D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Old Fezziwig]

Obviously, I'm not @pemerton, but I thought I'd take a stab at addressing how Burning Wheel might handle these issues.

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?

I think this misses the point in a BW idiom. These particular spellbooks are only of interest inasmuch as they relate to Aramina and Thurgon's beliefs re Aramina will need my protection and I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse! The search is a way for pemerton to put Aramina's player in a hard place with regards to I don't need Thurgon's pity — if he succeeded at the roll, her player would have some things to think about. Like, you may not need Thurgon's pity, but how do you feel about him now that he's got these spellbooks for you? If her belief was about Evard's spellbooks in particular, then we'd be able to say concretely that they exist or at least existed.

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?

For me, this would fall under Let it Ride — the matter's settled until something significant changes in the fiction. Thurgon's roll doesn't mean there aren't any spellbooks at all in the tower. It means he didn't find them. Until continued play establishes something different or new about the spellbooks, you can't roll again to find his spellbooks. It's a done deal. And continued play may never come back to this issue. That'd be up to the players.

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?

No, because this is directly related to her belief of I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse! the dice need to be rolled — there's something at stake; success is very interesting to the players. You only say "yes" when there's nothing at stake or the result doesn't matter.

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.

In terms of skills, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Because of the way that skill advancement works in BW, it's often worthwhile for players to have their characters do things that they have little to no chance of succeeding at. In terms of beliefs, players whose characters have relevant beliefs will often be proposing these things regardless. It's what they're interested in — I mean, they've gone to the trouble of making it a belief!

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?

It doesn't sound like these spellbooks were of particular interest, as I've noted above, which makes their existence besides the point for BW. But Evard having spellbooks doesn't mean they have to be in this location. Evard could keep his spellbooks somewhere else — this is his abandoned tower. Or the spellbooks could have been here and may have been stolen by someone else. If you wanted to take things to a different place in the fiction, maybe Evard's not a wizard and only pretends to be one. Maybe he practices a different type of magic. Or maybe he's a demon.

Edit: carriage returns!

 

[pemerton]

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.

I don't know what you mean by "purpose". Where are you envisaging this purpose coming from?

I'm pretty sure that I already explained, upthread, the basics of how this particular episode played out:

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!

Subsequently, Thurgon burned the letters without showing them to Aramina.​

From that, can you tell me what the purpose of the spellbooks is, in your sense?

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?

What do you mean when you ask "Did the spellbooks exist?" Are you asking a question about what is true in the fiction? In that case, at the time that I declared the action "Thurgon searches for spellbooks" no one knew whether or not, in the fiction, there were any spellbooks. It hadn't been authored yet.

You posit "Wouldn't there by spellbooks in Evard's tower regardless". Maybe, maybe not. Maybe the demon that Thurgon fought off stole them. Maybe Evard took them with them when he abandoned his tower. Maybe he never had any: perhaps he learned all his spells by spoken rote rather than by writing.

You ask what the process is whereby, at the table, the following sort of action declaration for Aramina should be resolved: "Thurgon having failed to find any, I am going to look for some spellbooks. Because Thurgon sucks." The answer is, by application of relevant principles including "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "intent and task" and "let it ride". These are all set out in the rules for Burning Wheel, the core of which you can download for free for DriveThruPRG here: Burning Wheel Gold: Hub and Spokes - Burning Wheel | Burning Wheel | DriveThruRPG.com

Given that finding spellbooks is one of Aramina's Beliefs, it would not generally be appropriate for the GM to "say 'yes'" to that action declaration. The GM should say "yes" when nothing is at stake: it's analogous, in the structure of play, to making a soft move in AW when everyone looks at the GM to see what happens next. When Aramina looks for spellbooks, something is at stake!

Anyway, as I already posted upthread, the matter subsequently got resolved: somehow or other - the details now escape me - Aramina did find a spelllbook once she regained consciousness, and so that confirms that their was at least one spellbook in Evard's tower. I can't now recall the process whereby it was established, at the table, that Aramina found the spellbook. Maybe she succeeded on a Scavening check; maybe it was a type of byproduct of resolving something else.

Finally, you ask "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." I'm not sure what the "this" is that you're asking about, but it seems to be an assumed and incorrect answer to your question about "saying 'yes". But anyway, the whole notion of "the PCs delegate tasks to PCs with the appropriate <whatever>" works the same way it does among real people. When it seems that a spell is needed, Thurgon asks Aramina to help given that he, Thurgon, cannot cast spells. On the other hand, sometimes characters do things even if they're not very good at them, just as people do in the real world.

One episode of play involved Thurgon persuading Aramina to mend his armour, even though she was disinclined to given that he was (at that time) refusing to accompany her to Evard's tower: that was resolved as a Duel of Wits. That was not about calculations of expediency: it was about the sometimes difficult relationship between travelling companions.

When Aedhros tried to stab an inkeeper, and hesitated at the actual prospect of committing cold-blooded murder (at the table, I failed a Steel check that my GM called for); and then Alicia took advantage of that hesitation to use Persuasion (a spell very similar to D&D's Suggestion spell) to tell Aedhros not to kill the inkeeper; there was no calculation by me (playing Aedhros) of who was the best at murdering innkeeper's; nor did Alicia make a calculation as to who was best at sparing them. This was about a clash of values between two people both at the bottom of the social pile, but only one of them (the Dark Elf) willing to murder as a result.

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.

You seem to be describing a process of play here that is quite different from what I prefer.

The GM didn't decide on the spot that spellbooks exist, nor that they don't exist. The GM applied the games action resolution procedure. That procedure is based around "intent and task" in combination with "say 'yes' or roll the dice". It doesn't include a step along the lines of before applying intent and task, and deciding whether or not to say "yes", check your secret notes to find out whether they give your permission to say "no".

EDIT: I just read @Citizen Mane's terrific reply to you. I think it's a testament to the relative robustness of Burning Wheel's procedures that he was able to give the same answers that I did, though knowing nothing more of the way that play actually unfolded at my table than what I've posted in this thread.

His comments about Evard are also spot on, and overlap with things that I've wondered both as a player and as Thurgon (because the demon Thurgon fought had the appearance of Evard, but was clearly otherworldly).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Agreed. I think a good DM can create and present an expansive world that doesn’t directly fulfill players’ dramatic needs, but which opens up possibilities for players to develop new dramatic needs or unexpectedly deepen existing ones. Some of that campaign detail might not pay off and might not engage the players, but if the details unrelated to characters aren’t there, opportunities for engagement are lost.

Yeah, believe me I understand where you're going with this, Erithnoi got decades of attention from me, but what I discovered is, it just wasn't true! The players don't really concern themselves much with all that. I mean, sure I could tell you who the ancient kings of Kinergh were, and etc. So what? Make a list of nice sounding names and use one every time you need an NPC or any name for whatever reason. Heck, make 4 or 5 lists of different sounding ones. You will get just as much out of it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That last bit is rather condescending. You're implying that your style of play is more evolved than others, but one day we'll all come around to your point of view.

Bloodtide is clearly pretty bombastic himself. To be perfectly honest I just feel like its a chance to go for it! I think he'll laugh, which is great. I hope so. I mean, clearly he says things to be provocative, and that's OK with me, I just know how to play that game too! Its even a game of skill, being provocative, but yet not actually mean. Try it sometime! You might level up your posting

 

[pemerton]

I think a good DM can create and present an expansive world that doesn’t directly fulfill players’ dramatic needs, but which opens up possibilities for players to develop new dramatic needs or unexpectedly deepen existing ones. Some of that campaign detail might not pay off and might not engage the players, but if the details unrelated to characters aren’t there, opportunities for engagement are lost.

I was prompted to reply to this by @AbdulAlhazred's reply just upthread.

Are you able to say what you think is better about RPGing in which the players establish dramatic needs for their PCs by drawing on the setting material authored by the GM, rather than by just brining them to the table themselves.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right?

My bigger point is that if a player can just Alter Game Reality on a whim then they don't have to pay attention or even really play the game. They can goof around for six hours, and then when the GM says "oh who will you get through the Door of Doom?" they can just sit back and say "My character Knows a Guy that gave him The Key of Doom" and the player overcomes that challenge in just a second.

Well, I know of exactly ZERO games which work this way, for obvious reasons...

Why bother to play a game like football, when right before the end you can just give your team 200 points to auto win every time?

What does that have to do with any actual games that really exist and get played?

I'm sure the game has printed rules, but they don't matter much in game play.

Maybe not in your games, but I'm a 1,344th level GM, so they are totally effective in all of mine.

D&D has rules for attacks, damage, hit points and character death......but many, many, many Storetelling Game Styles will by houserule/agreement have no character death in their games. Same way in D&D, if a character has a 'once a day power', they can do the 15 minute day to get around that and use the power four times an hour.

I have never run, or actually read, a game that eschews the possibility of character death, except Toon. Paranoia canonically lets you clone 6 times before permadeath too. I doubt those are really problematic... A lot of D&D games don't have character death either.

There's no such thing as a '15 minute work day' in BitD. Your resources don't refresh AT ALL in fact! You do get 2 free DTAs (downtime activities) every score cycle, and you're likely to earn some coin if you play well. In general most downtimes my character spent both his DTAs on his vice to reduce stress, though there were a few times one was enough. You can usually purchase more DTAs for either a coin or a point of Rep, but both are generally in short supply. Note also that LTPs and dealing with clocks also usually requires DTAs, AND they are required for reducing Harm as well. You can easily need 5 or 6 DTAs just to recover from a hard mission, and that's probably going to mean you LOST money on the job!

It's a good thing I don't go by your "made up levels". I guess you can say you are a 1,344 th level game player?

That's Game Master to you buddy!

 

[Faolyn]

I think this misses the point in a BW idiom. These particular spellbooks are only of interest inasmuch as they relate to Aramina and Thurgon's beliefs re Aramina will need my protection and I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse! The search is a way for pemerton to put Aramina's player in a hard place with regards to I don't need Thurgon's pity — if he succeeded at the roll, her player would have some things to think about. Like, you may not need Thurgon's pity, but how do you feel about him now that he's got these spellbooks for you? If her belief was about Evard's spellbooks in particular, then we'd be able to say concretely that they exist or at least existed.

OK, so I'm assuming in BW, spellbooks aren't "needed" in the same way they're needed in most other games (I would gladly read the BW book and play the system, but it's not available except in expensive dead tree format, which is inconvenient for me and my players to use). If so... that would have been nice to know way back then, because I think the rest of us were assuming that this book was, like, useful treasure to be found that was needed for Aramina to be able to cast her spells and that not finding it was tantamount to hindering her progression as a caster.

For me, this would fall under Let it Ride — the matter's settled until something significant changes in the fiction. Thurgon's roll doesn't mean there aren't any spellbooks at all in the tower. It means he didn't find them. Until continued play establishes something different or new about the spellbooks, you can't roll again to find his spellbooks. It's a done deal. And continued play may never come back to this issue. That'd be up to the players.

That's not how pemerton phrased it--when combined with other things they've said, they seem to have suggested that having the GM decide if there were spellbooks or not would be railroady, because it was fiction the players weren't involved with.

No, because this is directly related to her belief of I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse! the dice need to be rolled — there's something at stake; success is very interesting to the players. You only say "yes" when there's nothing at stake or the result doesn't matter.

Makes sense.

Thanks for clearing it up!

 

[Faolyn]

Nice.

It should be pretty interesting, especially if I can go through with my idea of having this cop go mad with the power, kill someone, and frame the PC who was seriously rude to him.

 

[bloodtide]

Well, I know of exactly ZERO games which work this way, for obvious reasons...

Well...

I guess I'd ask for an example of how it works. The idea is the players can alter the game reality just like the GM: Ultimate Player Agency. I know you don't like the direct "alter Game Reality", and that is fine, but that is descriptive of the action.

What does that have to do with any actual games that really exist and get played?

It was an allegory.

Maybe not in your games, but I'm a 1,344th level GM, so they are totally effective in all of mine.

I'd point out GMs don't have levels....but maybe your talking about some homebrew?

I have never run, or actually read, a game that eschews the possibility of character death, except Toon. Paranoia canonically lets you clone 6 times before permadeath too. I doubt those are really problematic... A lot of D&D games don't have character death either.

Again, I though I was clear. you keep mixing up Printed Game Rules and How People Play a Game. Yes, there is no game with combat rules and hit points that on page 11 says "player characters can never die as it would remove player agency". So, we are clear: no game says that.

Now....the WAY people play the games...changing, modifying or just utterly ignoring the written rules...is what I'm talking about.

There's no such thing as a '15 minute work day' in BitD. Your resources don't refresh AT ALL in fact! You do get 2 free DTAs (downtime activities) every score cycle, and you're likely to earn some coin if you play well. In general most downtimes my character spent both his DTAs on his vice to reduce stress, though there were a few times one was enough. You can usually purchase more DTAs for either a coin or a point of Rep, but both are generally in short supply. Note also that LTPs and dealing with clocks also usually requires DTAs, AND they are required for reducing Harm as well. You can easily need 5 or 6 DTAs just to recover from a hard mission, and that's probably going to mean you LOST money on the job!

Right but the game does have time based printed rules, right? And, again, the rules don't say "if your character has something effecting them, you can just rest for a 15 minute day and remove it". But you can still do that in the game.

Just take the "score cycle": The player just says "hey lets end the cycle and start a new one" and the GM high fives the player and says "sure".

I don't know. Are you talking about a specific game? I've played several games that I expect you'd describe as you have. You didn't name any games, so I can't be sure.

To be clear, as always, If I'm talking about a specific game I will use it's name.

But if so, my experience in those games is that they engage players more consistently and thoroughly than D&D typically does.

But why? Was it the rules somehow? Was it the Style of Game play? Was it the GM? Something else?

Okay, based on what? Have you seen such a game played? What game?

Based on Experience. I wounder what point your trying to make here? Even if I named a game and said I played in a game where X happened, you would not care or believe my story, right?

That's fine. I honestly don't see it as such a negative as many others, except if it's what the players and/or GM don't want.

Well, no, I specifically don't do that. I mean I'm very clear about it, but few people I game with "get it".

 

[Irlo]

Yeah, believe me I understand where you're going with this, Erithnoi got decades of attention from me, but what I discovered is, it just wasn't true! The players don't really concern themselves much with all that. I mean, sure I could tell you who the ancient kings of Kinergh were, and etc. So what? Make a list of nice sounding names and use one every time you need an NPC or any name for whatever reason. Heck, make 4 or 5 lists of different sounding ones. You will get just as much out of it.

I was prompted to reply to this by @AbdulAlhazred's reply just upthread.

Are you able to say what you think is better about RPGing in which the players establish dramatic needs for their PCs by drawing on the setting material authored by the GM, rather than by just brining them to the table themselves.

Better? No. But I can try to say why it works for me. Fundamentally, I am inspired by other people's ideas and vision. [I am most emphatically NOT saying that you are not also inspired by other people's ideas.] To be clear, I'm talking about drawing on setting material authored by the GM and from setting material that I bring to the table and from setting material brought to the table by other participants in the game.

As a player in any RPG, I'm best at creating engaging, real-seeming characters when I have a some solid, crisply defined, established ground to build on with plenty of gaps for me to fill in. I don't want everything defined by others, but I want some meat to sink my teeth into. That helps me narrow my conception of a character, with a place in the world and a voice that I can sometimes channel. I love working with other players to establish connections among characters, and, in my view, the GM is a player at the table who can contribute to that shared fiction. I can make interesting and unexpected connections. When great ideas come from that -- well, that feeling is ultimately what I play for.

I posted this earlier in this thread, and it relates a bit to the current conversation also, so I'll repeat:

As a DM, I do some prep and a lot of improvisation (because if I ever prepared to my own satisfaction I would never actually get started playing the game). When I have some firm ideas in the background, even if the players are never exposed to those particular ideas, I can more easily and more convincinging generate engaging and consistent improvisations. In those instances, I think, the players have a deeper sense that there might be a more engaging and consistent world to explore.

This sort of prep work -- that is, having setting material that I as DM have authored -- gives me grounding, anchor-points that might not be used ... but when they are used, it works for everyone (that is, everyone at my table, not everyone everyone). My players need those anchors, too. At least most of them do. I need those anchors to build on imaginatively during play.

Most Almost all of my gaming experience is with D&D. In my experience I as DM am much more interested in incorporating player-authored aspects than my players are interested in providing that authorship. (Kind of a downer, really. I struggle sometimes feeling like the players are invested, even when they tell me they are, and I ended my last campaign because I didn't find the players to be engaged.)

I've been following this thread. I can't say how much I appreciate the detailed descriptions of DW and BW and BitD. I doubt my players would be interested, and frankly I don't know that I'd be very effective at running those games, but it's been great reading about them, and I'm starting to peruse the rules. I might even spend some money.