D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[AbdulAlhazred]

It isn't? Those examples of player action declarations causing dwarven forges and hunter lodges to appear certainly could have fooled me!

Nope. There are 2 possible situations here:
1) the player answered a GM question (in character, as required). No mechanics are employed here, and the initiating activity is the GM asking the question.
2) the player invoked a move, such as Discern Realities or Spout Lore, which requires the GM to make some sort of declaration (though its exact nature and content is never mandated).

That is it. A player might, obviously, make an informal observation about what he thinks would be cool to have appear also, unsolicited. This is just 'table talk' and isn't a formal part of an RPG. In fact it is a bit discouraged by PbtA as 'play time' is supposed to remain in character as much as possible.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It seems I understand it just fine. In this instance the player asking about the forge causes the forge to be written into existence. This is the thing @pemerton insisted is not happening.

Welllllll..... The GM is not obliged to put a Forge into play! Not by any means. They are obliged to give the CHARACTER 'Useful Information' on that subject. Said information could be "In the Time of Giants Alzardel the Transmuter built the One Forge. During The Battle of the Deeps the One Forge was broken by The Giant King. It is said that one who possesses a shard of the One Forge can commune with the Dwarf Fathers and it is also said that King Gardarul III once held such a shard, and that he bade it be entombed with him when he passed."

 

[Cadence]

Welllllll..... The GM is not obliged to put a Forge into play! Not by any means. They are obliged to give the CHARACTER 'Useful Information' on that subject. Said information could be "In the Time of Giants Alzardel the Transmuter built the One Forge. During The Battle of the Deeps the One Forge was broken by The Giant King. It is said that one who possesses a shard of the One Forge can commune with the Dwarf Fathers and it is also said that King Gardarul III once held such a shard, and that he bade it be entombed with him when he passed."

I'm trying to reconcile these two in useful way.

The question is about recalling information about a forge. On a hit, this information must be useful to the character. Recalling that there is no such forge is not very useful to them. Now, sidebar, if there is already established fiction that would bar the fiction of a forge, then that needs to be honored, but this would then no trigger the move -- the answer is already answered. This can't be secret -- the GM can't have decided this themselves and not introduced it into play yet -- but has to rely on what the play has already established. It's quite possible for the player to ask a question like this that has been answered, and the proper response here is to point that out and let the player reframe their action.

Continuing down your line of questions, there could be an answer that the GM could offer that is both answering the question and useful to the PC that might not include a forge. This question is fairly narrow, though, so I'm not really seeing an easy example that would make it so in this case. I don't deny one could exist. It seems that the GM has to answer the question which is about the forge and that the answer must be useful to the PC. Aside from something like "not a Forge, but a Smithy" really jumps at me here.

 

[Manbearcat]

This thread has become an incomprehensible medley of diversions, diversions upon diversions, and inscrutable claims that seem to advance or withdraw or increase in inscrutability every other post.

It would probably be a good idea if the primary posters in this thread stop commenting to each other for a moment and succinctly put out an important/relevant claim for game design/play (or two) that they’re attempting to establish/advance and the evidence that supports that claim.

Or if you’re just trying to work through your own thoughts on a subject in real time (rather than making a claim), maybe express that as well.

That would at least give conversation some kind of form and foundation. Right now it looks like an aftermath site of a Mag 10 earthquake.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You're literally describing a game mechanic that allows players to add forges in the narrative! That that it involves a die roll doesn't change this fact.

But, as I said, there's 2 flaws in that logic. The first being that the player has an absolute path to adding any given fiction to the game, and the second being that the GM is obliged in any significant sense to make the fiction exactly what the player wants. In fact, even on a 10+ it is perfectly possible, as I suggested above, to make the response only tangentially about the original topic the player named. The GM is obliged to make it useful in that specific case, and 'interesting' (but that later I think is really not something you can enforce).

It seems to me there are two things that could be objected to about Spout Lore:
1) that it might obligate the GM to do something and thus constrain their absolute authority
2) that the constraint is in reference to a mechanical device of the game and not a part of the fiction. That is, the RULES for Spout Lore constrain the GM, not the content of the fiction directly. So it can be seen as a game mechanic that isn't tied directly to something present in the fiction at that moment.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm trying to reconcile these two in useful way.

Simply put, I disagree with AA on a number of things regarding DW play. Reconciling these is like reconciling me and Crimson. I've been around on these with AA before, he has his opinion, I have mine.

 

[prabe]

This systemic constraint is due the player action declaration. It is effectively player authoring the content.

Actually, if the GM can make the answer interesting and useful--and relevant to the question asked--the GM can make the answer anything they want. The only reason it seems constrained is that improvising such an answer is hard and most GMs don't have the bandwidth to do so.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Cadence A question, as you seem to currently be the most curious. Do you see the approach being argued for Story Now as something that does work, plays well, and generates what it suggests on the tin, or are you still struggling to grasp the play? If the latter, what's the largest impediment that you see at the moment?

Obligatory boilerplate -- I see many approaches to playing 5e as valid. I even use them.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

I think what you see is that PLAYER TECHNIQUE can be an important factor. In DW a player could never have his character use Spout Lore, or Discern Realities, or other similar moves. He might accidentally trigger them I guess, but nothing forces him to engage in this way. Likewise in 4e players can simply not ask for quests. If that happens, then OK, but if the player DOES keep asking for them, yeah the GM can keep making them trivial, but that just means the player is right back inventing another one! Its not really a viable tactic, and GMs have little reason to do that. Likewise they have little reason to make Spout Lore results trivial, although they undoubtedly CAN.

 

[Manbearcat]

I’m brutally sick so I can’t offer much right now, but here is what a GM is obliged to do on a 10+ Spout Lore where the goal is to turn the site of play from whatever it is presently to a conflict where we’re trying to repair a Paladin’s armor:

* Useful in that it must honor the goal of the Spout Lore move in the first place (the GM doesn’t get to suddenly divert the goal and then sub in a new brand of useful that maps to this GM diversion…eg the GM doesn’t get to turn this into an unrelated side quest). Useful means immediately actionable as it pertains to player goal.

- Interesting in that it provokes the creativity/imagination of the participants at the table by scaffolding new, dangerous and exciting stuff around/upon the existing shared imagined space and accreted fiction to date. It’s best practices that this scaffolding intersects with player Bonds and/or Alignment.


A 10 + requires both of those things. And it also needs to hew to the rest of thd game’s Agenda and Principles (eg you’re playing to find out so this useful and interesting stuff being generated is new to you, the GM, too!).