D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

Yeah, I do, because the point of my style of gaming is to create an imagined world, mostly as the GM, and then run that world in a way that feels as verisimilitudinous as possible.

I appreciate that you are giving a description of the process that is accurate, and does not attribute real causal power to an imaginary world.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

See I would approach that differently - it's not that there are orcs in the hill but there are reports of ... and then go on whatever notes or ideas I had. Perhaps there are no orcs because there's a new version of troll, or maybe undead have been rising up at every night of the full moon killing everything including orcs, whatever I had in my notes. I don't make players guess the right thing to ask for, if they may have knowledge of the hills then a successful roll means they actually do have knowledge of what monsters are in the hills orcs or anything else. If I had nothing in my notes and I was uncertain, I'd roll to resolve that uncertainty or perhaps I'll throw in some orcs because I hadn't thought about it, it doesn't contradict existing lore and I can think of a way to use them. At the point I answer the question, the player has no idea how I came to the answer. They just know they have a decent idea of the hills.

There's nothing wrong with there being orcs or some other creature in the hills and I think at this scale it works just fine with D&D if that's what you want. But in general I'll already have a basic idea of what's going on, there's no reason to add quantum orcs that may or may not exist based on a player's roll. This is true especially because I tend to drop hints here and there, foreshadowing what may exist in them thar hills. If the player decides that, I'm limited in what I can foreshadow or link in to other existing plans.

Which brings us to the next point in discussion of 5e as narrative game. That is, the assumption of ubiquitous preexisting fiction. You can see here why low myth play is a popular approach. I don't think there are hard reasons why 5e cannot do this, but consider the extreme ease of constructing a 4e encounter. Monster roles, level as a 95% reliability difficulty gauge, no spells to cross reference, etc. Also a resource model that is much more consistent.

A 4e GM will simply smile, grab some terrain, 5 orc stat blocks, and roll initiative!

 

[Umbran]

Sure but given that the general topic seems to be about division of authority in RPGs and between players and GMs specifically, GM-less games didn't seem to be part of the discussion.

Sorry. I actually think it is pretty relevant. Let me demonstrate with an example closer to the usual experiences around here....

Any D&D game primarily using a published setting and adventures. I'm running The Wild Beyond the Witchlight for my group right now. Indeed, my players said they wanted to play it based on its reputation, before I read it.

While most would say I have the option to create material, I have not done so - I'm running it as written. I'd have to write the equivalent of another whole adventure path in order for so much as half of it what we are playing to be mine, anyway. Since my players are trying to play it with a minimum of combat, I've not even needed to make encounter adjustments.

So, that gives you a case in which the traditional GM is not much of a creator of content, merely an adjudicator, or player with a different role. The entire group agrees on a package of content, and plays it.

 

[pemerton]

I don't say it as trivial. That quality is variable depending on the rule system and philosophy of play being used, and so I wanted to account for that.

I don't think I agree with this. Even at the most trad table of all, the difference between is private to the GM and is shared is pretty fundamental. Without this distinction, that mode of play can't do "reveals" in the way it typically does, can't resolve the finding of secret doors in the way it typically does, etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not @pemerton but I think the point is:

The PLAYERS have a say in establishing the fiction (whether there are spellbooks in the tower the PCs are walking into) the PCs do not. That is the divide.

There is a REALLY meaningful distinction. My character, Meda, in Stonetop has a strong desire to find her missing father. I, the player, have no such desire, and it may or may not be a goal of mine to see her desire fulfilled. If I'm RPing the character, I will take on that goal, I will depict her as being intensely interested in this, and identify with that feeling. I personally just don't care though, I made up that element of the character in order to make the game interesting and as part of chargen. My goal is for it to matter in play, and make things fun. Confounding the goals of the player and the character, what they know, what they do, etc. can make it hard to talk about. I mean, I don't jump on every instance of this, and maybe even do it too sometimes, but this is a somewhat complicated discussion...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not necessarily. The spell books could be there in plain sight. Then some other factor will provide the dramatic tension. Maybe a terrible curse is laid on them. Will Aramina pay the price? Or is the cost too high? How does this alter her beliefs?

I'm just addressing the idea that the players have to be the ones establishing if there are or not spell books in the tower. No, the GM could do that, but then there would have to be a reason for that, which can basically only be "address some beliefs that the characters have." I just posited a hypothetical way of setting that up.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I assume we can add that this "prep" is in a narrative game not "set in stone"? That is, if the DM hasn't shared the idea that these beggars are from the farmland a player might for instance go "Hey, those beggars is the crew of the circus in the city I grew up! I wonder what bad things happened to put them in this place?"

If this is the case, how do you handle the situation that you have previously dropped hints (trough narrating things with this prep in mind) that the beggars are farmers, that hasn't been understood, but is hard to explain if they are not farmers? If it is not the case, how is the GM supposed to overrule the player?

I am curious as this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me struggle to see how these games work to maintain internal coherence in the presence of several authors.

All that is required for coherency is a rule that says "if you add fiction it has to be coherent with the existing established fiction", which in PbtA games is, on the GM side, the principle that your move must follow from the fiction. On the player side, players are not generally doing that level of explaining, but say the GM asked you in DW who you think the beggars are, he must be OK with you answering however you feel like, and if the answer doesn't make sense, the table can say "wait a minute here..." But the key point is, this is why the idea is stressed, the only fiction that 'exists' is fiction that has been told! The rest is just ideas in people's heads, and can be a nice tool to have, but is only 'potential fiction'.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sorry. I actually think it is pretty relevant. Let me demonstrate with an example closer to the usual experiences around here....

Any D&D game primarily using a published setting and adventures. I'm running The Wild Beyond the Witchlight for my group right now. Indeed, my players said they wanted to play it based on its reputation, before I read it.

While most would say I have the option to create material, I have not done so - I'm running it as written. I'd have to write the equivalent of another whole adventure path in order for so much as half of it what we are playing to be mine, anyway. Since my players are trying to play it with a minimum of combat, I've not even needed to make encounter adjustments.

So, that gives you a case in which the traditional GM is not much of a creator of content, merely an adjudicator, or player with a different role. The entire group agrees on a package of content, and plays it.

Sure, GMs are OFTEN simply refereeing the play of an existing pre-written adventure. Its probably the vast majority of play, modulus maybe some, usually minor, customization. I think there's a discussion to be had about the implications of narrative styles of play WRT published material. Also perhaps in terms of GM/player authority in a more general sense, the post I made before yours was talking about the question of ease of generation of content on-the-fly in terms of narrative play in 5e, and I noted that 4e is a bit better set up for that, IMHO. I'm not sure how this entirely relates to GM-less play, but that would be a whole other kettle of fish in terms of existing material...

 

[Faolyn]

Do they? What represents the skill and luck of the Orc? Whether the Orc trips on a patch of mud, or gets distracted by one of its comrades standing next to it being killed?

What determines these things in BW?

And you've played (A)D&D so you know what represents those things.

My assumption - influenced heavily by what Gygax wrote in his DMG (and I do regard Gygax as having some insight into D&D) -

I don't; the man literally said that if you brought elements into D&D that he didn't approve of (like firearms) then you weren't playing real AD&D.

This is bizarre.

Thurgon is imaginary. I am not. Thurgon worships the Lord of Battle. Without disclosing my own spiritual biography in full, I can report that I do not. Etc, etc.

A very large percentage of gamers--perhaps the majority--refer to their character as I. I do this; I attack the monster; I pick the lock. Most of us do this for every game out there. "I landed on Go; give me $200."

Maybe you don't. Maybe nobody at your table does. But I'd say about 95% of the people I've gamed with over the last 30 years do refer to their characters as I. And that remaining 5% waffled between first and third person.

It's how most of us get into our character's heads, especially since it feels more natural than only describing your character in the third person. As a GM, I call players by their character's names, in order to maintain immersion.

But you misdescribe it. The world - which is purely imaginary - doesn't exist so as to answer the question about spellbooks. Rather: the GM has written some bits of fiction (eg about spellbooks) and the GM uses that private imagining as part of a process of then answering the question about whether or not Thurgon's finding of spellbooks will be part of the shared fiction.

You're continuing to miss the point--which again is really weird for someone who has claimed to have played (A)D&D and should therefore know how non-BW games work.

The game world exists. It may be imaginary, but it exists for the duration of the game--just like the world of a novel or movie exists for however long you read the novel or watch the movie. The game world may not "exist" to answer the question about spellbooks, but spellbooks exist in the game, and therefore, people (specifically, the player whose PC is looking for them) want to know about them. For the shared fiction to even work, there needs to be an answer, and having a spellbook not exist in a place where they likely would, just because no players thought to ask about them, doesn't make sense.

Earlier, I asked you to describe an area, but you didn't. The PCs walk into the tower. What do you, as the GM, say? Do you describe it at all? Or do you require your players to describe it to you? Because if it's the latter then what is your purpose as GM in a game of Broken Wheel?

Describing this process of play as if the imaginary world itself plays some causal role in telling the people at the table how they should imagine it is a bizarre misdescription of what actually happens.

Yes, the imaginary world does play a causal role at the table. The way you describe the world tells people how they should act in that world. If you describe a wizard's tower like this:

the players are very likely going act differently than if you describe it like this:

And if you don't describe it at all, you give nothing for the players to work off of and create a very boring setting.

 

[pemerton]

I find reading actual play posts to be quite boring, TBH and not actually useful in determining how a game is actually played, since they rarely go into details about how the mechanics work.

I think you are confusing "story time" with actual play. I'm telling you that, if you read one of my BW actual play posts, you will get a sense of how the game works.

OK, let's go with the wizard's tower for a moment. The PCs enter the tower. Do you, as the GM, describe this tower to them in any way? If so, how? Do you describe the ornamentation, the condition of the first room they see, the style of the furniture? Or do you leave it up to PCs to describe?

y "PCs" do you mean players? Otherwise what you ask makes no sense to me.

No, I mean PCs. The players are, presumably, sitting around a table or in front of a computer in a video call. They are Playing Characters in the game. These are the PCs.

Why would the PCs describe the tower they're entering? I mean they might, if they were in radio-type communication with allies and undertaking some sort of scouting operation. But equally they might enter the tower and remain silent.

I had thought you meant to ask "Do the players describe it?", but you've just reiterated that that's not what you mean. So, as I said earlier, I don't know what you've got in mind here.

I don't really see how. I'm apparently not supposed to say "this thing logically exists in this location" unless the PCs first decide that it should exist in that location.

Again, by "PCs" do you mean players? I mean, you've had an example of Thurgon discovering something - letters from Xanthippe to Evard - that he never knew of until he found them. I don't know why do you keep talking about the PCs deciding things?

The PCs are entering a tower. Describe it.

Who are you instructing to describe things? Me, here and now? An imaginary game participant? Again, I am not really following.

If you're asking me how my GM described Evard's tower when Thurgon entered it, it's some years ago now and my memory is a bit hazy. I know he mentioned it was stone, and he probably mentioned the wooden beams, which in a subsequent fire in the tower collapsed.

I'm gathering, through some googling, that Wises means "skill" or "knowledge" (which, along with Artha, rather annoyingly means that BW is one of those games that feels the need to rename everything in order to be cool and different). So... what sort of skill check is needed to see the color red in this game?

I don't understand the question.

I've told you how action resolution works: the player declares an action - both intent and task; the GM either "says 'yes'" (ie intent and task are both realised) or else calls for a roll of the dice. If the roll succeeds, then intent and task are both realised. If the roll fails, the GM narrates a consequence, paying particular intention to the fact that the intent failed.

How many dice are rolled depends on which of the various PCs attributes, skills etc is relevant to the task being attempted. In this respect, a BW PC sheet is about as intricate as a RuneQuest or Rolemaster one. What the difficulty is also depends on the task being attempted - the rulebook has long lists of typical obstacle numbers for various tasks.

There is no skill "Identify colour" or "See red". All characters have a Perception attribute. Some characters may also have an Observation skill, which (roughly) has the effect of counting as Perception when the thing being looked for is hidden; in such circumstances those who roll on Perception rather than Observation halve their successes.

It's a wizard's tower, it's logical that there would be spellbooks, even if it's just one that got left behind during the move. Or potentially placed there as the bait of a trap.

The first sentence explains why the action declaration for Thurgon "I look for spellbooks" makes sense in the fiction - looking for spellbooks in a wizard's tower is a reasonable thing to do. (The rulebooks example of something unreasonable is hoping to find beam weaponry in the Duke's toilet. I think it's deliberate that such an extreme, even silly, example is provided: it reinforces that the default orientation of the game is towards consensus and mutual trust in respect of what makes sense in the shared fiction.)

The second sentence relates back to something that @Citizen Mane said earlier. If it had been Aramina searching for spellbooks, then spellbooks as a trap would be a candidate narration of failure (succeed at task, but fail at intent - "these are not the spellbooks you were hoping to find!"). But given that Thurgon's action declaration was really staking his relationship with Aramina, rather than any desire on his part for spellbooks, I agree with Citizen Mane that the failure narration the GM opted for worked better - it connected to Thurgon's dramatic needs (as is appropriate for his failed action) rather than Aramina's.

You don't understand how the game handles description may have any effect on how the GM describes things?

Are you asking why, in the Thurgon episode, the GM didn't just describe spellbooks as part of the "atmosphere" or "set dressing" when Thurgon entered the tower? If that's what your asking, the answer woiuld be because it is poor GMing, in BW, to introduce resolutions to "stakes"-type questions (like, in this case, whether or not Aramina will find spellbooks) as part of framing.

even back in the earliest days of RPGs, people knew that the game wasn't limited to just what the PCs saw.

By "the game" I take it you mean "the imagined setting"? Then yes, we agree, the idea that the imagined setting includes things beyond what the PCs see is a commonplace of RPGing. Off the top of my head I can't think of a RPG that takes a different approach.

I'm going to guess by your answer that no, BW can't do horror well.

<snip>

While I can understand a Fear check quite easily, since the source of the fear is coming from an external source, I find it quite bizarre and overreaching to require a Steel check for the PC attempting to do something the GM feels is too "ruthless," especially when a "are you sure about that?" would do.

One of the elements of Burning Wheel that would make it reasonably well suited for horror in my view - on top of the point about intimacy that Citizen Mane made - is the Steel mechanic. It helps drive home a sense of loss of control in the face of awful things.