A "theory" thread

[chaochou]

double post

 

[chaochou]

Moving on: suppose the GM provides a context, and a player says "Cool, I do [= my character will attempt to do] such-and-such".

We could follow up this example. Suppose instead there is some context and the player says 'Cool. Can I hear anyone snoring?'

This takes us away from action resolution methodology and into other important areas - such as authority distribution and goal setting, amongst others.


Can I hear anyone snoring?

Firstly, whose job is it to answer? Traditionally, it's considered the GMs job to answer, but it needn't be and I've played games in which it isn't (or needn't be).

If we look at the traditional method for answering, it's done roughly like this:

Does the GM have a note of sounds of snoring at this place?

If not;
Does the GM imagine there is anyone / anything here?
What time does the GM imagine it is?
Does the GM imagine that the person / thing here might be asleep at this time?
Might that sleeping thing be a thing which snores (in the GMs imagination)?

At that point, with some conception in their own mind of the situation, the GM asks a player to roll a dice and uses that to make some decision about what parts of their conception of the situation they will reveal to the player, and in some instances what inaccurate parts they might include.

Everything in this approach is about the GMs conception of the situation, and how close the GM permits the player to get to matching their own conception. It relies on very high levels of GM authority and reactive play.

Some variation of this approach would make up the overwhelming number of cases in D&D, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller and many other games.

A shared conception approach

Apocalypse World would not handle the situation in the same way. Nor would Burning Wheel. Both games would force player and GM to drive towards the question 'Why does it matter?' and also towards the even more vital 'Who gets to say why it matters?'

Neither of these are straightforward, but would in almost all cases involve some kind of ongoing conversation to reach a new understanding of why this now matters.

For example, in Apocalypse World you can read a sitch but only if the situation is charged. So the MC would need to ask the player 'Are you thinking you're in danger right now, or getting ready for something awful to happen?' Or the MC might ask questions and build on the answers: "You know who sleeps here, right? Who is that? And what do you owe them?"

These questions ask the player to define why their character is in this situation, what matters to them, what they want and what might be at risk. The MC doesn't assume the authority to answer the question - the player's question (about snoring) is a starting point for finding out more about the player character, their intent and goals.

I could talk some about Burning Wheel, and how that might also be handled. But i think the differentiation here is sufficient for now.

 

[pemerton]

@chaochou

Excellent post!

I could talk some about Burning Wheel, and how that might also be handled. But i think the differentiation here is sufficient for now.

In the Burning Wheel context, my first question (as a spectator) is "What Belief is implicated in the current situation?"

As GM, I should already know the answer to that, as I've framed a situation to put pressure, or at least to meaningfully speak to, a Belief.

I would want to know why the player cares about the snoring. (Which might mean asking them!, if they haven't already made it clear.) I can imagine it being an attempt to learn more about the framed situation and associated consequence-space (eg the action is in a tavern - is there anyone else there asleep?). But I can also imagine it being about their being another potentially significant actor in the situation - which means maybe it's a Circles check. There are other possibilities too.

I think upthread (or maybe in some other recent thread) I mentioned that some games make the evaluative/normative orientation of the fiction relevant to framing and resolution. Your (chaochou's) post I see as (among other things) digging down into how that works - ie the "shared conception" results in part from the player providing evaluation and normativity. My thoughts on the BW possibilities are trying to do the same.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@chaochou is it even POSSIBLE for a player to ask "Do I hear snoring?" in classic D&D? It is NOT an action declaration, nor does it map to any comprehensible action! If you are listening, then you will hear whatever it is there is to hear (modulus some check perhaps). It may be snoring, and the GM should probably -in keeping with the system's conceits- simply answer "you hear X." I could see a player asking this sort of question in classic D&D if they EXPECTED there to be snoring, but the only way such an expectation could exist is on the basis of something the GM has already conveyed to them.

I think this illustrates how DEEP the difference is between these types of system.

 

[FrogReaver]

I very much agree with you about that. Hence my emphasis on having in mind fictional positioning as the relevant (and distinct) technical feature of RPG. The way in which fiction in RPG is unlike fiction in other games. Update then to -

1. ongoing authorship of common fiction, through a continuous process of drafting and revising, that all participate in
2. regulatory and constitutive rules
3. a linkage from fictional position (and thus the fiction) to the regulatory and constitutive rules

I'm really not sure what 3 is supposed to mean - what does a linkage between fictional positioning and regulatory and constitutive rules mean? What's an example of such a linkage?

Perhaps its 2. regulatory and constitutive rules for updating the fictional positioning?

 

[clearstream]

I'm really not sure what 3 is supposed to mean - what does a linkage between fictional positioning and regulatory and constitutive rules mean? What's an example of such a linkage?

Perhaps its 2. regulatory and constitutive rules for updating the fictional positioning?

It's a reference out to the background discussion of "fictional positioning" which you can find on Vincent Baker's preserved Anyway archive (follow the links from the 1st block "Dice and Clouds" and the 4th block "Positioning Real & Fictional".)

• A link from system-to-system is something like roll a damage die and subtract the number from your hit points (change to system state).
• A link from system-to-fiction is something like if you take more than 4 damage, you are knocked down (change to fiction state, and perhaps also change to system state.)
• A link from fiction-to-system is something like "I run up the hill to higher ground" and gain a +2 circumstantial modifier to hit.

This is part of why @pemerton's armour repair example is much pithier than it might seem on surface. If we agree that it is all about ongoing authorship of common fiction, then ideally what happens in system should result in change in fiction, which will go on to drive further changes (in both fiction and system.) It's one of the greatest pieces of thinking in study of RPG.

 

[clearstream]

@chaochou is it even POSSIBLE for a player to ask "Do I hear snoring?" in classic D&D?

Whether it is or not, they can and do. So that's mystifying...

 

[chaochou]

In the Burning Wheel context, my first question (as a spectator) is "What Belief is implicated in the current situation?"

As GM, I should already know the answer to that, as I've framed a situation to put pressure, or at least to meaningfully speak to, a Belief.

Yes! So your example started with 'Suppose the GM provides a context'. I think it's obvious that the process - and the participants - in this step of 'creating context' is a fundamental component of what gets called 'playstyle' and the experience of play.

Here's a traditional (and well-regarded) example of one method of this 'creating context':
"Adventurers from a foreign land find themselves in Barovia, a mysterious realm surrounded by deadly fog, and ruled by Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire and wizard.... a fortune teller named Madame Eva sets them on a dark course that takes them to many corners of Barovia, culminating with a vampire hunt in Castle Ravenloft."

This tells us a few things. The players' characters must be adventurers. The characters are foreigners, so they are not allowed pre-established knowledge or connections to this place or its people - this establishes the GM as the gatekeeper of all information about the setting and situation. It is unequivocal about what the adventurers' task is. And it says, in broad terms, how the adventurers will accomplish this task.

I'd contrast with how my group establishes new games. Since you mentioned Burning Wheel, I'll give an example of that. The conversation went a bit like this:
Me: "How about a game set in a folklore-ish medieval England?"
Player A: "Could be good, sort of fantasy Robin Hood?"
Me: "Sure? Like corrupt officials and a greedy and overbearing local lord?"
Player B: "That works if we're going to be a sort of resistance movement or fugitives."
Player C: " We might start out just normal folk who become fugitives."
Me: "Oh, so we could create a remote woodland village with you as some of the common folk and have some tax collectors arrive, and see what develops."
Player A: "Can I run the local mill?"
Me: "Maybe the harvest has been really poor this year."
Player A: "Right! So I'm struggling and we've been out poaching in the deep woods."
Player B: "In that case I'd be the woodsman and hunter who knows those lands - maybe I'm helping you out because I'm hoping to marry your daughter."
Player C: "It would be great to have a minor landowner, but my lands were seized and I've been sheltering in this village with the local priest."

To be clear, that's a sanitised and precis version of half an hour or hour of knocking ideas about, but I think the points of difference in this version of 'establishing context' are obvious. The characters aren't 'adventurers'. The themes and content of the game have been established by the players. The game doesn't assume homogenous goals amongst the player characters - one is struggling for money, one wants a wife, both have been poaching, one has an ongoing conflict around their lands and a relationship with the church. And the characters are not strangers in their own adventure - their deeds and actions are rooted within a community they implicitly know and understand something about.

Is it even POSSIBLE for a player to ask "Do I hear snoring?" in classic D&D?

It's an interesting question! How does one stop a player asking? Does the GM say 'You're not allowed to ask that."

It would seem to me that classic dungeon crawling assumes players will ask clarifying questions with the aim of getting their conception of the situation to match the GMs ever more closely, until they feel confident to pursue a course of action.

 

[pemerton]

@chaochou

I love your Burning Wheel example.

 

[pemerton]

It's an interesting question! How does one stop a player asking? Does the GM say 'You're not allowed to ask that."

I think @AbdulAlhazred's suggestion was that the GM interprets it as a declaration that "I listen" and responds to that. I think what he had in mind is that the player has no real authority or capacity to make snoring salient as opposed to any other sort of noise.