Authenticity in RPGing

[hawkeyefan]

I think my views here are probably a bit harder than yours! That's in part because I'm still waiting for the play examples that will contradict the idea. Mostly when I see accounts of node-based design, the three clue rule and similar techniques they are all about ensuring that a certain set of situations, and/or consequences, comes to pass. The players don't provide the stakes of, or the motivations for, the action that is the focus of play.

I see your point. I just expect there would still be other opportunities for the authentic kind of expression by participants even if there are moments of play without that opportunity.

That doesn't sound like "three clue" or "node based" play.

Yeah, I didn’t deploy any of those methods. I introduced the mystery just to give the players motivation to get started and interact with the NPCs. I could have very easily tried to keep the game focused on the story of the previous cell and why they’d been discovered and killed. I could have planted clues about that in different areas, I could have had other elements point back to that, and so on. I didn’t want to do that, though. I just wanted to see what the llayers would have the characters do.

What we all got was, I expect, very much along the lines what you’re talking about. Each of the three PCs had quite a journey, nothing that anyone would have predicted based on the basic premise of learning what happened to the previous cell. Things went in all kinds of directions. And although they did eventually learn about the other cell, by that point it was almost an afterthought compared to their other goals and priorities at that point.

 

[pemerton]

I see your point. I just expect there would still be other opportunities for the authentic kind of expression by participants even if there are moments of play without that opportunity.

<snip>

I introduced the mystery just to give the players motivation to get started and interact with the NPCs. I could have very easily tried to keep the game focused on the story of the previous cell and why they’d been discovered and killed. I could have planted clues about that in different areas, I could have had other elements point back to that, and so on. I didn’t want to do that, though. I just wanted to see what the llayers would have the characters do.

What we all got was, I expect, very much along the lines what you’re talking about. Each of the three PCs had quite a journey, nothing that anyone would have predicted based on the basic premise of learning what happened to the previous cell. Things went in all kinds of directions. And although they did eventually learn about the other cell, by that point it was almost an afterthought compared to their other goals and priorities at that point.

I've bolded the bit where you state the purpose of the mystery in your game.

And here is what I posted in the post that you replied to, with a bit that I think of as crucial bolded:

Mostly when I see accounts of node-based design, the three clue rule and similar techniques they are all about ensuring that a certain set of situations, and/or consequences, comes to pass. The players don't provide the stakes of, or the motivations for, the action that is the focus of play.

I think that the degree to which play tends towards what I've bolded of yours will tend to correlate, inversely, with the degree to which it tends towards what I've bolded of mine.

The most interesting formal attempt I know of in a published RPG system to trade on this inverse correlation is Marvel Heroic RP, where the context for the action is supposed to be the four-colour action the GM frames the PCs into, but the key stakes of, and motivations for, the action are supposed to be supplied by the players via their interpretation of their PCs' Milestones.

Whether the system pulls this off in the thorough-going way that it seems to want to I'm still not sure about - it's actually quite a crunchy system and generally the players, as their PCs, don't want the baddies to win; whether the significance of Milestones in the overall system compensates for this isn't something I have a firm view on, although I'm prepared to say it's not an obvious failure. And in any event I think it's a clever thing to try, in the context of setting out to emulate a certain feel of Marvel comics by exploiting the allocation of participant roles that is distinctive of RPGs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Here's Vincent Baker from DitV (pp 143-4):

In most RPGs with religious content, the GM arbitrates the characters’ morality. The GM plays God (or the gods) as an NPC, giving and withholding moral standing - whatever form it takes in the particular game: Faith Points, Alignment Bonuses, whatever - based on the characters’ actions. Not in Dogs.​

​

In Dogs, the GM has no opportunity to pass effective judgment on a PC’s actions. Talk about ’em, sure, but never come down on them as righteous or sinful in a way that’s binding in the game world. The GM can’t give or withhold dice for the state of a PC’s soul, and thus never needs to judge it.​

​

Which is good! Which is, in fact, essential. If you, the GM, can judge my character’s actions, then I won’t tell you what I think. I’ll play to whatever morality you impose on me via your rulings. Instead of posing your players an interesting ethical question and then hearing their answers, you’d be posing the question and then answering it yourself.​

I don't know if Baker is the first RPG author to make this point. I'd more-or-less reached the same conclusion in the late 1980s: for authentic play, I want the players to express their conception of what morality demands, not try and work out what someone else's (ie the GM's) conception of that is. (As I posted upthread, my type-(2) situations are a version of this, where players play authentically while scorning conventional/cosmological judgement in a little replication of Nietzsche.)

Baker’s description does a good job of getting the idea across. (Not really surprising with him!)

The bit about the GM’s ideas not being binding in the game world seems key. Without that, all that the GM has in relation to the morality of the characters is an opinion.

I think that the degree to which play tends towards what I've bolded of yours will tend to correlate, inversely, with the degree to which it tends towards what I've bolded of mine.

So the more the GM provides the motivation, the less the players will, which is what you think will reduce authenticity of the kind you describe? I think that makes sense if I’ve followed correctly.

Spire is an interesting example in that sense, because the game has a default premise of the characters being secret revolutionaries. How that manifests can vary quite a bit, I expect, but it does set a general kind of goal for the characters. I don’t think it’s so strong as to lock play in to a specific path. I think it could do so if the premise is enforced too heavily.

But that basic premise is absolutely about prompting players to decide the morality of their characters. To put them in situations that may be quite difficult and to see what they do. I think this speaks to your ideas about morality and authenticity, but it cones from a motive, however loosely defined, that comes from without.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So if I'm following this argument, the "authenticity" refers to the difference between being bound by the DM's morality and being free to express one's own ideas. So the former is "authentic" in that it's what you, the player, want to do, as opposed to what the DM is asking/telling you to do.

While I see that there is a difference there, I struggle with the word "authentic". I'm pretty sure I recall @pemerton arguing in other threads in favor of systems where internal thoughts (i.e., whether a PC can be persuaded by an NPC) are dictated by game rules. How is the player's choice of morality "authentic" but the player's choice of persuadability is inauthentic?

There's also a subtext here (not least in the choice of nomenclature) that the version being labeled "authentic" is somehow superior to other forms. Again, I acknowledge the difference between the two approaches, although it probably is not binary but a spectrum, but I can't see how one is inherently better than the other.

 

[clearstream]

As per my reply upthread to @kenada, the OP is referring to authenticity on the part of the participants, not the authenticity of the characters they depict.

My feeling is that I cannot separate RPGs on the basis of the personal authenticity of the participants, as surely I must concede that any player could be approaching whatever play is underway with personal authenticity. I think it has to be about the game as vehicle for the content of what is expressed.

I don't think it is possible to talk about the authenticity of play, in the context of the GM having declared (say) "You see an owlbear rushing towards you!", if we don't know anything about why the GM said that, where it comes from in the game play, what is significance is for the player(s) to whom it's said, etc.

Without at all contradicting what you say here, I wonder if what could be going on - the "authenticity" that @Campbell might seem to be describing - is the inclusion of emotional content in the conversation? So that in what might be called "authentic" play I must be silent on the personal authenticity of the player as person, but I will see that the emotional content of their conversation has verisimilitude (exactly the right word in this context.)

It requires empathy - or an attempt at empathy - with an imagined person, different from oneself. So as to present what I might count as personally authentic to them. And it requires the courage to be vulnerable... to make mistakes. Putting it on the line, as @Campbell might say.

 

[pemerton]

So the more the GM provides the motivation, the less the players will, which is what you think will reduce authenticity of the kind you describe? I think that makes sense if I’ve followed correctly.

Spire is an interesting example in that sense, because the game has a default premise of the characters being secret revolutionaries.

Yes to the first sentence; but also, and following on from the second - the GM can do the job that they have to do (given the distinctive division of participant roles that is typical in RPGing) by doing something other than providing motivation and stakes. They can, for instance, provide context and framing. That is also what you said about your Spires mystery (well, it's my paraphrase of what you said) which is what I bolded in quoting your earlier post.

And I suggested MHRP as an example (or at least an interesting attempt at testing the limits) of how far the GM might go in providing context and framing without crossing over into motivation and stakes, where the boundary is "policed" by an element of system design (ie the role of PC Milestones).

Am I still making sense?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yes to the first sentence; but also, and following on from the second - the GM can do the job that they have to do (given the distinctive division of participant roles that is typical in RPGing) by doing something other than providing motivation and stakes. They can, for instance, provide context and framing. That is also what you said about your Spires mystery (well, it's my paraphrase of what you said) which is what I bolded in quoting your earlier post.

And I suggested MHRP as an example (or at least an interesting attempt at testing the limits) of how far the GM might go in providing context and framing without crossing over into motivation and stakes, where the boundary is "policed" by an element of system design (ie the role of PC Milestones).

Am I still making sense?

Yeah, absolutely.

I know we’ve talked about this before as the makers of Spire straight lifted the milestone system from MHRP for their game Heart. They fittingly renamed them “Beats”, but they otherwise function very similarly.

It’s a great way to give players some ability to determine how play will go and to give the GM an idea on what kind of content to include.

 

[aramis erak]

It requires empathy - or an attempt at empathy - with an imagined person, different from oneself. So as to present what I might count as personally authentic to them. And it requires the courage to be vulnerable... to make mistakes. Putting it on the line, as @Campbell might say.

Not all players, nor even all RPGs, have players play as others than themself. A few (Trauma, End of the World series) in fact make playing oneself the default assumption. (Trauma's English version includes a number of tests and forumulae.)

At one point, Marc Miller gave a way of writing oneself up as a Traveller character...

 

[MGibster]

At one point, Marc Miller gave a way of writing oneself up as a Traveller character...

I wonder how useful a human resource professional would be in Traveller...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here's Vincent Baker from DitV (pp 143-4):

In most RPGs with religious content, the GM arbitrates the characters’ morality. The GM plays God (or the gods) as an NPC, giving and withholding moral standing - whatever form it takes in the particular game: Faith Points, Alignment Bonuses, whatever - based on the characters’ actions. Not in Dogs.​

​

In Dogs, the GM has no opportunity to pass effective judgment on a PC’s actions. Talk about ’em, sure, but never come down on them as righteous or sinful in a way that’s binding in the game world. The GM can’t give or withhold dice for the state of a PC’s soul, and thus never needs to judge it.​

​

Which is good! Which is, in fact, essential. If you, the GM, can judge my character’s actions, then I won’t tell you what I think. I’ll play to whatever morality you impose on me via your rulings. Instead of posing your players an interesting ethical question and then hearing their answers, you’d be posing the question and then answering it yourself.​

I don't know if Baker is the first RPG author to make this point. I'd more-or-less reached the same conclusion in the late 1980s: for authentic play, I want the players to express their conception of what morality demands, not try and work out what someone else's (ie the GM's) conception of that is. (As I posted upthread, my type-(2) situations are a version of this, where players play authentically while scorning conventional/cosmological judgement in a little replication of Nietzsche.)

As I said, this was in a MUCH earlier stage of our gaming. IIRC the conclusion was something along the lines of "OK, this kind of works, alignment is now basically just an element of the framing, part of the puzzle, behave THIS way or pay a price to behave some OTHER way. It was fairly obvious that using this kind of stick (Gary was very fond of sticks) to beat on players was not getting us where we wanted to be. So, for a LONG LONG time there was the "Oh, just write your alignment down, its nothing but a play aid" phase, which treats it like just another background element "Yeah, I'm EVIL!" but you could just basically do whatever. There might be consequences, but they were purely fiction, alignment change penalties and such weren't a thing. That pretty quickly evolved to "don't even bother to write it down..." Frankly I don't remember if people did or didn't put down an alignment in our 4e games. Probably it got filled out on CB simply because it would keep nagging you, but 4e works pretty much like we did, you can write it down, but it doesn't actually have any mechanical game significance.

I mean, if I run a 4e game now, people can say whatever about alignment, as GM I don't really care... I don't think it would be BAD for some NPC to bring it up in terms of their ethos and preferences, but its not materially different from something like a town that hates wizards.