D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Faolyn]

Why?

As GM, I can introduce an element in to the fiction (say, as part of framing; or in the AW/DW context, as a soft move) which is that the PCs hear that some enemy of theirs found the spellbook. Or I can make a hard move - a NPC they're confronting them blasts them with a spell that could only have been learned by studying Evard's spellbooks!

Making these moves doesn't depend on any "placing" of books whether or not they're found.

You removed the rest of my post, which should explain why.

If the books have no purpose other than to be found by the players, then whether or not they exist can be resolved by a die roll when the players look for spellbooks.

If the books have a purpose beyond the players--which would include some enemy of theirs finding the spellbook--then they should exist, whether or not the players find them.

Here's what you wrote before, to refresh our memories:

So, consider Burning Wheel. Suppose that I'm playing Thurgon, and Thurgon is in Evard's abandoned tower, looking around while Aramina regains consciousness (having overtaxed herself trying to cast a spell fighting off a demon that was loitering near the tower). One of Thurgon's Beliefs is Aramina will need my protection, one of Aramina's Beliefs is I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse! while another is I don't need Thurgon's pity. Thurgon's other Beliefs and Relationships include stuff about his family and his mother, Xanthippe. So I declare an action for Thurgon, "I look around the tower for spellbooks."

Now first, the GM needs to decide whether to "say 'yes' or call for a roll of the dice. Noticing that spellbooks are a key thing for Aramina, and knowing about the complicated relationship between Thurgon and Aramina, the GM sees straight away that something is at stake here, and so it would be inappropriate to say "yes". So a roll is called for. If it succeeds, then intent and task are realised: Thurgon finds spellbooks for Aramina. But as it happened, the roll failed. So the GM narrates a consequence in accordance with the rules, which state that the focus of failure should be on intent. So the GM say, "You don't find any spellbooks. You find some letters in a child's writing, apparently written to Evard, that address him as "Daddy" and are signed with an X". I can't recall all the details any more, but it's pretty clear that "X" is Xanthippe. In other words, it seems that the evil wizard Evard is in fact Thurgon's maternal grandfather!

So my questions are, in Burning Wheel:

• Did the spellbooks exist prior to Thurgon and Aramina entering the tower?
• If no, did they begin to exist once Thurgon decided to look for them?
• Since Thurgon didn't find them, what would happen if Aramina decided to look for them? Would it be appropriate for the GM to say "yes, Aramina finds them" after Thurgon failed to, or would a die roll be required here? And if so, why? Or does Thurgon's roll mean there are no spellbooks at all in the tower, no matter what?
• Would it be appropriate for the GM to say "yes, Aramina finds them" if she had been the one to look first, not Thurgon, because of her belief about wanting spellbooks, because this belief is potentially less complicated than the relationship between Aramina and Thurgon?
• Doesn't this have the effect of PCs delegating these tasks to PCs with the appropriate beliefs/skills/whatever? Which yes, happens in most games, but seems odd for what you've said about BW.
• If Evard is a wizard (I think you said something about Greyhawk once, suggesting this is that Evard) and this is in his wizard's tower, then shouldn't there be spellbooks there regardless of die rolls?

Now, I can understand the GM deciding that spellbooks existed on the spot. In my MotW example, the adventure (which I pulled out of the Tome of Mysteries, since it was my first PbtA game ever) mentioned the monster's resting spot/shrine in the basement of the house, but didn't describe it in detail, so I figured he probably kept other ritual things there. I didn't plan out what was there before the game started, but as the game went on I realized that the details of the ritual (i.e., his spellbook) were probably kept there. Since there was a logical reason for a particular NPC to go into the house, I also figured that that NPC would take the ritual things (if the players didn't go look first), which would then cause some problems later on. There is, however, no reason for the PCs to hear about this. It's a modern-day game, there were missing person cases that ended up being ritual murders, and the NPC in question is a cop who logically would search the perpetrator's house; the players aren't cops and aren't going to hear rumors of what the police have in their evidence locker. Especially since one of the PCs was really rude to that cop.

But this is slightly different than randomly rolling to determine if the ritual/spellbook even exist in the first place. It was logical for such a ritual to exist in my game; it's just that, for some reason, the players didn't think to look.

 

[Micah Sweet]

OK, so you say "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-generated or entirely GM-railroad."

What is or isn't PC-generated is part of the content of the fiction. I'm not saying anything about the content of the fiction. I'm talking about how the shared fiction, which is a bunch of jointly imagined stuff, is established.

You seem to have misread my posts. Here are a few of them:


I've also posted multiple illustrations of the sort of play that I regard as non-railroading, plus links to multiple actual play posts.

I don't understand what your point is. I mean, yes, a GM can set up a setting so that it make sense that the PCs are space aliens. I personally don't find it very engaging, and the last time a GM did it to me I left the game.

Apart from anything else, if the PCs are space aliens then they are dependent on the GM to give them any "levers" to even manipulate the fiction at all. So it ends up that the GM is the one playing the game with themself!

There's nothing inherently railroady about 4e D&D. And as I've posted about a billion times in this thread, I've run non-raidlroady AD&D, though the system is not ideal for it.

You and others seem to want to make this about "D&D against the world". By equating a rather narrow idea of how D&D might be played with D&D as such.

And you seem to want to insist that any game that isn't played to your standards is a railroad, which you  know a lot of people here have a real issue with. And yes, that includes a lot of D&D players, far more, I suspect, than play D&D your way. Popularity has nothing to do with quality, of course, but it does affect how many people are irritated with your aggressive stance here, and it seems like it quite a few. Why not just concede that your feelings on what railroad means differ from those of others?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why, as GM, would I possibly want to say stuff at the table that the other participants don't find interesting?

The point is that, imo, the game shouldn't be all about servicing the player's needs.

 

[pemerton]

Why not just concede that your feelings on what railroad means differ from those of others?

Where have I ever denied this?

See, eg,

I cheerfully accept that you, @Enrahim2 and others don't find things to be railroading that I do.

That's not very different from how I don't find things to be artificial that you do.

It's almost as if people have different preferences in relation to RPGing!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Where have I ever denied this?

See, eg,

Fair enough. Must have missed that one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But I'm sure they found it interesting, and it was still done in service to the players.

What mystifies me is who else would play ever be in service of? I mean taking the GM to be, in a loose sense, also a player, what other criteria could apply than that it was interesting, entertaining, and possibly challenging? Unless you are running an RPG podcast channel and aiming to entertain some larger audience, only the people at your table know or care, and I have to assume their opinions carry some weight! Speaking for myself I GM for more than only my own personal pleasure.

 

[Faolyn]

OK, so you say "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-generated or entirely GM-railroad."

What is or isn't PC-generated is part of the content of the fiction. I'm not saying anything about the content of the fiction. I'm talking about how the shared fiction, which is a bunch of jointly imagined stuff, is established.

Except just below, you call this space aliens.

I don't understand what your point is. I mean, yes, a GM can set up a setting so that it make sense that the PCs are space aliens. I personally don't find it very engaging, and the last time a GM did it to me I left the game.

Apart from anything else, if the PCs are space aliens then they are dependent on the GM to give them any "levers" to even manipulate the fiction at all. So it ends up that the GM is the one playing the game with themself!

You talked about going to different countries, some of which were very different. Were you a space alien there? Did you require "levers" in order to act?

No, you weren't. You may not have known the customs and traditions, but you learned them. And in a RPG, you learn things, in large part, by asking the GM for the information. This doesn't mean that they are dependent on the GM to give them "levers." All it means is that the player wasn't the one to make the setting.

So, serious question: how much can a GM make up before it becomes too railroady for you?

And a follow-up question: how does your preferred gaming style deal with mysteries, horror, and other elements that normally require the players to not know what's going on?

There's nothing inherently railroady about 4e D&D. And as I've posted about a billion times in this thread, I've run non-raidlroady AD&D, though the system is not ideal for it.

You and others seem to want to make this about "D&D against the world". By equating a rather narrow idea of how D&D might be played with D&D as such.

I certainly don't want to make this about D&D against anything. As I've said, I'm running a PbtA game and I can't imagine running another D&D-type game again any time soon.

What my issue is is that you are conflating everything that isn't your preferred style with railroading, which is almost universally considered to be bad GMing. In other words, you are, unintentionally or not, calling everyone else a bad GM.

 

[pemerton]

The point is that, imo, the game shouldn't be all about servicing the player's needs.

If the point of RPGing isn't for everyone to have fun doing this thing together, what's its point?

I mean, <this thing> might be different at different tables. In my case, it's a distinctive way of imagining an engaging fiction together. (Distinctive because of the special way that both players and GM participate in creating the fiction, compared to round-robin storytelling.)

 

[Maxperson]

In that case, why am I not able to talk about things I find railroad-y, but when I nevertheless do so you're allowed to rather forcefully tell me that I'm wrong and they're not?

How has your subjectivity become the universal arbiter of truth?

Because I'm talking about when it APPROACHES being a railroad. When it BEGINS to look like one. A true railroad does not occur until agency is at 0%. You're saying that it IS(not looks like) a railroad at somewhere around agency 60-80%, maybe even higher. There is no such thing as a traditional game that IS a railroad and is not at 0% agency, and traditional games have far higher agency than that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What mystifies me is who else would play ever be in service of? I mean taking the GM to be, in a loose sense, also a player, what other criteria could apply than that it was interesting, entertaining, and possibly challenging? Unless you are running an RPG podcast channel and aiming to entertain some larger audience, only the people at your table know or care, and I have to assume their opinions carry some weight! Speaking for myself I GM for more than only my own personal pleasure.

The context here clearly separated the GM from the players. They may be all players technically,, but they have very different jobs. I don't believe the only way to be a good GM is to aim your entire campaign towards finding interesting ways to fulfill the player's dramatic needs.