The GM is Not There to Entertain You

[bloodtide]

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.

Well...how do you do the skill Insight or animal handling(the intuit an animal's intentions) when you play 5E then? These are examples when the GM will tell the player what their character thinks and feels.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well...how do you do the skill Insight or animal handling(the intuit an animal's intentions) when you play 5E then? These are examples when the GM will tell the player what their character thinks and feels.

That wasn't the part I had issues with. Although, you can just describe what is seen and let the player take what they want. "The animal bares it's fangs and snarls a warning." "The merchants eyes are shifty, and they're sweating and fidgeting nervously, "sure, sure, that's an authentic item," they say."

 

[niklinna]

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.

Well, I for one am quite glad I've never met such 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.

Huh?

You could play a hardcore cutthroat game where the GM tells the players nothing about their characters, but that is an extreme game style.

Oh okay, yes, I have played such games, where my character wakes up with amnesia and learns about himself through play. It is indeed extreme. Very good for horror games. It needn't be cutthroat, though.

The mind of the character, and that is the mind of the player, can only role play thoughts and feelings they know about.

Yes, and I can make those up as the player of my character.

But both the character and player don't have the GMs outside view.

I've played in quite a few games where I do have an outside view, developed in collaboration with the GM and other players, up to and including the motives and thoughts of NPCs. It's fun, you should try it sometime.

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.

Hm, no. The GM tells me what my character sees, hears, etc., and I decide what my character feels and thinks based on that.

This is dfferent from impactful events that cause such things as fear and hallucinations, of course.

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.

Yes, and depending on how the GM portrays the character, I will have gut feelings. If I have to rely on the GM to tell me such things (telling instead of showing), well, I'll certainly have a gut feeling about that GM.

And it's not amazing, it's pretty well-known neuroscience these days.

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.

Nope. I can totally role-play my character's "gut" or unconscious mind.

Only the GM can do that, as they know everything.

Well now, that's a strong claim. The GM doesn't know what I'm thinking. They don't know what they haven't given any thought to yet.

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.

If the GM is role playing well, I'll likely be able to determine something from how the GM is role playing. And if not, again, I'll certainly have a feeling that "something is off" about that GM.

Also, just to note, plenty of games have "the GM tells the players how their characters think or feel" right in the rules.

Please let me know which games these are, so I can avoid them.

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.

Use of in-game mechanics such as skills to determine information that is hard to convey through mere verbal description and even role playing is a formalism I am familiar with, yes.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Odd it seems so alien to you, as it's how the vast majority of RPGs work.

[citation needed]

Or put less snarkily, however they theoretically are permitted there are a large number of game cultures that have a very sharp limit to what GMs are expected to be able to do, and will absolutely be called out if they exceed those. And no, I don't just mean by people walking out.

 

[bloodtide]

[citation needed]

Or put less snarkily, however they theoretically are permitted there are a large number of game cultures that have a very sharp limit to what GMs are expected to be able to do, and will absolutely be called out if they exceed those. And no, I don't just mean by people walking out.

Well, one of the big jobs the GM does is to create everything. And the GM is free to make anything at any time.

Also, not only can the GM make any person or creature in the game do or not do whatever they want on a whim......but the GM can also do anything. Does it "suddenly" start raining....it does if the GM says it does.

And as most games have fiction/magic/whatever, a GM can even make something like a rainstorm "out of a clear blue sky".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, one of the big jobs the GM does is to create everything. And the GM is free to make anything at any time.

Again [citation needed]. In many groups, the GM is not free to change the already established things in the setting just because he feels like it. He'll get called on it.

Also, not only can the GM make any person or creature in the game do or not do whatever they want on a whim......but the GM can also do anything. Does it "suddenly" start raining....it does if the GM says it does.

Again, you're overly projecting from the games you're familiar with. To make it very clear, in many groups just doing that sort of thing for the hell of it is not acceptable.

And as most games have fiction/magic/whatever, a GM can even make something like a rainstorm "out of a clear blue sky".

Just because there's some rationale he could pull out of his behind by no means means he won't be called on it.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, one of the big jobs the GM does is to create everything. And the GM is free to make anything at any time.

Also, not only can the GM make any person or creature in the game do or not do whatever they want on a whim......but the GM can also do anything. Does it "suddenly" start raining....it does if the GM says it does.

However, just because they can doesn't necessarily mean they should - at least not without some underlying reason or rationale other than pure whim - mostly because a GM doing too much by whim is likely to end up with some very confused players who have no idea how things in the setting are supposed to work.

The key word is consistency.

And as most games have fiction/magic/whatever, a GM can even make something like a rainstorm "out of a clear blue sky".

In D&D a significant subset of PCs can also do this via the spells Precipitation and-or Cloudburst; thus a GM having an NPC cast the spell is fair game. As long as the underlying rationale - in this case someone casting a spell - is present, even if not obvious to the PCs e.g. the NPC who cast it is standing behind a hedge, all is good.

That said, note that those spells are also consistent with themselves in that they work in a somewhat predictable way each time one is cast.

 

[pemerton]

Well, one of the big jobs the GM does is to create everything. And the GM is free to make anything at any time.

Also, not only can the GM make any person or creature in the game do or not do whatever they want on a whim......but the GM can also do anything. Does it "suddenly" start raining....it does if the GM says it does.

So obviously there are a lot of RPGs in which this isn't true. The first one that came to my mind was Marvel Heroic RP.

 

[Mannahnin]

@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.

A lot about the post comes across to me as kind of assuming the worst about AW and incuriosity about how games that function on a different scope of resolution for conflict than we're used to with D&D could be fun and and do some things better. Perhaps that's me being negative, but it seems like a lot of pushback.

Certainly the example Campbell gave is not how I'd want D&D to play, but I've also faced the problem of the "PCs captured/backing down from a fight" situation being nearly impossible in D&D and playing out in un-fun ways numerous times over my decades of play, so much so that it's become a trope. I'm intrigued by the idea that another game has mechanics that handle that scene in a more fun way than I have found that D&D does.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So obviously there are a lot of RPGs in which this isn't true. The first one that came to my mind was Marvel Heroic RP.

Marvel Heroic had a lot in common with FATE, which obviously is a very different game than D&D. Genre emulation-heavy games like Marvel Heroic play entirely differently from traditional, to the point where they're even on many people's radar as a kind of RPG. They are of course, but definitely a different genus (if not phylum).