The GM is Not There to Entertain You

[Thomas Shey]

Blue's not the only one. I flat out reject the axiom of "One person leaves it's no longer the same game."

But Same GM, same Setting, same rules: May or may not be the same game. Depends upon the characters and the story continuity.

In fact, I'll argue that once you get away from pretty freeform sandbox type things, it doesn't take many players and/or characters to change to complexion of most campaigns significantly, sometimes to the degree there's no longer any point in continuing. Not all campaigns have characters that are just interchangeable cogs.

I make it clear to most of my players that, if you aren't there, your character still is and gets used with or without you.

To a limited degree, so do I; but even among the people I play with there's a difference between that and "your PC belongs to the group as a whole". And there are absolutely people, and its not uncommon, that would find even my "If you miss a session sometimes someone else will just play your character" absolutely unacceptable.

So, no, characters aren't personal property in the same way as dice, nor as book characters: your ownership only matters while you are present. And, for regulars, who gets to play your character when you're absent if it's prearranged.

Also, in some games, given the way the character creation works, you don't even have full control over the nature... Spirit of the Century being the clearest. 2 of your 5 aspects are created by other players.

I think the difference there, as with a lot of things, is people buying in up-front on that (same thing with things like the Shadow in Wraith). That sets expectations. But that doesn't mean one can reasonably expect everyone to be okay with such things, and taking it as a given they will is not a good plan.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Riffing on @Mannahnin's posts.

I think we can be pretty confident of the following: if having a PC build a castle in classic D&D required the players to write down every instruction to the engineers and mason, or describe where and how every brick is laid, fewer campaigns would involve building castles than they actually have done.

In the same context, when the GM makes a single Loyalty throw for the engineers, to see if they do their job properly, that is not taking away player agency just because the player doesn't get a throw to check if they persuade the engineer, or catch them goofing off, every time. Weeks or months of interaction is being bundled up into a single throw to make the ingame activity viable as an object of resolution at the table.

There is nothing magic about the interpersonal altercations that might result in capture that distinguishes them from the interpersonal dealings that might result in an engineer doing a better or worse job at building a castle. We can set the degree of resolution however we like, at whatever will make the game fun and interesting.

The same when it comes to consequences. Being captured need not, in itself, be a more or less irrevocable outcome than having a castle that is liable to fall down around you because of its shoddy construction. We can choose what method(s) we use to resolve attempt by the players to have their PCs reverse or overcome these sorts of adverse consequences. We're not obliged, just because we're RPGing, to treat capture and escape just the same as D&D did 40+ years ago.

I suspect the same people I'm referring to would react badly to that degree of outcome for a single roll in the castle situation, too. Pace-of-resolution matters to a great number of people.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In a conversation centered on two games / families of games that both / all use referees as the main driver of the games in question, it's irrelevant.

D&D, referee's clearly in charge.

Powered by the Apocalypse, referee's clearly in charge.

"Not all games have referees."

Again, technically correct but utterly irrelevant.

Chess doesn't have a referee either, but it's not a relevant point to the discussion.

I felt it was relevant. Just the existence of an RPG without a GM makes it clear that the game need not revolve around the GM.

Then even more relevant were the other examples where the GM changed and the game kept going. Those were great.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Not all games have a GM.

My daughter took over GMing my L5R campaign. Same players save two: her and I. Same characters, again, sans hers and plus mine. Same themes, same ongoing plots... Same campaign all around, and everyone at table agreed it was.

GM change doesn't axiomatically create a new campaign. If can, and often does... but there are lots of situations where the GM departing isn't an end.

My steady group of AL players finished Hoard under Spencer when I had to leave state. He kept the same core 6, and took over where I left off (and we consulted a bit about it). He continued certain thematic "leanings" I'd been using.

The usual issue here is whether the rest-state can be conveyed to the new GM adequately, and that can turn on a lot of things. My wife ran a sequel to a superhero campaign at one point; same setting, similar setup/group rationale, many of the same villains. She had access to the same setting material I did, and handing over the villain write-ups for the ones she wanted to reuse did the rest.

The assumptions in this discussion on the part of people denying this is functional seem to be about setting/situations that only the GM knows and therefor only they are going to be able to continue with. That's certainly a thing (sometimes the GM doesn't even have all of it on paper), but the Fragged Empire game I'm running could be picked up by someone else and they'd be able to continue it, perhaps not quite in the direction I'm going. It'd just require someone to have been in the campaign and paid attention or got a good thorough briefing by someone who was.

I can't imagine but its easier with campaign structures where you heavily roll-as-you-go, though those (mostly) aren't my cuppa.

 

[Campbell]

Speaking personally, I have pretty much zero interest in power fantasy. I do not want the lives of any of the characters I play. That would be entirely too messy.

I play and run traditional roleplaying games to engage in collaborative storytelling, express myself creatively through the design and play of my character and to revel in the setting (particularly the other characters and NPCs).

I play OSR games to overcome challenges and gain mastery over the game through understanding of the meta and lateral thinking skills.

I play and run Story Now games to experience visceral emotional experiences, take creative risks, and see what sort of narrative emerges through uncurated play.

 

[Lanefan]

I think you might have lost track of who was saying what.

Lanefan was saying that if the referee leaves the game ceases to exist. I agreed with that.

Blue seems to think that the referee isn't that important and that if any one of the players leaves then the game ceases to exist. Likely he means "in the exact same way as it did before that player left". But left that part unsaid for some reason. But that's flat out not true.

If a player leaves, the band plays on. If the referee leaves, the game's over.

Players are not on par with referees in their importance to the continuation of the game.

With the sole exception being situations where there is only one player in the game. In these cases, if that one player leaves the game (probably) ends.

 

[Lanefan]

I think you're being vastly more blithe here than is warranted. I very much mentioned that a lot of players find death for their characters less unpleasant than capture. There's "bad" and "bad".

Capture, death, level drain, limb loss, expensive-possession destruction or theft, loss of honour or reputation, sudden and debilitating aging, domination or mind control - all of these are things that PCs (and, by extension, players) are going to actively try to have their PCs avoid suffering while at the same time in many cases doing their best to inflict (some or all of) these same things onto their enemies.

What's less or more bad doesn't matter, as the definition of "less" and "more" may and will vary widely from player to player. Ideally IMO a GM makes sure all of these arise at some point during a campaign; if nothing else doing so provides variance from death being the only real loss condition, which seems to have become the case with modern D&D.

Which is why I say the matter at hand plays badly with them, because other than a single decision and die roll, it isn't their choice.

On this I agree; IMO a more granular resolution is called for here, in whatever form that may take.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Capture, death, level drain, limb loss, expensive-possession destruction or theft, loss of honour or reputation, sudden and debilitating aging, domination or mind control - all of these are things that PCs (and, by extension, players) are going to actively try to have their PCs avoid suffering while at the same time in many cases doing their best to inflict (some or all of) these same things onto their enemies.

And I repeat, that doesn't mean they're all the same and players are required to accept all of them as the price of playing.

What's less or more bad doesn't matter, as the definition of "less" and "more" may and will vary widely from player to player.

And that's why you pay attention to the overall trend of a group of players and don't just assume everyone will be good with all of them. Otherwise you're just deciding its all about you and what they want is irrelevant.

On this I agree; IMO a more granular resolution is called for here, in whatever form that may take.

"Required" is a strong word, but its absolutely what a lot of players expect.

 

[innerdude]

I'm kind of sort of only "drive by thread-skimming", but PC capture is universally unfun.

Had a GM who did it twice, once running 3.5, once running GURPS. Both times we banged our heads against the wall for 90 minutes or so, trying to read his mind about how we were going to get out.

If it follows from general principles of play, I don't mind at all. Mind controlled as the result of an NPC casting a Domination spell and I fail my save? No problem. Compelled to act by a vow / background that's part of my character, and the principles of the system demand my character to act? (This is Ironsworn's bread and butter, by the way.) Almost always okay, as long as it's not someone abusing the "Lawful Stupid" or "Chaotic Doofus" character traits.

Unilateral imposition of a GM declaration of "You're captured" with no option for the PCs to declare their own actions?

"Okay. So can we skip to the part where the PCs get out, or should I go home now?"

 

[loverdrive]

I can't quite go that far about characters.

But I think it's entirely true of our story. And while I always want to respect player agency with their characters, that means respecting their decisions, not always making the outcomes of those decisions what they were hoping for.

What character (any character, PC, NPC, or whatever else) can or cannot do is absolutely influenced by things outside of the character and outside of the player because, well, there are other participants. Unless it's a solo game, but then this whole discussion doesn't apply anyway.

In most games, you can't really say "lol I take a dump on the table", even if it's something that your character would do and it's something you want your character to do (damn, this gets complicated). You have to put your desires aside for the needs of the collective. You get to exercise control over your character's actions/feelings/whatever only as long as it serves the game.

I don't mind someone (or something — like, say, the rules) else assuming control through aggressive framing (e.g: You're at home, drinking yourself to death like you do every single day, when you hear commotion outside. What ya gonna do?), describing the outcome of an action (You try to squeeze the trigger... And you can't. You're not that heartless.) or whatever else, as I don't expect to have it all the time.

What I see as violation of agency is when you're given a choice, but then it gets ignored. That I hate with burning passion.