RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[niklinna]

You're doing the same thing I mentioned in the last post, where you conflate the board state, and the actions of players on that board state as the same thing. It is obvious that a TTRPG does not have a physical board state we can reference like chess, and instead the board lives in the mind of one player, who must relate it to the other players which can obviously be a hard communication problem. It does not follow that the board state is malleable beyond the rules of the game, any more than it follows in chess that this is the case; the players are still declaring actions that have mechanically mediated results.

There is not one board state. There is one board state per participant (both players and GM, should there be one (or more)). Those separate board states need to be synchronized, through negotiation—which includes open verbal discussion, recourse to procedure, etc.

 

[hawkeyefan]

it sounds like one in which GM has ownership of the interpretation of rules. That sounds like what we've often labelled a "trad" mode of play to me. I observe that rule sets targeting that sort of mode often encourage participants to resolve negotiation on rules outside of play. I've observed groups counting attempts to negotiate what rules entail during play as disruptive.

I made the assumption that Manbearcat's is storynow, due to the choice of a PbtA rule set and based on his descriptions of play. But obviously I could be mistaken: it would be better to ask them.

It depends. With 5e, there is so much leeway given to the GM, that I find negotiation common. In this case, the GM decided that despite the wording of the Folk Hero Feature, it didn't really apply. Or it did, but then he had us be discovered anyway.

If I had been GM, I would have simply allowed the ability to work as written.

Are these different modes of play? Or different results of negotiation?

I don't see how this confusing language that just obfuscates what's actually happening is helping to answer any of the things you mention.

Do you really find the following confusing?

What sort of rules, principles and mechanics will produce the shared imagination that is pleasing to us? (Which may not be exactly the same as what we want or what we would choose if unconstrained.)

Also: what allocation of "ownership", and of responsibilities for deciding what to say, will be satisfactory in the course of play?

How so? What's confusing about this? What parts do you not understand?

I feel lumping different things together like here with "negotiation" elides some rather significant differences between different games, and I don't think that is helpful. For example I feel there is way more what I would actually call negotiation in Blades in the Dark than in D&D, but if we just lump attack rolls and actual discussions about the direction of the narrative under the same heading that difference gets lost.

So what? Sure, games work differently, and some involve more active and open negotiation at the table than others. That doesn't mean that they can't also have similarities. That the underlying process of play is similar. We still have plenty of other means to point out the differences. That Baker's description applies to RPGs overall really shouldn't be contentious. It seems more about "Forge icky" than anything else that I can understand.

I mean, people tend to get up in arms when it's pointed out that Game A does something better than Game B... and now you're saying we can't even point out when they're the same?

 

[Pedantic]

This is true only in the most railroady of railroads.

I don't particularly feel like engaging with that diversion.

Fundamentally, I'm realizing I'm just championing design ascending from board game to TTRPG against an argument that design must descend from freeform roleplay to TTRPG. As usual, I find myself musing this would all be much easier if were in two different, related fields and not insisting on being in the same one.

 

[Pedantic]

There is not one board state. There is one board state per participant (both players and GM, should there be one (or more)). Those separate board states need to be synchronized, through negotiation—which includes open verbal discussion, recourse to procedure, etc.

I simply don't see that this needs to be true. It's not a requirement of the form; you can agree there is one state and move discourse about it from negotiation to clarification and mechanically mediated action.

 

[niklinna]

I simply don't see that this needs to be true. It's not a requirement of the form; you can agree there is one state and move discourse about it from negotiation to clarification and mechanically mediated action.

As long as there's more than one brain involved, and as long as we don't have telepathy, there will be as many imagined board states as there are brains, and they need to be synchronized, whenever anything changes, through some process. The idea that there is one (authoritative) board state, and that it resides only in the GM's head, essentially means the GM is never, ever wrong, and communication of the board state flows only from GM to players. I have been in many a game where a player points out some inconsistency, or a bonus they have to something or other, or just states what they want their character to do, and the GM updates their imagined board state, and everybody gets back in sync, and the game continues. Just as I have been in many a game where the GM does the same and the player(s) update their board state. Just as I have been in many a game where one player reminds another of something, or does any of the aforementioned things, and that second player (and whoever else benefits from the reminder) updates their board state.

I see that it simply needs to be true, and is a requirement of the form.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

 

[pemerton]

I'm just championing design ascending from board game to TTRPG against an argument that design must descend from freeform roleplay to TTRPG. As usual, I find myself musing this would all be much easier if were in two different, related fields and not insisting on being in the same one.

To the best of my knowledge, the closest that RPGing gets to boardgaming with a hidden board is dungeon-crawling.

But even then, the fictional position is not the sole prerogative of the GM - this is what makes the game different from a choose-your-own-adventure.

Eg the GM describes a giant statute with bejewelled eyes, and I say (speaking as my character) I climb up the statute and use my knife to pry out the jewels!

That changes my fictional position. And it flows from me to the other participants, not from the GM to me.

 

[Pedantic]

To the best of my knowledge, the closest that RPGing gets to boardgaming with a hidden board is dungeon-crawling.

But even then, the fictional position is not the sole prerogative of the GM - this is what makes the game different from a choose-your-own-adventure.

Eg the GM describes a giant statute with bejewelled eyes, and I say (speaking as my character) I climb up the statute and use my knife to pry out the jewels!

That changes my fictional position. And it flows from me to the other participants, not from the GM to me.

Yeah, that's just action declaration. We know your movement speed, the difficulty of climbing things, the object interaction rules, presumably your inventory. You can do that in other games, usually just with less actions and less spiraling resolution systems. The changes to the game state are knowable outcomes of deploying mechanics.

 

[niklinna]

Yeah, that's just action declaration. We know your movement speed, the difficulty of climbing things, the object interaction rules, presumably your inventory. You can do that in other games, usually just with less actions and less spiraling resolution systems. The changes to the game state are knowable outcomes of deploying mechanics.

And yet those changes must be communicated from one brain to another (or several others), and agreed to. That there are procedures for the participants coming to agreement—that is, means of easing the negotation—remains true of TTRPGs. Reducing the negotation is a desirable thing! The more negotiation is trivial ("okay yeah that happens", "okay you rolled enough to do it"), the better.

 

[Manbearcat]

Per my #517 it is accurate to call this "clarifying".


In D&D this is clarifying, as it is a question about how Social Interaction rules interact with the fireball spell. There is ambiguity, so the rules are clear that the DM gets to assert how the interaction will play out. It's an example of how clarifying can lead into negotiating, as I will explain below.


This is an example of how clarifying leads into negotiating depending on the mode of play. Traditional DM ownership of what the rules entail means that player asks for clarification and accepts the given ruling. Negotiation during play is discouraged. But in other modes of play it would be open to discussion how participants feel it should work, most importantly the player possessing the trait. I've observed such conversations many times in our Avatar sessions over the last few weeks.


Again, clarification.


This sounds like it will lead to negotiation, because it is moving into ambiguous areas where ownership is (if I understand the example correctly) likely shared. It sounds to me like you are picturing the GM proposing rather than asserting, due to circumstantial factors bearing on it.

I'm imagining more than GM clarifies map/key or prepped <whatever> here.

You accepted my last one as a form of play that you're comfortable depicting as "negotiation." Well what I'm imagining in the other examples is a form of that:

* A player proposes an action that the rules haven't firmly encoded and now we have to sort out how to mechanically resolve or why to say "yes/no" (etc).

* The imagined space is features spatial relationships that need firming up or possibly features items that can be interacted with which the GM hasn't canvassed or considered.

* The player has a PC build feature that requires in-situ consideration and mediation by the participants at the table to determine if it applies here (consideration and mediation about the fiction, about the mechanics, about the implications of resource scheduling if its an "at-will contingent upon fiction x/y" ability) and a simple "no" (rather than an explanation as to the GM's factors of consideration that have led to the "no") is damaging to downstream player decision-space because how are they going to successfully build out their prospective lines of play if they can't draw coherent user-interface-driven inferences.

+++++++++++++

And in all of these the GM is not impervious to shortcomings that harm play (along any number of axes). Sometimes the GM needs to be reminded of something (about the fiction, about the rules, about what has been communicated) or needs to understand the intuitions of the player or the mental model of the player to make a functional, coherent, game-facilitating ruling.

This isn't "Rules Lawyering" or "Pixel Bitching" all the way down. Most of the time its just "playing the game." I've run as much map and key D&D as anyone and what I'm talking about here is broadly no different than running The Between or another game that features a complex decision-space, a complex game engine, and a complex board state all coinciding persistently.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And yet those changes must be communicated from one brain to another (or several others), and agreed to. That there are procedures for the participants coming to agreement—that is, means of easing the negotation—remains true of TTRPGs. Reducing the negotation is a desirable thing! The more negotiation is trivial ("okay yeah that happens", "okay you rolled enough to do it"), the better.

Right. Which is why I don't find games where you constantly genuinely need to negotiate this stuff necessarily great designs. Yet some people intentionally designed them so.