The GM is Not There to Entertain You

[Campbell]

A couple of things.

• Apocalypse World isn't for everyone. It does not have to be. Nor does any game. All I'm saying is that it's a legitimate thing and works in definitively different ways to provide a different sort of play experience. One that @overgeeked and @Lanefan happen to not like. Live and let live.
• In Apocalypse World when it's your turn to speak it's your turn and only your turn. The spotlight (and the pressure) is on your character.
• Player characters are not joined at the hip. It's very possible the only one taken in is the one who drew the gun. One of the GM moves is separate them after all.
• It's not even assumed player characters are always allies. The game explicitly instructs the GM to put NPCs between PCs to see if they can pull together and cooperate or not.
• There's an art to these hard moves. The game says to make as hard a move as you like. One option might be to have the hardholder tell another player character to get this guy out of there.
• Who gets to act and when is fundamentally up to the MC (GM).

Part of the fun of these games is to just accept what happens and see where the ride takes us. You advocate for your player character, but the game is still fun (for people like me) when things do not go your way.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm talking about how in D&D, mechanically, getting captured, unless everyone happens to fail a save vs certain powerful spells, normally involves playing out a whole extended combat in which the party gets beaten down.

Loss of HP, waste of spells, and a roughly (depending on edition, level, play skill, etc.) 30-60 minute exercise in losing.

If that’s what the players choose to do, so what?

Players don't enjoy it.

They’d rather die than be captured. That’s how viscerally players react to even the potential of loss of agency. They’d rather waste hours in a losing fight and have their characters die than give up their agency. Maybe we should stop trying to force this as referees.

This is a common trope in heroic fiction and fantasy, and D&D seems to be largely incapable of supporting it.

Because RPGs are not stories. And they cannot replicate every aspect of stories. In Sword & Sorcery fiction, the author can simply decide for the character (no agency) to surrender. Whereas the referee in an RPG cannot decide for the player what that player’s character will do without violating player agency.

That players are so stubborn and resistant to loss of agency really shouldn’t be a surprise and really should inform design. Maybe stop trying to violate player agency as a general thing.

 

[Blue]

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.

The GM has not a single iota of power above and beyond that granted by the players. And at any time if they are abusing that power, the players can withdraw it by leaving the game - perhaps en masse. The idea that GMs have unlimited power is not just false, but it's commonly considered one of the sins of running. In reality there is a strong upper limit on what they can do, constrained by the shared understanding of the rules, the implied or explicit social contract, and the trust given by the players.

In response to "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.

This is the one place that is inviolate - the players are in control of their PCs in regards to their thoughts, intentions, feelings. (Outside corner cases like being controlled by magic or psionic.)

This isn't even really debatable, it's one of the cornerstones of RPGs. I can not picture someone who has actually played RPGs not understanding this.

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.

It is the DM's job to be the window from character living in the world the player running them. But it still isn't the DM's place to control the PCs, to tell them it's a gut feeling - that's for the player to decided how they want to portray it. The DM could give it to them in mechanical terms like "your Insight check succeeds and the halfling is acting suspiciously" or in more narrative terms "ever time the halfling offers a price he doesn't meet your eyes" - both are within the purview of the GM. But it is the player who decided how their character feels - do they have a "gut feel" about the halfling, or perhaps they are more calculating about it.

 

[Arilyn]

Just want to pop in and say PbtA games do not step all over player agency. In fact, I feel like my character decisions matter a lot, scarily so! There's been a ton of discussions and explanations about these games but there is still so much misunderstanding. They are great games that do work. They aren't going to be loved by all. No system is. They are worth trying or at least understanding because the vast majority of criticism about PbtA games comes from lack of understanding how they actually play out at the table.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My pushback is around (what seems like) the loss of individual player agency over one's character in such a scene.

Sure, the one player pulls a gun - but what do the rest get to do other than accept as a group whatever outcome (good, bad, or neutral) that action leads to? Does my PC get a chance to try to stop him, or try to flee, or to pull my own gun*, or do anything else independent of what he's doing?

* - and if so, do I get to decide whether to point it at my friend and try to get him to stand down (which would probably score me a brownie point or two with those we're dealing with!), or is that off the table?

Whatever example you may be referring to seem to have become badly mangled over many posts. This isn't how Apocalypse World or most PbtA or similar games work.

What's more, in many such games, the stakes are explicitly declared before a roll is made. This may be accomplished by a Soft Move to establish the threat, and then a subsequent Hard Move following up on it (Apocalypse World), or consequences may be explicitly stated as part of establishing the action roll (Blades in the Dark). You'll always know what's at stake before you make a roll in these games.

The only way that an entire group of PCs would collectively be on the line for one roll is if they were performing a group action, or one PC was performing an action where they all assisted, or otherwise established that they were at risk based on the outcome of the roll.

This example where one person draws a gun and then everyone gets captured as a result simply does not happen in these games.

I think this comes down to forcing RPGs to mimic stories. RPGs can produce story-like things, but RPGs are their own unique thing, they’re not procedures for story-making. In doing so you lose what’s unique about RPGs and fail to satisfyingly mimic stories. It’s the worst of both worlds rather than the best of either. A big loss, as you’re talking about here, is player agency. Literally the defining feature of RPGs. To mimic a story requires that the players lose agency. That’s too high a price for too little gain. Especially when the story-like thing produced is so flat and uninteresting as a story in itself. You can get more interesting stories from games that don’t force the issue and cripple player agency.

Are you talking about Apocalypse World here? You don't directly cite any specific games, so it's hard to tell what game you're talking about.

 

[Campbell]

@Lanefan brought the rest of the PCs into it. I was picturing a scene where a single PC pulled the gun and subsequently was captured. Wasn't even considering where the other PCs might be.

 

[Campbell]

Back to the point of the thread I don't think the GM is there to entertain the group, but it is a leadership position. Leadership means accountability and trusting your team to deliver. It means taking responsibility. It means fixing problems. Not assigning blame. At least that's how I see it.

 

[overgeeked]

I’ve played and run Dungeon World, World of Dungeons, Monster of the Week, Masks, Spirit of ’77, Zombie World, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Also backed that last one on Kickstarter. Along with playing and running various hacks like World of Secrets.

Generally no, PbtA games don’t violate player agency. But sometimes they do…in pretty dramatic fashion. And not because of mind control or spells. Because of the moves, player and GM. It’s also in the difference between conflict resolution and task resolution.

When a PC fails, rolls 6-/2d6, the GM makes a move, generally a hard move but it’s the GM’s choice. But, importantly, the consequences are not limited to the PC who failed the roll, which is fine, but the GM moves often represent sequences of events rather than singular isolated events. The problem is there. In that sequence the PCs should have agency…but they don’t.

For example, in Masks two moves are “bring them together” and “capture someone.” Spirit of ’77 has “separate them” and “take away their stuff.” Thirsty Sword Lesbians has “create misunderstandings and doubt about attachments.”

Unless those moves involve instant teleportation or time travel or superspeed or mind control, those are generally sequences of events that the PCs should have agency during. It’s this skipping over the sequences of events and collapsing them into a single press of the button that violates player agency.

This also pops up in aggressive scene framing. Actions the PCs should have had control over are skipped over to cut to the meat of scenes. To be fair, a lot of times this is fine and is often used in other games as a time saver, but I’ve seen more players balk at the aggressive scene framing in PbtA games than any other.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I’ve played and run Dungeon World, World of Dungeons, Monster of the Week, Masks, Spirit of ’77, Zombie World, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Also backed that last one on Kickstarter. Along with playing and running various hacks like World of Secrets.

Interesting that this pedigree is only so recently asserted. Especially since you do not seem to be able to steelman PbtA play at all, despite this pedigree. I'm skeptical.

Generally no, PbtA games don’t violate player agency. But sometimes they do…in pretty dramatic fashion. And not because of mind control or spells. Because of the moves, player and GM. It’s also in the difference between conflict resolution and task resolution.

When a PC fails, rolls 6-/2d6, the GM makes a move, generally a hard move but it’s the GM’s choice. But, importantly, the consequences are not limited to the PC who failed the roll, which is fine, but the GM moves often represent sequences of events rather than singular isolated events. The problem is there. In that sequence the PCs should have agency…but they don’t.

For example, in Masks two moves are “bring them together” and “capture someone.” Spirit of ’77 has “separate them” and “take away their stuff.” Thirsty Sword Lesbians has “create misunderstandings and doubt about attachments.”

Unless those moves involve instant teleportation or time travel or superspeed or mind control, those are generally sequences of events that the PCs should have agency during. It’s this skipping over the sequences of events and collapsing them into a single press of the button that violates player agency.

This also pops up in aggressive scene framing. Actions the PCs should have had control over are skipped over to cut to the meat of scenes. To be fair, a lot of times this is fine and is often used in other games as a time saver, but I’ve seen more players balk at the aggressive scene framing in PbtA games than any other.

This argument about agency is ridiculous. You're splitting hairs, and pointing the differences in the scale of resolution in these games as if it's a salient point. PbtA games aim to resolve conflicts. D&D aims to resolve tasks. You're pointing this difference out and claiming "aha, here PbtA removes agency because it doesn't resolve tasks!" Well, D&D doesn't really resolve conflicts. The GM chooses if a conflict is resolved or not, not the system (combat being a debatable exception, but then the combat engine of D&D has always been a different game within the game in many respects).

Agency is about the ability to make meaningful choices. PbtA certainly doesn't lack for these moments.

 

[pemerton]

Thanks very much. I've gotten an invite to a Discord server to observe someone's game one of these evenings, so hopefully I'll get to do that soon.

I don't want to stick my beak in too much into your personal stuff: but I was going to suggest you hit up @Manbearcat who likes introducing people to PbtA and other non-D&D-ish games; and from your post I'm replying to it seems maybe that's already happened!

If I'm way off base apologies - as I said, not wanting to interfere but just amused that what I was going to suggest looked like it might have already happened.