM will have to relent or the game will bust up.

Now here is my question: for you, for @Malmuria, for @FrozenNorth, for @Crimson Longinus:

There is a difference between the following two approaches to RPGing:

One where the player is expected to exercise the sort of authority over what play is about that I did in my BW game, and the @Campbell has described for AW/DW by reference to "dramatic needs". And where the principles of the game tell the GM to exercise their authority over scene-framing and backstory having regard to that player authority.

And one where the GM is expected to exercise the sort of authority over backstory and situation that @FrozenNorth has described as approaches to AP play, and where the player is expected to bring their action declarations into conformity with what the GM has in mind. And where, perhaps, the GM even exercises authority over backstory - eg by introducing a "second string" as per my example of Bastion of Broken Souls, or introducing material to the Rainbow Rocks that will prompt the players to declare that their PCs go to the Dark Clouds as per FrozenNorth's example - to help bring this about. And where, perhaps, the GM even exercise authority over action resolution - as per @hawkeyefan's examples of actual play, or as per the "obscure death" rule in the original DL modules - to help ensure that the scenes the GM has in mind actually come to pass at the table.

Those two approaches to RPGing are not the only possible two. But they are both actual approaches: I know, because I'm a player in a BW game that uses a version of the first approach; and hawkeyefan is a player in a 5e D&D game that uses a version of the second approach.

What label am I allowed to use to describe the second approach, and to contrast it with the first approach, so that I can pithily communicate what I do and don't prefer in RPGing?

 

[pemerton]

I said pretty much the same thing.

OK, so that's two!

 

[hawkeyefan]

It might be a bit harder on a short-term basis, but its hard for a GM who is doing that sort of thing not to tip his hand over time if anyone is paying attention and cares. Hiding that sort of thing is not as easy as a lot of GMs think it is.

Yes, I've played with GMs who clearly did this kind of thing and thought they were doing so on the sly, but it was obvious. I've also played in games where I couldn't say if the GM did it or not.

I agree with you that sometimes it's easy to tell. More importantly, I think just the need to roll behind a screen or to not share DCs is a pretty strong indicator that Force is going to be applied. Otherwise, why hide the rolls? Why not share the DCs?

There would seem to me few arguments that support hiding dice rolls from players. Regarding sharing DCs there is at least the idea of "well the character wouldn't know the odds, so why should the player", which in my mind is a weak argument, but at least I can understand the reasoning behind it, even if I think the value add is vanishingly small compared to the value add of sharing DCs.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Ovinomancer, I'm not suggesting that the Dragon Capture move is out of the blue, not foreshadowed, or done without fictional context, which seems to be the implication here:

It's not a Quantum Dragon, so to speak, so much as it is there exists a dragon within the fiction and as part of that fiction and the resulting 6-, the player character is separated from the rest of the player characters. The criticism that traditional GM has to use force because he's waiting for a bad die roll to spring this upon the players whereas the PbtA GM is not using force because he can use it as a hard move on a 6- is a double standard.

That's not anywhere close to the point I was making.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

That's not anywhere close to the point I was making.

Then would you mind clarifying? I think we're miscommunicating.

 

[Maxperson]

OK, so that's two!

I didn't see any reason from what @hawkeyefan wrote to think that having the group make the save was inappropriate, or that the escape was DM force rather than just the fey woman being ready to escape when the PCs arrived. It could have been force, but I'm not going to assume it when there is a reasonable explanation that doesn't involve force. Unless they show otherwise through gameplay, I feel that DMs should be given the benefit of the doubt in situations like these.