Authenticity in RPGing

[niklinna]

The scene turned out to be nothing about they stuff due to @niklinna and myself’s subsequent conversation + actions he took + dice results + gear deployed + devils bargains/resistance rolls (taken or not taken). It turned out to be a scene about a notorious serial killer (The Towers Drowner) who plumbed the streets of Six Tower for peer to drown in the canals…died and turned into a feral ghost long long ago. And Skewth’s tango with it (Compel - playbook feature just like it sounds) + the scattering of the secret meeting as a result (we know nothing about what was going on with that tech or the Silver Nails involvement) + Skewth becoming indebted to The Circle of Flame rep who was present. And the resultant-captured feral ghost now in The Charterhall University Archeology Wing…on display…with a notorious reputation for security lapses.

Wildly_different_everything from initial situation framing to final gamestate and fiction based on subsequent conversation and play.

That is quintessential PtFO.

Ain't it just.

Framing > player focuses on particular thematic stuff > things go sideways > entirely different fiction/downstream setting results > game of spinning plates begins (which would have been very or wholly different than a different set of spinning plates if we played the scene out again with the same opening scene parameters).

I have to say there were a few things I would have done differently had I known ahead of time that the park my character was in harbored a tier II murderous ghost...that bit of info came up as a consequence on an Attune dice roll to observe the Sparkwright demo from afar, and I didn't absorb the danger level nearly as well as I should have—I was already overwhelmed by all the info about the demo and the sniper/spy and such, and turned down an opportunity to resist the consequence and make the ghost much less of a threat, which would have allowed me to pursue my own personal interest as a player in crashing that meeting and warning them about the sniper/spy. Mechanically, this also resulted in a nearly maxed-out stress track before the score even began, so there wasn't much I could do mechanically in the "real" part of the game (scare quotes very much intended).

In retrospect, the incident sketched out my character as someone who is blasé about death and danger, much moreso than I originally planned him to be. I'm still absorbing that, as well as my character effectively slipping on a banana peel in his opening scene. He handled it with aplomb, but I'm still smarting from it, two days later!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I know what you mean. In 1958 Roger Callois wrote in "Les jeux et les homines":


It's intrinsic to game qua game that we play to find out. Therefore one can ask what is meant by the phrase in the context of "story" games? I think in that context it has a special, albeit ambiguous, meaning. Something like "We want stronger rather than weaker powers to decide the narrative." Noted that those powers still make concessions to game text, setting, situation, mechanics, dice rolls.

It is generally understood, and very certainly meant to convey in PbtA and its ilk, that the course of the action, consequences, and direction of the game, within its premises, is to be determined solely at the table and not by some other mechanism. Generally speaking it is also largely a result of choices made by players. While it is true that there must be SOME things which are not already preordained in order for an RPG to function in some sense as a game at all, many traditionally structured RPGs put such things as plot, characterization, and motive mostly in the hands of the GM. While this doesn't preclude authenticity in RP, narrativist techniques are more likely to produce those kinds of outcomes. They are specifically designed TO produce those kinds of outcomes.

 

[Manbearcat]

Ain't it just.


I have to say there were a few things I would have done differently had I known ahead of time that the park my character was in harbored a tier II murderous ghost...that bit of info came up as a consequence on an Attune dice roll to observe the Sparkwright demo from afar, and I didn't absorb the danger level nearly as well as I should have—I was already overwhelmed by all the info about the demo and the sniper/spy and such, and turned down an opportunity to resist the consequence and make the ghost much less of a threat, which would have allowed me to pursue my own personal interest as a player in crashing that meeting and warning them about the sniper/spy. Mechanically, this also resulted in a nearly maxed-out stress track before the score even began, so there wasn't much I could do mechanically in the "real" part of the game (scare quotes very much intended).

In retrospect, the incident sketched out my character as someone who is blasé about death and danger, much moreso than I originally planned him to be. I'm still absorbing that, as well as my character effectively slipping on a banana peel in his opening scene. He handled it with aplomb, but I'm still smarting from it, two days later!

Yeah, that first 1-3 on the Desperate Compel hurt (I think you Pushed that as well...so 2 stress?). Then not "buying the serial killer ghost down (Resist) from a higher Magnitude feral spirit to a lower Magnitude little boy who still has his wits and is looking for his mommy (or whatever)" was a pivotal decision/non-move.

Then came the later Resist roll of 2 that earned you 4 more Stress.

Things did not go well for our poor Skewth in the first scene. That is pretty much the deal with intro characters and 0 Tier Crews in Blades (particularly in 3 Dot Occult Six Towers!). Its a tough world.

No matter. Its good stuff because we now get to see him bounce back. See what stern (and surely insane) stuff he's made of!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Certainly not always. Anything unexplained - a haunting, a strange environmental phenomenon, an unexpected and unexplained disappearacne of someone, etc. - all of these count as mysteries even if no crime is involved.

Ideally, though - particularly in a mystery scenario - player knowledge as closely as possible equals character knowledge; thus if the solution is in fact discovered then the players will find it out at the same time as their characters.

I understand that this ideal is an agenda which is commonly held by some, yes. I think it is also possible to get quite close, above @pemerton recounts an Apocalypse World example (with the garage and missing car and NPC) that certainly seems like the player is not informed more than the character. AW does state that the GM should address the CHARACTERS not the players. There are times when you do need to make certain choices out of character, and the GM might ask the player a question, which the answer will not be character knowledge (or might not be). Still, the solution of a mystery could quite easily be based on logically following a chain of evidence. I suspect it often is in these types of game. Probably where it differs from, say, Gumshoe, might be that the resolution is going to be salient to the characters, it will address some premise and that usually is something like DW's "The Player Characters are Heroes" or something like that.

 

[Campbell]

We often leave out the most important part of phrase in question during these discussions. Play to find out what happens. Meaning that first and foremost play is centered around a curious spirit of what happens next. Not what the setting is like. Not what the story is. Not how we manage resources. What happens next.

It's a mentality that is focused on being present, not worrying where things will lead or on manifesting your conception of your character. Not chewing scenery.

The frenetic energy and visceral emotion of something like Dogs in the Vineyard is just different than the slow elaborate buildup, detailed character work and brief crescendos of action that typify the social heavy, character reinforcing play of something like L5R/Vampire. Which is incredibly different from adventure of the week D&D play centered on group problem solving,

I have no idea why so much virtual ink gets spilled trying to minimize these differences rather than celebrate them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

As to the others, there seems a certain Schroedinger-ness to it all in that while there's clues there's no solution; which means there's no way of knowing whether a clue or a conclusion is relevant or a red herring. In the moment of play it probably doesn't matter - the car, Isle, and some other things have all vanished and we need to figure out what happened - but when looked at from a distance and-or in hindsight (e.g. like we're doing now) there doesn't seem to be any glue holding the mystery together: nobody including the GM knows what really did happen and thus nobody can build a consistent and complete set of accurate clues to go along with the red herrings.

This reminds me of the series Lost.

 

[pemerton]

nobody including the GM knows what really did happen and thus nobody can build a consistent and complete set of accurate clues to go along with the red herrings.

I don't agree with this claim. It is contradicted by my own experience in GMing Cthulhu Dark.

 

[clearstream]

So, when it comes to the word authenticity I feel like indeed it was perhaps not the best word to describe the general sense of what you are talking about here @pemerton . Heh, it definitely caused a lot of uproar at the beginning of your thread, but I also don’t think this entirely a fault of your particular use of the word.

---

People perceiving the word authenticity as threatening to them and their play style were already approaching the conversation from a tribalistic sense, the same thing they were accusing you of doing.

Maybe it felt a bit like jazz aficionados saying that what jazz has - with all its variations in details of technique, principles, etc - is authenticity. That players make genuine choices, in play, that say something - individually and, if it's working properly, together.

That casts shade: it implies that other forms of music - classical say - are inauthentic. Consider the ameliorating statement - all music has authenticity. I think the OP does not intend anything like that. The OP does mean to say that some kinds of music lack authenticity, or have it in lesser degree. They go on to say something like - the flipside of this is that the effect of composition and all its variations squelch authenticity. The parameters of play have already been set.

Emphasis mine. The text of the OP has implications that can rightly be engaged with. Demand engagement, really, to get properly into the argument on its merits.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That casts shade: it implies that other forms of music - classical say - are inauthentic. Consider the ameliorating statement - all music has authenticity. I think the OP does not intend anything like that. The OP does mean to say that some kinds of music lack authenticity, or have it in lesser degree. They go on to say something like - the flipside of this is that the effect of composition and all its variations squelch authenticity. The parameters of play have already been set.

I think it is because authenticity is a very subjective thing. I used to play in bands and write music. I have done improv and I have played stuff that I composed, was composed by me and other people, or that was composed hundreds of years ago. Performing any of those is still authentic musical expression IMO. Even when you are improving, your choices are constrained, and even when you are playing something like Bach's air, there are still more choices than people realize. One problem you encounter in improv for example is falling into stereotypical musical thinking. You tend to rely on patterns you've fallen into that are a comfort. People often call this letting your fingers do the work. Sometimes you transcend that and something genuinely new emerges, but I don't think it is as simple as "Improv Jazz is authentic and classical squelches authenticity". Even in Jazz, when people are making 'authentic choices' it's because they know the rules that govern those choices. Your choices are constrained by what is going to sound okay in that moment (and not everything is going to sound good). And this doesn't get into the issue of composition itself. If you are sitting down and thinking about music and writing it, you are also making authentic choices. If a band composes a song together, they are all making authentic choices. They are just taking more time in advance (one of the benefits of which is to avoid stereotypical thinking). That allows you to see choices you might not if you are in the middle of an improv session and need to make it right. Ultimately I think in music both skills are important. You should be able to develop improv skill and be able to compose things in advance and play music composed by people other than yourself (and you are still making very important choices when you do the latter). I wouldn't argue that any of these squelch ones authenticity. Doesn't meant they are the same. Someone who can improv well can think on their feet musically very quickly, knows how to listen in the moment, has powerful command of their instrument, and likely has a pretty good command of music theory (or just a really great musical instinct or cultivated an intuitive understanding of music). You don't have to be an enemy of musical improv to take issue with that characterization. I would imagine all three of these things feel very different to different musicians (when I improv, that feels more like channeling to me, whereas composition feels more like conscious choice: but that is just me, I am sure better improv players feel more aware of their choices than I do).

I think it really isn't a mystery why people reacted somewhat negatively to the OP. I don't think anyone denies these are all different ways to play the game, that the type of play the OP is advocating is observably different from a sandbox, a three clue mystery, an adventure path or a hex crawl. But the way it is framed is to suggest many of these (all?) squelch authenticity because they are all variations of railroad (I am guessing he wouldn't file sandbox or hex crawl under a variation of railroad but I am not sure, after the three clue discussion). In particular he identifies GM-enforced alignment, adventure where the GM has the solution in mind, and three clue rule as variations of rail road, so of course anyone who plays using the three clue rule, for example, and doesn't consider it railroading is going to take issue. It comes across as 'my style is authentic and free, your style isn't':

For me, what those RPGs - with all their variations in details of technique, principles, etc - is authenticity. That players and GMs make genuine choices, in play, that say something - individually and, if it's working properly, together.

The flipside of this is that the effect of railroading and all its variations (the "three clue rule", GM-enforced alignment, adventures that work by the players figuring out what the GM has in mind as the solution, etc) is to squelch authenticity. The parameters of play have already been set.

 

[Bedrockgames]

We often leave out the most important part of phrase in question during these discussions. Play to find out what happens. Meaning that first and foremost play is centered around a curious spirit of what happens next. Not what the setting is like. Not what the story is. Not how we manage resources. What happens next.

It's a mentality that is focused on being present, not worrying where things will lead or on manifesting your conception of your character. Not chewing scenery.

The frenetic energy and visceral emotion of something like Dogs in the Vineyard is just different than the slow elaborate buildup, detailed character work and brief crescendos of action that typify the social heavy, character reinforcing play of something like L5R/Vampire. Which is incredibly different from adventure of the week D&D play centered on group problem solving,

I have no idea why so much virtual ink gets spilled trying to minimize these differences rather than celebrate them.

I am not denying they are different, and I am not saying we can't celebrate those differences. I haven't played DitV so I can't comment on that so much, but I've praised Hillfolk at every turn here. It definitely brings a very different kind of immersion than I've encountered in other RPGs. I wouldn't say there aren't other highly immersive styles approaches however, but it does do something very different and I find that powerfully compelling. Like any other approach it also has its trade offs (as I said for mysteries in particular it was great for having us all feel like we were discovering the mystery, and it was cool because it was like we were creatively contributing and writing the mystery but at the same time I we were also deeply immersed in the characters and moment). On the other hand, it didn't feel like we were solving a mystery the way it would if the GM had come up with some kind of backstory event that we needed to puzzle through (which would also be immersive in its own way, and would allow us to be there the moment in its own way as we cracked the case).