D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[hawkeyefan]

You've used this example many a time but I still don't see how the system can allow one very obvious, realistic, and fairly-common-in-real-life outcome to occur: that the spellbooks are there in the tower but Thurgon simply missed them in his search.

If you set aside your preference and expectation on how this works... that the books are in a specific location predetermined by the GM... the roll to see if the books are found in Evard's tower determines only if they're found in Evard's tower.

The GM doesn't actually need to know where the spellbooks are.

I say this because the way the system seems to be set up, if Thurgon looks for them elsewhere and succeeds in his search that places those spellbooks at that location and not in the tower; and if he keeps looking in different places he's bound to succeed on a roll sooner or later and find them.

What's the problem here? My familiarity with Burning Wheel is almost nil, but I expect that there's some risk or cost involved with the roll, or at the very least some other limitation, even if it's only based on what may be reasonable (such as spellbooks being present in a wizard's tower), that keeps the player from searching for the books in every single scene. They wouldn't declare they're searching for the spellbooks in a random roadside inn.

Games that allow for this kind of thing have clear processes and principles involved that help prevent the kind of absurdities that you're envisioning.

To me, it seems fairly accurate. They seem upset at the idea that their character would have to have the world described to them, rather than automatically know what it's like (and by that, it means "make it up themselves).

I think a better way to look at it is more about the interaction of two things: what a character is likely to know and the ability for a player to have input into the game.

I don't think that anyone would expect to already be familiar with some lost tomb that's only recently been found and which they've entered for the first time. When a character encounters something new or something unknown, of course the GM will need to explain and describe it.

But when it comes to things a character could conceivably know, or that they outright would know? Why shouldn't the player have a say about that? This then allows them to have some input on the game, and it's all still through the lens of their character.

It's not about quantum spell books or authoring things beyond the scope of the character.

 

[Faolyn]

I think a better way to look at it is more about the interaction of two things: what a character is likely to know and the ability for a player to have input into the game.

I don't think that anyone would expect to already be familiar with some lost tomb that's only recently been found and which they've entered for the first time. When a character encounters something new or something unknown, of course the GM will need to explain and describe it.

Sure, I agree. But pemerton calls that being Space Aliens, and thus far has not expanded upon what happens if their characters go somewhere they've never been before.

 

[pemerton]

Doesn't this sometimes mean you have to have the world described to you, that you wouldn't just know it, as you've been saying is non-immersive?

Well, the thing about a failed Wises check is that your (that is to say, your PC's) recollection turns out to be mistaken in some fashion. A failed Circles check means that the person you are looking for isn't there where you hoped they would be - and typically, someone else you didn't want to meet is there instead. So the external nature of the narration fits with the surprise or disruption that is occurring in the character's mental state.

If your're asking whether "talking it out" produces a break in immersion, the actual process of talking it out is "meta" and not typically done in the mode of PC habitation. But insofar as everyone is able to land on something that fits their conception, which in my experience isn't normally that hard, then there is no disjunction between what I'm brining via my imagination and inhabitation, and what we agree on together.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It absolutely does mean that I'm making a meaningful choice. Who are you to tell me that it doesn't have meaning for me? When I discover two ogres by going right, I find out the very significant meaning of MY choice. If instead I go left and make it out, I find out the very significant meaning of MY choice. I had agency, because was in fact meaning.

You don't get to tell me that there's no meaning. The best you can say is that it has no meaning for YOU.

There's a meaningful outcome. But the outcome is based on luck.

Luck is the opposite of agency.

I agree. Let's discuss how much agency is preferred rather than calling games that do in fact have agency a railroad. A traditional game by the way isn't anywhere close to being down near 1%.

This is why I said looking at it as a binary is not useful. At what point does a game have sufficient agency to no longer resemble or be very close to a railroad? When does that begin? How do we achieve that?

I think we have a strong sense of how @pemerton might answer these questions. But it'd be good to have similarly considered responses from others.

The ability to freely choose my fate. I may not know what will happen behind each door, but I'm still the only one making the decision about which way to go. My fate there depends on me, not the DM. And it's not random choice. I could flip a coin, but far more likely(as in I don't think I've flipped a coin or rolled randomly for a choice in the last 20 years) I will go based on intuition or even base it on something from earlier in the dungeon which might influence my decision. It's not going to be random.

If you're making your decision based on things learned earlier, then that's a more informed decision. I said more information or the opportunity to gain more information are what's needed. This is why the hypothetical wasn't the best example.

Actual play examples like those offered by @uzirath would be much better.

 

[Maxperson]

There's a meaningful outcome. But the outcome is based on luck.

Luck is the opposite of agency.

Railroad is the opposite of agency. Luck =/= railroad.

This is why I said looking at it as a binary is not useful. At what point does a game have sufficient agency to no longer resemble or be very close to a railroad? When does that begin? How do we achieve that?

I think we have a strong sense of how @pemerton might answer these questions. But it'd be good to have similarly considered responses from others.

Where it begins to look like a railroad is going to be very subjective. For @pemerton it seems that a railroad begins at a very high percentage, because he excludes traditional play and traditional play has a lot of agency. That's why his "interpretation" is getting so much flak. For me something begins to look like a railroad at probably 5% or lower and doesn't become a railroad until 0%(the definitional point that something is a railroad).

 

[pemerton]

I think pemerton mostly plays, or at least prefers, Broken Wheel? I know nothing of that game, since it's not sold as a pdf. That may be quite a bit different than PbtA games.

I play (well, mostly GM) Burning Wheel, Torchbearer (which is a BW variant), Classic Traveller (my house version of the 1977 edition, that I run in an AW/PbtA-ish style), Agon 2nd ed, Prince Valiant (which at my table we approach as Burning Wheel-lite), MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy, 4e D&D, and then various other systems for one-shots and the like (eg In A Wicked Age, Cthulhu Dark played as BW-super-lite, and Wuthering Heights).

The BW-type systems have at their core intent-and-task resolution, say 'yes' or roll the dice, "Let it Ride", and the scene as the key unit of play. MHRP/Cortex+ and 4e are also scene-based, and "say 'yes' or roll the dice", but have their own distinct systems of scene-based resolution (skill challenges in 4e D&D; and the action scene/transition scene structure of MHRP). In A Wicked Age is scene-based too, but different from both BW and these other scene-based systems: it emphasises conflict between the PCs as well as NPCs, and negotiated compromise is an important aspect of its conflict resolution.

I've played DW, but not a lot of it and years ago now. But as I've said Classic Traveller can be played by the same rubric of "if you do it, you do it" with all the different sub-systems understood as player-side moves. It creaks in one or two places, but for a 45 year old system is remarkably robust and also (in my view) heaps of fun.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No need to apologise! But I hope that post does help make clear why the idea that the approach I prefer aspires to being "GM free" or "AI GM" is a pretty big misreading.

I love GMing this sort of game, because my job is to think about what the players have brought to the table, and what they are staking in their particular action declarations, and - if the check succeeds - cheer with them as things go their way (or perhaps curse them as lucky blighters!); while - if the check fails - I get to drive home my evil GM instincts to my heart's desire.

Here's an example from the last Torchbearer session I GMed (for context, the PC Fea-bella is a Dreamwalker, an Elf who can pluck spells from her dreams but is also dream-haunted; the evil spirit that had possessed Krystal was a shadow-thing that had escaped from Fea-bella's heart when she failed in her attempt to cast a spell; Megloss is Fea-bella's enemy (as per the players' decisions made at PC build), a rival Dreamwalker):

There is no lack of GM imagination and authorship in this episode. But the significance of it, the key elements (like the enemy Megloss, and dreams as a site of both power and threat - not to mention the idea that a shadow-thing might be coerced to carry a spellbook into a Dreamwalker's dreams, thus giving them access to its magic), come from the players.

This is an example of what I am contrasting with the idea that all the elements of setting and situation, and all the consequences of action declarations, being established by the GM.

EDIT: I am not trying to persuade anyone that they should play in this sort of way. But I hope that this illustrates that the GM is a significant participant in play, who together with the players makes contributions to the fiction, with the mechanics mediating whose suggestions get taken up and whether things run the players' way or rather run the way of the evil GM. I hope it also illustrates how the players having this sort of authority does not depend upon them having "fiat"-type powers to author setting elements distinct from their PCs, but rather flows from the way action declarations they make for their PCs are resolved.

I get it. I suppose I want more out of being a GM than to be the person who finds interesting ways to realize the players' dreams.

 

[pemerton]

You're making huge assumptions here: that the GM has "established all consequences," that they don't change things based on player input, that they ignore your PC background and goals, and that PC actions don't change the world.

There are going to be GMs for whom that is true--but there are also going to be GMs who whom that is false, as well. That your character and their actions, and the consequences of their actions, are integral to the development to the world.

I think what you're saying here is that if the approach that I regard as railroading isn't used, then it won't be a railroad. On that we agree!

And of course I know that there are GMs who don't railroad. I'm one of them. And so is my friend who GMs me in Burning Wheel.

This is why I keep saying you seem to think it's an all-or-nothing deal, when it's not. It's not entirely PC-generator or entirely GM-railroad.

I'm not sure what "PC-generator" means here.

 

[pemerton]

I get it. I suppose I want more out of being a GM than to be the person who finds interesting ways to realize the players' dreams.

I can tell you, having a bolt of lightning split Megloss's house in two, as the shadow-thing leaves Krystal dead, steals Fea-bella's spellbook, and carries it into Megloss's dreams, was not what the players were hoping for!

 

[pemerton]

Do expect that PCs should know the customs, religions, etc. of every location in a world, even places they've never been before?

That will depend on particular details.

The first time that I went to England, I was struck by how familiar it was. Wildly different from going to the US, although both are English-speaking countries that are, in a superficial sense at least, quite similar to Australia.

When I first went to North Africa, it was not familiar in the same way.

I would expect PCs in an imaginary setting to have similar sorts of differences in their experiences of places that they visit. There are probably various ways to achieve that. One would be to set the difficulty of Wises-type checks in a way that reflects cultural and historical proximity or distance.

Of course I'm thinking here of typical human characters. For the deva invoker/wizard in my 4e D&D game, who is an immortal Sage of Ages who has lived thousands of lifetimes and has access to all his memories of them, presumably almost nothing would be foreign! (Mechanically, this is reflected in the character's ridiculously good knowledge and Insight skills, pretty strong Diplomacy skill, plus ability to buff these checks via his Sage of Ages features and his feats that buff his Memory of A Thousand Lifetimes racial feature.)

Do you expect that the players should make up the customs, religions, etc., of every location in a world?

No. I've made multiple posts explaining the resolution frameworks that I use, which are not generally "fiat"-type ones.

What, exactly, is the purpose of the GM in any particular game?

That depends on the game. I've posted in this thread about the purpose of the GM in Burning Wheel and similar games, and in AW/DW. Is there any other RPG you're interested in?