D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[pemerton]

The most important issue in RPG play, which these threads turn on, is who has authority over what bits of the fiction and what rules and principles govern their use of that authority.

There is a difference between Participant A having authority, and using it in accordance with a principle of consultation, taking suggestions, etc, from Participant B; and Participant B having authority.

Look at @Manbearcat's Spout Lore example. Who decides where the Forge is? What conditions govern its use? Etc? The GM:

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."​

Here, again, is Spout Lore:

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 consider again the player who (as their PC) declares "I believe there is an ancient dwarven forge nearby that we can use to repair the Paladin's ruined armour."

Suppose they roll a 10+. The GM has to say something relevantly interesting and useful. @Manbearcat has given one example. Here's another that I just made up:

GM (in response to 10+ roll on Spout Lore): You reflect further and recall the stories of Vessuk the magic-eater. How could Vessuk have forged so many fine weapons, other than by having absorbed the powers of the dwarven forges? You recall that Vessuk lives on the other side of the hills, and is known to do favours in exchange for new magic.​

Now would the story about Vessuk be as apt a response, for the GM, as @Manbearcat's? I suspect typically not, but there might be some context where the answer is yes: eg if the Wizard is Neutral (Discover something about a magical mystery) and has a bond with the Dwarf PC that the latter is keeping an important secret from me (I'm referring here to pp 147-48 of my DW PDF).

What are the constraints on the GM? The information they provide has to pertain to the subject in question (dwarven forges) and be relevantly useful (in this case, that means useful for repairing the paladin's ruined armour). The player has established those constraints. They are not the one doing the authoring.

That's what makes it possible for the player to be surprised! It's how reveals work. While at the same time ensuring that players' goals for their PCs are likely to remain at the forefront of play.

The basic process, as I've said, is no different from GM player-authored quests: Can I have a quest to find a dwarven forge to repair the paladin's armour? - and the GM, remembering to say "yes" as often as possible, prepares the appropriate settings, encounters, treasures etc - which may involve @Manbearcat's glaciers, or my Vessuk the magic-eater, or something else that seems apt.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm using adventure in the sense of going off on an adventure, uprooting yourself, going to strange new places and often getting into violent struggles with strangers.

In order for play to fundamentally be about characters as I mean there need to be personal stakes. Things to gain, lose, and change that matter just to them without the diversions of vast conspiracies, sweeping plots, and villains to contend with. Those can be fun too, but like not what I am looking for.

I think I get it. Though whilst you can certainly have one without other, I don't really see these things being in conflict either. You can have 'adventures' involving personal stakes.

That being said, I can actually relate at least a bit to your sentiment. I have grown somewhat tired of overarching epic plots that consume the entire campaign. You know, with big bads and entire world in danger and all that. They really don't leave much room for smaller scale, more personal drama. It is kinda silly to worry about your relationship with your brother if the entire wold is gonna end unless you kick the big bad's butt by Thursday.

 

[pemerton]

I want to connect the points being made about authority in AW, DW and 4e D&D back to Ovinomancer's remark that was one of the starting points:

It's not just APs, though, this is a common feature of many, if not most, 5e games that aren't APs. The GM's ideas of what's happening in the game world don't really care what characters are present to engage them.

In order for the GM's idea of what's happening in the game world to care about what characters are present to engage those events and things, there has to be a process for communicating, to the GM, what is significant to the particular characters in play.

The canonical way of doing this, in 4e D&D, is player-authored quests.

There are multiple canonical ways of doing this in DW: Spout Lore is one; the technique of asking questions and building on the answers is another (and of course these two ways can be deployed together, as per the rules text I've (re)quoted not far upthread).

This is different from the player just authoring their own situations. That's a different technique.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You mean the line where you suggested I was trivializing play people like, and where I made that useless by pointing out that I do, in fact, like and engage in that exact play? Yes, I can see how that might be frustrating for you when I didn't conform to the box you wanted to put me in.

No, the one where I point out the phraseology you're using has meaning beyond the denotative and you either deny it or indicate you don't care.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And you haven't considered that other viable alternative explanations could exist apart from the one explanation that require you to condescendingly cast aspersions at other people's roleplaying or GMing?

To be blunt, the poster I was responding to when I made the first response was the one that seemed to be casting aspersions on his fellow players roleplaying. I can only work with what he tells me, and since its not congruent with what I've seen, suggesting that they need more engagement to roleplay well seems the charitable assumption.

I think that you are adding some needless leading assumptions in your questions that are skewing your conclusions.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Thomas Shey]

And are we allowed to talk about what sorts of GM techniques, etc might suit different sorts of groups - including those who are interested more in the "plot" than in the tactical decisions and interactions with other PCs that don't affect that plot?

Of course. But I don't think that requires you to be dismissive of what other players are getting out of games that don't do that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I am not confused about the process at all. But it is the player having "the ability to author fiction outside my immediate character."

I really don't understand why you or @pemerton are arguing against this, as from your other posts I have understood that you both like Story Now games having this feature...

Okay. Let's look at the 5e version of this. The exact same action is declared by the player. The GM considers, and decides that there is a forge and replies in the exact same way as the 10+ in the example. Did the player author fiction outside their immediate character here? Forget constraints or moves or whatever. We have the player suggest something, and it turns out to be true. Did the player author it? Your answer, I'm sure, is no, the GM did because they used their authority to do so and were just being nice to the player. Okay, cool. We've established that the player suggesting something is not authoring it even if the GM decides to do so.

The GM in this 5e example also has open to the the 7-9 options -- the forge exists but there's a problem -- and the 6- options -- no forge, or serious problem, forge exists but it's broke. The range is available here, but at no point would you suggest that in 5e that the player authored the forge even if they suggest it. We're clear here.

So, then, what's the difference in DW? Same-same in all ways except that on a success (10+) the GM has their ability to author constrained -- they can't deploy any of the equivalent options in 5e that map to 9-. So, the GM is limited to what they can provide here to a narrower range. However, we've already established that this range is NOT the player authoring the existence of the Forge, and here, the player is still not doing so. The system has a say and limits the options to the GM, yes, but the same thing is happening in 5e as in DW within that range. So, if you're going to argue that Spout Lore is the player authoring things into the fiction, well, we also have a bunch of 5e play that is the same.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Is it most of modern D&D? I would have thought modern D&D was mostly people running their own games rather than APs.

That's one of those things that seem impossible to determine, honestly. I've absolutely gotten the impression APs are a much bigger thing now than their equivalents were 20 years ago, but I'm not sure there's any data to give you any idea of percentages.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Cortex+ Heroic uses opposed checks, and fictional positioning doesn't directly change the dice pools involved, but there is a degree of mechanical tactics involved in building an effective dice pool.

Specifically, in creation of Assets, which can be non-material things but often aren't. The fictional explanation is often in the PC "finding" the things in the environment to use, but in a purely top-down view this is, process-wise, indistinguishable from creating them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I want to connect the points being made about authority in AW, DW and 4e D&D back to Ovinomancer's remark that was one of the starting points:
In order for the GM's idea of what's happening in the game world to care about what characters are present to engage those events and things, there has to be a process for communicating, to the GM, what is significant to the particular characters in play.

The canonical way of doing this, in 4e D&D, is player-authored quests.

There are multiple canonical ways of doing this in DW: Spout Lore is one; the technique of asking questions and building on the answers is another (and of course these two ways can be deployed together, as per the rules text I've (re)quoted not far upthread).

This is different from the player just authoring their own situations. That's a different technique.

I'm not quite sure I agree that player-authored quests do this much work. I think you're smuggling in some additional things on the GM side that enable these more freely than just the idea of player-authored quests. There's nothing that requires the GM honor the quest by making it a main focus of play and not a sideline, nothing that speaks to the dramatic quality of the quest (the GM can arrange for a quick and anti-climatic conclusion), and nothing that speaks to the complexity of the quest. In short, the GM can use a portion of a single session to deal with and conclude the quest. What I think you're smuggling in is the GM making such quests a major or even the main focus of play. Even here, I see a lot of opportunity to hijack such quests, and certain the ability to deal with these in a very Trad or Neotrad way.

If this is just pointing out that use of such allows players to suggest the introduction of things into the fiction, sure, same page.