The GM is Not There to Entertain You

[Thomas Shey]

Ah; ok. I did not follow.

Probably my fault. Don't get old.

A reasonable maxim.

And it becomes more and more likely the longer a thread gets. Gods help you're trying to do the same thing on, say, a Discord where even if someone wants to keep up with everything, they probably can't.

 

[Lanefan]

If the rules for AW specify the stakes of a failed Go Aggro move as including serious consequences like the one specified, then the example Campbell gave would certainly be fair.

Playing it out on a more micro-resolution level COULD indeed make things much worse for the PCs. That's not necessarily a virtue. One consistent experience I've had in D&D over the years is the difficulty of resolving the PCs losing a fight or confrontation without it turning into a TPK, without heavy-handed GM intervention or control over the PCs' actions and the scene framing.

We've had different experiences, then. Part of it might be that our characters often tend to see themselves (i.e. be seen by their players) as independent entities, and thus if one of them does something rash the others might just bail out and leave him to it rather than let themselves get dragged into whatever trouble he's just provoked - it's their choice, and they know it. End result: TPKs are extremely rare, but individual character deaths etc. are not.

AW sounds like its mechanics handle this better, if it allows for a quick transition to the "captured and interrogated" scene without a long, aggravating, un-fun combat having to be played out in the middle.

What it doesn't allow for*, however, is two characters independently escaping in different directions while a third (the gun guy) gets disarmed and beaten to a pulp while the other three surrender quietly. There seems to be no opportunity for independent action by the other PCs.

* - or doesn't seem to, as written.

If AW lets a scene like that play out more like a movie or TV show- tough posturing with the local boss, one PC whips out a gun but it goes badly, suddenly PCs are revealed to be surrounded by a superior force with guns trained, transition to dramatic interrogation scene, then that seems like a good capability. It's a different kind of game, certainly, but maybe it better emulates a lot of enjoyable fiction than D&D does.

Thing is, I very much maintain that movies and TV shows are forced to function under constraints that RPGs are not, the most crucial of these being run-time. A movie has to fit into a certain vague run time; a TV show into a precise-to-the-second one. An RPG's "run time", however, is completely open-ended, thus that externally-forced reason to edit out details or skip potentially-relevant stuff does not exist.

The interrogation scene could easily turn around into an "uneasy allies" situation, if, say, it's revealed during that scene that both sides have a common enemy, or are working for a common ally. If we didn't just spend 30 minutes or an hour playing out the PCs getting beaten down by these guys, the PCs won't have taken a bunch of damage/expended a bunch of resources, and the players won't have formed a strong emotional reaction to these guys as enemies. Which are both very likely outcomes if we played out a fight in D&D and had the PCs captured.

Sure, no argument there; I've seen such things happen both as player and DM.

But if the PCs put themselves into a position where they're likely to get beaten down then it only makes sense that getting beaten down is the most likely (though by no means guaranteed!) outcome, with commensurate loss of resources and gain of hard feelings. Further - and back to my point about PCs acting independently - playing out the fight also allows individual PCs to try to escape, to try to change sides, to try to bargain for their own lives, or any of a bunch of other possibilities denied them by jumpng straight to "You're caught and captured".

 

[overgeeked]

Thing is, I very much maintain that movies and TV shows are forced to function under constraints that RPGs are not, the most crucial of these being run-time. A movie has to fit into a certain vague run time; a TV show into a precise-to-the-second one. An RPG's "run time", however, is completely open-ended, thus that externally-forced reason to edit out details or skip potentially-relevant stuff does not exist.

This is true. It's why RPGs don't really emulate stories. They can crudely grope at replicating story structure and all the elements of story, but they're a fundamentally different art form. Though there clearly are RPGs that are designed to ape the style of TV shows and movies. PbtA games (generally) seem to be in that category. See also Fiasco. Can be great games, but they're incredibly limiting in regards to player agency, as you point out.

 

[Manbearcat]

This is true. It's why RPGs don't really emulate stories. They can crudely grope at replicating story structure and all the elements of story, but they're a fundamentally different art form. Though there clearly are RPGs that are designed to ape the style of TV shows and movies. PbtA games (generally) seem to be in that category. See also Fiasco. Can be great games, but they're incredibly limiting in regards to player agency, as you point out.

I would say “art form” is a huge area of disagreement.

* I’ve never considered any of (a) running games or (b) participating in the play or (c) the output of the play as “art form.”

I consider them games first, middle, and last.

@Lanefan (and plenty of other EBWorlders) and I see this very differently and we’ve clashed in this over the years.

Also:

* PBtA games do not remotely ape story nor story structure. They’re structured freeform. The structure is not about delivering Freytag’s Dramatic Arc or anything like it. It’s about precise delineation of authority so MC and players can push all chips in at every moment of play, about structuring conversation and content generation and resolving collisions in the shared imagined space so that play is always aggressive and aggressively on point (whatever the point of that particular game is).

Fate? Fiasco? Yeah for sure. You could certainly make a case that the PBtA game The Between pushes play toward a story structure (though there are a lot of confounds to that hypothesis as well).

* If you think that PBtA games actually limit player agency (meaning players control over the content of play and the trajectory of play is limited with respect to other games?), then something has gone haywire in either your reading of a system or your playing of a system or…it may be that your particular cognitive orientation toward framing > action declaration > action resolution > consequences is fixated on a particularly high level of granularity and against abstraction (one that probably made 1 minute D&D combat rounds difficult for you?…one that makes various and sundry D&D-isms likely difficult for you still to this day?).

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is true. It's why RPGs don't really emulate stories. They can crudely grope at replicating story structure and all the elements of story, but they're a fundamentally different art form. Though there clearly are RPGs that are designed to ape the style of TV shows and movies. PbtA games (generally) seem to be in that category. See also Fiasco. Can be great games, but they're incredibly limiting in regards to player agency, as you point out.

That's an extremely bold claim. I'd love to see some attempt to back it up. Who knows, maybe me and my experience is dead wrong and you, totally from the outside, have an amazing insight. Certainly would love to hear it.

 

[pemerton]

It's why RPGs don't really emulate stories. They can crudely grope at replicating story structure and all the elements of story, but they're a fundamentally different art form.

I've run RPGs that emulate stories, in the sense that characters are introduced, their dramatic needs emerge, they confront obstacles to realising those dramatic needs, and then there is a resolution.

I'm thinking particularly of two Cthulhu Dark sessions, and one Wuthering Heights session.

Also, the idea that Apocalypse World is somehow limiting in "player agency" is quite bizarre. I posted the allocation of authority not far upthread.

 

[Lanefan]

@Mannahnin - curious what prompted the "sad" like to my post 222*, five above this one. The idea of PCs acting independently? The idea of RPGs having an open-ended run time? Or ???

* - 222 in my feed anyway, might be different for others as I've reason to think someone's posting here who has me blocked.

 

[bloodtide]

This idea that rules don’t matter just seems so alien to me. They absolutely matter.

Odd it seems so alien to you, as it's how the vast majority of RPGs work. The DM can do anything they want, on a whim. The DM being beyond, above and outside the rules is really the whole point of a DM.

Can the GM tell players what their characters do, think, and feel?

Yes. The GM is in full control of the game reality and have omnisight into everything as they are outside the game reality. The hostile players jump right to the wacky far extreme of the GM controlling characters like robots....but that is just beyond silly.

You could play a hardcore cutthroat game where the GM tells the players nothing about their characters, but that is an extreme game style. The mind of the character, and that is the mind of the player, can only role play thoughts and feelings they know about. But both the character and player don't have the GMs outside view. Simply put, a player can not role play their characters unconscious mind. Even IF the GM told the player all the needed outside the game information....it would STILL be the GM telling the player what their character feels and thinks.

It can be easy for some people, when say they meet a guy selling items of value on a street corner cheep, to feel and think "something is not right" by the conscious mind using common sense, your knowledge and logic. But you also have an unconscious mind....those thoughts, feelings, instincts and your "gut" that all tell you things that you don't have hard facts or data on. You can feel something is "wrong" or "off", and have no idea why you feel that way. Your instincts might tell you to trust someone or NOT to trust them....but again you won't know why. And you know your Real Life "gut" is quite often correct, amazingly.


So when a Character meets a halfing merchant, the conscious mind of the player/character might think or feel something based on what they see and hear. But the player can't role play the "gut" or unconscious mind. Only the GM can do that, as they know everything. So if the halfling is planning on cheating the character, only the GM knows that (as they are role playing the halfling merchant after all) and ONLY the GM can tell the player if their character thinks or feels "something is off" or anything else.

Also, just to note, plenty of games have "the GM tells the players how their characters think or feel" right in the rules. When a player makes a roll to see if their character detects or feels or thinks something: it's the GM that tells the player what it is. For example, when a character senses a motive of someone, it's the GM telling the character what they sense.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Odd it seems so alien to you, as it's how the vast majority of RPGs work. The DM can do anything they want, on a whim. The DM being beyond, above and outside the rules is really the whole point of a DM.


Yes. The GM is in full control of the game reality and have omnisight into everything as they are outside the game reality. The hostile players jump right to the wacky far extreme of the GM controlling characters like robots....but that is just beyond silly.

You could play a hardcore cutthroat game where the GM tells the players nothing about their characters, but that is an extreme game style. The mind of the character, and that is the mind of the player, can only role play thoughts and feelings they know about. But both the character and player don't have the GMs outside view. Simply put, a player can not role play their characters unconscious mind. Even IF the GM told the player all the needed outside the game information....it would STILL be the GM telling the player what their character feels and thinks.

It can be easy for some people, when say they meet a guy selling items of value on a street corner cheep, to feel and think "something is not right" by the conscious mind using common sense, your knowledge and logic. But you also have an unconscious mind....those thoughts, feelings, instincts and your "gut" that all tell you things that you don't have hard facts or data on. You can feel something is "wrong" or "off", and have no idea why you feel that way. Your instincts might tell you to trust someone or NOT to trust them....but again you won't know why. And you know your Real Life "gut" is quite often correct, amazingly.


So when a Character meets a halfing merchant, the conscious mind of the player/character might think or feel something based on what they see and hear. But the player can't role play the "gut" or unconscious mind. Only the GM can do that, as they know everything. So if the halfling is planning on cheating the character, only the GM knows that (as they are role playing the halfling merchant after all) and ONLY the GM can tell the player if their character thinks or feels "something is off" or anything else.

Also, just to note, plenty of games have "the GM tells the players how their characters think or feel" right in the rules. When a player makes a roll to see if their character detects or feels or thinks something: it's the GM that tells the player what it is. For example, when a character senses a motive of someone, it's the GM telling the character what they sense.

You're describing a basis for play that I find to be extremely distasteful. I run and play 5e. So, this isn't a requirement to play that game, at least.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

Here are my criteria on what would make a “Great GM”. They enjoy interacting with a wide variety of people. They are great conversationalists, enjoy being around other people, fairly laid-back and easy to get along with. Tend to reserve judgment. Instead of making a decision or committing to a course of action, they would prefer to wait and see what happens. But mostly, mostly are immensely curious and focused on understanding the game world they are running, they are constantly absorbing new information and ideas and quickly arriving at conclusions in play, and they are able to understand new things quite quickly.