D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Ovinomancer]

So you are saying, then, that by phrasing the question that way and getting lucky with the dice the player is effectively authoring the world? (by constraining the set of answers available to the GM)

The system constrains the GM. The player isn't telling the GM how they are allowed to answer, the system is.

EDIT: this is important, because different systems do this in different ways. Look at the difference between 5e and DW. Or, for a closer game, the difference between DW and Blades.

 

[prabe]

The system constrains the GM. The player isn't telling the GM how they are allowed to answer, the system is.

EDIT: this is important, because different systems do this in different ways. Look at the difference between 5e and DW. Or, for a closer game, the difference between DW and Blades.

It looks to me as though the player and the system are conspiring to constrain the GM's authorship in a way that looks like player authorship at a casual (10,000-foot view) glance.

Which is ... roughly how I see combat working in 5e--the DM is constrained in their narration of the effects of combat by the players' rolls.

 

[Aldarc]

It looks to me as though the player and the system are conspiring to constrain the GM's authorship in a way that looks like player authorship at a casual (10,000-foot view) glance.

Which is ... roughly how I see combat working in 5e--the DM is constrained in their narration of the effects of combat by the players' rolls.

'Conspiring' seems like some heavy-handed language to describe ficitonal restraints imposed by the system.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You were comparing a single attack in D&D 5e--not an entire combat--to a Spout Lore move. Perhaps you were replying to someone else who was. Either way, it's not an accurate comparison, because a single attack in D&D 5e is vanishingly unlikely to carry the same weight as a Spout Lore move in a PbtA game.

I think your comparison between a Score in Blades and a combat if D&D 5e is more relevant--both because they're both complex things, and because Scores are at the heart of Blades in the Dark in the same way that combat is at the heart of D&D 5e.

My point is that comparing a single attack in D&D 5e--which is what you did--to a PbtA move is not a useful comparison as anything other than a rhetorical maneuver. This is precisely because, as you say, combat is so zoomed-in, in D& 5e.

Compare the Spout Lore move to any sort of know-whats check in D&D 5e, and you're probably making a fairer comparison. I'd be happy to discuss that comparison. I won't be discussing unlike comparisons further.

IMHO this is going down a blind alley. In DW specifically there is no distinction. Every move made by a player translates to a fictional action taken by the character, and the outcome dictated by the dice (if they are employed, some moves don't require them) puts a constraint on the fiction which the GM will then author (the player MAY also say something here at times, but that often just initiates another move). Combat is in no way special in this respect, aside from likely being 'dense' in terms of a lot of moves happening in a short amount of fictional time. The only distinguishing factor MIGHT be whether or not an entire new scene is framed before the next move, but in DW scenes aren't really a very fundamental organizing construct. They are more just "Oh, the transition after that last move was a little bigger" vs being something fundamentally distinct.

So, at least in DW swinging at an orc and spouting lore are pretty much identical, they are just different in that they are specific to different fictional situations and thus the consequences are described in different terms.

I would say, by analogy, that in 5e an attack and some other kind of check aren't really that different either, though non-combat checks really have no teeth in 5e, so there is SOME distinction (I would argue they are pretty similar in the case of principled DMing though). The key realization is that in all cases the stories go on, in both games, and they are by nature unending series of challenges! In one case the orc swings back, in the other the characters must trudge across the glacier.

I do agree with the post that distinguishes in terms of IN FICTION constraints or not. An attack dictates that a fictional event took place, involving objects within the fiction. A Spout Lore result is more abstract, the game system is constraining the GM's fiction, but its a tenuous distinction, you could always come right back and say that Spout Lore is a simulation of the PC's memory, and thus actually part of the fiction! lol.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But instead of asking "what here is of use to me?" couldn't the player ask "is there a secret door here?" Because that would seem more similar to the forge example we've been debating.

No, when you invoke Discern Realities a check is made, and you pick from the following list of questions:

• what happened here recently?
• what is about to happen?
• what should I be on the lookout for?
• what here is useful or valuable to me?
• who's really in control here?
• what here is not what it appears to be?

The GM is free to supply any answer, as long as it is accurate. On a 10+ you get 3 questions, on a 7-9 one. Either way you get +1 Forward when acting on the answers. So there's no scenario where the player can state that a secret door exists. Now, a player could try to invoke Spout Lore instead, in which case they are allowed to dictate the TOPIC of the lore. So a player could say "I try to recall if I know of any secret doors in this location" but I would note that this is A) stretching the definition of Spout Lore, as lore IMHO is more general than this, and B) It is still technically up to the GM to decide when a move is triggered, so they might actually quash this by simply answering the question, thus circumventing any check. I would say that both the asking a very very specific question about a location AND the quashing the move are both a bit dubious, so I'd be cautious about concluding what that says about DW play.

In any case, while the GM may well deploy a secret door here, there's no obligation to do so.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

GM: "Throndor, what lies to the west of this forest?"
Throndor: "A river, beyond which is the Elvish realm of Lothwithien."
Player of Elf PC local to the area scratches head and wonders how and why she's never heard of this place before now...

An extreme example perhaps, but done to prove a point: if something's authored to be there now it means that thing has always been there, and as soon as prior knowledge of its presence might have changed past events in the fiction (here, the Elf might have invited the PCs to go up the other side of the river [also previously unknown-of!] and visit Lothwithien instead of going through the forest they're in, had she known about it) then IMO things have become degenerate.

Put this all on a player-visible map ahead of time and stuff like this just can't* happen.

* - not without a lot of work and some DM errors, anyway.

Well, your first point doesn't seem too substantive to me, that is the player certainly doesn't know all the things that the character knows, so it should be no surprise to the elf's player that she is not cognizant of this fact.

Point 2 is harder to judge, as it is highly situational and also admits of a lot of interpretation. I mean, OK, Its POSSIBLE that if the player knew about this fact earlier in play they might have made different action declarations. However we don't KNOW that for a fact. Characters have many reasons for things, and in fact we can always invent some, particularly in a Story Now type scenario where most things are up for grabs. For example Lothwithien could be a secret kingdom which the elf is sworn not to disclose. Surely in a DW game this kind of explanation can be easily deployed, and surely various others also spring to mind.

Now, I won't try to argue that NOTHING could ever be declared that would come across as inconsistent with the established fiction. No doubt there is a range there as well. If the PCs took the road from Bogwood to Warden and then some later revelation of lore tried to put a giant impassable swamp there, then the GM should be calling that out, like maybe "Oh, you guys took a road through that swamp, right?" or maybe the fact is it was described as primeval forest, so the swamp is just out, the GM will need to invoke consistency with established facts (I don't recall there being any significant discussion of this in the DW rules, but I believe ultimate veto authority on fiction is at least implied to be vested in the table as a whole). Obviously it could be even stronger than that, too.

However, I think most cases of players authoring fiction in this way work pretty well. Remember, it isn't in ANYONE's interests for the fiction to be a muck. Its not like the players are little fiction destroying beavers. Nor does the GM know more about the setting than the players. He has IDEAS perhaps, but IMHO his only recourse if, say, a player spouts an answer that negates a danger of a front (basically an encounter grouping) that the GM already worked up would be to say "I'd like to contradict that answer, could Feldwen be mistaken and the Great River turns north before that point?" or even just call for a convo with the players out of character and hash out his issue with it. When it comes right down to it though, the players could simply come back with "nope, you haven't established whatever it is yet, so if we negated its existence that's on you." Obviously this is different from pre-authored games where the GM's fiction must prevail.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Mine has mostly been reaction to other posters thoughts with either observations relating to them, or some question as to whether they're projecting their views on others playstyles without outright stating them. I don't actually have a massive commitment to what appears to be the two dialectic positions in play (which, of course, means I've managed to annoy people all over the map in this, but that's how that works out).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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!).

Agreed, and when I invented an answer, I was being a bit loose in terms of how relevant it was. That is, whatever thing is revealed really should be tied back to fixing armor or at least accomplishing the more general goal that fixing armor is part of (IE maybe you learn about a way to get new armor instead, whatever). I don't think your definition of interesting is controversial either, OTOH that criteria is pretty subjective, so I would say it is more "what is good GMing" than "what is DW requiring."

 

[pemerton]

It would be comparable if player declaring that they attack an orc would make the orc appear.

What's the difference between making it true that the fiction includes an Orc and making it true that the fiction contains an Orc with a scratch? It's all just authorship - introducing new fiction.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What's the difference between making it true that the fiction includes an Orc and making it true that the fiction contains an Orc with a scratch? It's all just authorship - introducing new fiction.

Well, on its easiest level, one is within the allowed fictional ability of the character you're playing and the other isn't.