RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[AbdulAlhazred]

To answer the second question, allowing the players to declare an action - they are deliberately having their PCs look in the safe, to see if the dirt is in there - while knowing that, in fact, nothing is at stake, is not actively revealing the town in play. It's reactive, and creates anti-climaxes, and moments of "OK, what do we do now". For a game whose principles are drive play toward conflict and escalate, escalate, escalate it is - as I have posted - an error, a type of failure in play.

I tend to look at these things from a fairly cinematic point of view. The characters are at an impasse, they have no dirt. They looked in the safe, nothing was there. What would happen now? Obviously, in a fairly action-oriented genre, there would be some kind of reveal. Some NPC would show up, or another clue would be discovered pointing at the REAL location of the dirt.

In an RPG scenario the first part would simply be explication on the part of the GM. The players would be directing their PCs to find the dirt, and the GM would allow that, having searched the Mayor's safe and not having found it, they encounter the Secretary, who reveals that the dirt is in the keeping of the Mine Owner, and probably some other new plot elements are developed to explain that and likely to add pressure on the characters to act on the information, etc.

At no point is it necessary for there to be an action declaration who's intent is to reveal some fact such as @Crimson Longinus is thinking of. There might be sequences aimed at convincing someone to tell of the Mayor's safe, and then again some sort of conflict with the Secretary, and maybe then this all leads to a shoot-out with the Mine Owner's thugs.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

At no point is it necessary for there to be an action declaration who's intent is to reveal some fact such as @Crimson Longinus is thinking of.

Right. So there doesn't need to be such action declaration in a mechanical sense, but one must be possible in a sense that fictional events of the characters looking in the safe and finding it empty can occur. Which I also feel is in many genres pretty dramatically reasonable thing to happen, either as a setup for finding the real location, or as a revelation that the characters were fooled. (Perhaps the latter in not something that usually happens in DitV; I don't know.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Does this mean that player knowledge can never be faulty - they're sure the dirt's in the safe but they've been misled all along?

Well, having the GM 'pull a fast one' on the players smells of prearranged plot to me. The logic which leads there is something like "Oh, I don't want the players to find the location of the treasure until I run them all around for half a session and spring my trap." That's not "Play to find out what happens" because the GM is puppet mastering what happens behind the scenes. It is instead "Play to find out what the GM wrote."

Now, that part being said, is there are role for deception or false information in Narrativist games? I think so, I mean, suppose you fail to interrogate someone, they might lie to you, but the players know there was a failure, and they must have put something at stake, some question must have existed, within the situation which would make this deception meaningful in a dramatic kind of way. So maybe "You waste time following the false lead, it is now only one hour before midnight!"

My bigger issue here is that this sort of game, in constantly driving toward conflict, is also pulling away from realism in that reality has moments of anti-climax and times when the next move isn't obvious to anyone. Why not have this reflec tin play now and then?

I don't believe that there always needs to be an obvious next move in order to have play move forward with momentum and intensity. By all means, leave it up to the players to decide what will follow! Do they chase the orcs or save the injured woman? Neither is clearly the better choice, but each path will lead to some sort of further situations that pose challenges to the PCs.

If you are advocating for "baking cupcakes" sort of play where nothing really is at stake, or perhaps where the players are simply engaging in 'projects' or something, I am not much of a fan of this sort of play. If you are advocating for situations and play which consist largely of GM explication and players making plots or something, that CAN be supported in Narrativist play perfectly well, just do it. I mean, there is such a thing as dramatic pacing, and if you have something like a whole 4e campaign you are all working through, then sequences where, say, the threat is substantive but still fairly remote, are fine. I mean, Dungeon World has a 'town phase', you resupply, prepare, carouse, and recruit henchmen. Every second need not be do or die action.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. So there doesn't need to be such action declaration in a mechanical sense, but one must be possible in a sense that fictional events of the characters looking in the safe and finding it empty can occur. Which I also feel is in many genres pretty dramatically reasonable thing to happen, either as a setup for finding the real location, or as a revelation that the characters were fooled. (Perhaps the latter in not something that usually happens in DitV; I don't know.)

Sure, I think RPGs generally are providing for the possibility of almost any narrative that is genre appropriate, etc. Its more a question of: how does it play? What I want to avoid, for one thing, is 'faffing about' kind of play where the action diverges off into dead ends, or the players are spending all their table time endlessly poking about trying to find the clue. If the safe doesn't contain the papers it is sufficient for the GM to 'say so', but the FORM of that in narrative terms could be anything. It could be a simply statement that the PCs went and looked and found nothing, or someone gives them more specific info on where to look. Maybe the non-existence is itself significant, revealing some deception that puts other facts in a new light. In none of these cases is it necessary for an intent to be resolved mechanically.

 

[clearstream]

Sure, I think RPGs generally are providing for the possibility of almost any narrative that is genre appropriate, etc. Its more a question of: how does it play? What I want to avoid, for one thing, is 'faffing about' kind of play where the action diverges off into dead ends, or the players are spending all their table time endlessly poking about trying to find the clue. If the safe doesn't contain the papers it is sufficient for the GM to 'say so', but the FORM of that in narrative terms could be anything. It could be a simply statement that the PCs went and looked and found nothing, or someone gives them more specific info on where to look. Maybe the non-existence is itself significant, revealing some deception that puts other facts in a new light. In none of these cases is it necessary for an intent to be resolved mechanically.

We're not short of fiction that can adhere to a miss...

the safe is empty​

the safe isn't empty, but the dirt no longer matters​

the safe isn't empty, the dirt matters, but... extra steps​

the safe isn't empty, the dirt matters, but... cost, risk or rider​

Or to a hit...

the safe contains the dirt​

the safe is empty, but the dirt is next to it​

the safe is empty, but the dirt isn't needed after all - something else turns up​

There seems little risk of prep colliding with results unless prior commitments cover every possible angle. I expect that when these are worked through along with their parallels for TR, neither CR nor TR is stymied by myth.

What counts as proper play changes (respect player intent / respect creative purposes), but given proper play, the malleability of the imaginary component supplies ample resources.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Because to some interesting is more important, while to others, only at no cost to their sense of real. Maybe. Suspension of disbelief.

That said, previous discussion makes me feel that rather than being a trade off or leaning, it's more how folk measure "interesting" and "real" for themselves.

Sure, it will vary from person to person. But I don’t know why anyone would question a game’s drive toward conflict. There’s no reason that conflict should somehow clash with plausibility.

This.

For some of us, making the game world seem at least somewhat real is where (much of) the interest lies.

And yet you no doubt skip over many mundanities all the time. Which is why pointing out that a drive toward conflict is in any way problematic is odd. The game does not need to lull for us to accept that the characters may have moments that are perfectly ordinary or unremarkable. There’s also no reason we can’t include such moments… with the expectation that we then push toward conflict.

One of the things I’ve been doing in my Stonetop game (and which @Manbearcat also did with his, and which the book suggests) is to start with a moment of everyday life. Ask the player what their character is doing… what daily chore or routine are they involved in. Examine that a bit to help build the world… and then introduce something out of the ordinary. Move toward conflict.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

the safe is empty, but the dirt is next to it​

the safe is empty, but the dirt isn't needed after all - something else turns up​

I kinda feel that both of these rely on what at least I would understand to be low myth. It is basically the GM improvising new bits of the fictional reality about plot critical thing to honour the player's intent. I think that this is the sort of thing that would be locked beforehand in a high myth game.

Not that these are exact terms, so we might understand them differently and it is spectrum in any case, but this sort of flexibility regarding key items/information rather than just regarding mostly flavour and padding seems like a feature of low myth to me.

 

[Lanefan]

As an explanatory note, it was in view of your earlier claims and examples that I added that

I'm saying then that it's what counts as interesting and real that matters, not necessarily any trade-off of one for the other. @Lanefan said that lacunae felt realer and more interesting to them. It's hard to see how one can dispute that, barring contradicting testimony from the poster themselves.

I can as yet neither support nor contradict this, given that I've no idea what "lacunae" is.

 

[Aldarc]

I can as yet neither support nor contradict this, given that I've no idea what "lacunae" is.

'Lacunae' are gaps in the text. For example, a number of ancient manuscripts are incomplete due to the wear and tear of time. We are missing letters, words, lines, stanzas, and/or chapters due to holes in papyrus, fragmented tablets, worn off lettering, etc. So there are lacunae in the texts. Sometimes text critical scholars "guess" what was in those lacunae. Sometimes it can be reconstructed from other manuscripts of the same text or variant texts. But many times you will also just see for example "[tablet VIX lines ix-xxi missing]."

Spoiler

 

[clearstream]

I can as yet neither support nor contradict this, given that I've no idea what "lacunae" is.

And I shall not elucidate. Happy NY!