How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Maxperson]

My reply also took seriously the fact that Pedantic and Maxperson appeared to agree with the 3E DMG advice, and presumably (given its similarity) also the 2nd ed AD&D DMG advice, and replied to that, pointing out that - whereas they appeared to take the view that there is nothing to be said about how it is possible to have more player agency than what is contemplated in that advice, in fact it is possible to do so.

This is a mischaracterization of what I said. What I said is that the 3e DMG advice isn't creating motivations for the PCs, nor is it about creating "fetch" quests.

The examples given were of the DM tailoring the game to the already player established motivations for their PCs.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, the setting matters in how I handle this stuff. But as I said… we live in a world where such runic circles aren’t used and yet we’re aware of them. Folklore and myth are powerful sources of information. Especially in worlds without other means of communication.

You can't really take us and our knowledge as what the world at large commonly possesses. We're fantasy gamers. We have essentially studied the folklore and mythology through gameplay and often as a real life hobby. We are also fairly highly educated in general. Go to the midwest and ask 1000 random people what a runic circle is and I'll wager less than 10% will give you a correct answer. Go to a less educated country that the United States and that number will fall.

 

[pemerton]

All "in-setting physics" means here is we make it up and toss a figleaf/lampshade over it. My setting has dragons. Your setting has dragons plus a page of notes trying to explain how a dragon generates the lift of a 747 despite not having jet engines. This doesn't make your setting more realistic!

It makes the setting more consistent with itself, which in itself makes it more realistic in that reality is also consistent with itself.

I just don't think this is true. Having a page of notes "explaining" how dragons fly doesn't make the setting more consistent with itself.

I mean, my setting might have dragons and pixies. Both of these are unrealistic: impossibly big flying animals (too heavy, too little length and strength in their wings, etc), and impossibly small flying people (where do their wings come from? how do their brains work when they're so little? etc).

Now I can write a bit of backstory that "explains" how both these beings are "possible", appealing to some fantasy version of "Pym particles" that explains them both. But that doesn't increase realism. Pym particles are nonsense!

And the setting doesn't become more consistent because this common explanation is put forth. In actual science, a theory that explains more phenomena is explanatorily powerful. But imagining that dragons and pixies somehow work the same way doesn't make pixies and dragons more consistent, with one another or with anything else. It just introduces a new thing into the fiction.

Who says kings don't extract labour (and-or taxes!) from their peasantry to build/maintain their castles?

My point is that the setting doesn't exhibit this property. In fact, the setting operates as if this is not the case!

 

[pemerton]

Isn't that just jargon for what GMs do anyway?

The point isn't - necessarily - to change what anyone is doing. It's to talk about it with a degree of analytical precision.

That said, there are games which foreground scene-framing as an element of the GMing task - these are the games that I mentioned in my reply to you about Burning Wheel. Because these games rely on intent-based resolution, and because they treat the scene as the basic unit of play, they put a particular requirement on the GM to frame the scene having regard to what is at stake, and how that speaks to the players' priorities for their PCs.

I guess, but it also invites arguments from people who feel like jargon immediately means "indie" or "narrative" or other things that suggest you aren't talking about ALL GMing.

When people talk about "adventures" or "campaigns" are they talking about all RPGing? But those bits of jargon are commonly used.

I think concerns about jargon are easily exaggerated.

when you stop saying what you mean and you use jargon, some portion of your intended audience is not going to know what you are talking about. "Scene framing" is not specific, and therefore has less utility than, "setting up the location and things that populate it ina way that is useful to play" or whatever.

Well, when I do use jargon, generally I am using precisely in order to say what I mean.

The point of talking about scene framing isn't primarily to talk about setting up the location and things that populate it - that, to me, seems equally good as a description of a classic D&D GM drawing a dungeon map and writing up the key.

The point of talking about scene framing is to focus attention on who actually establishes the situation in play, at the table; and what methods and principles govern them in doing that. As I posted upthread, thinking about this helps understand some of the significant differences between classic dungeon crawl play (c 1977) and the player that started to become predominant in D&D 5 to 10 years later. Both approaches to play often involve the GM drawing up maps and writing keys, but the actual process of establishing the situation - the scene framing methods - are very different.

 

[pemerton]

If the GM is using a homebrewed adventure or a pre-made adventure for their party and they are keeping that knowledge from being common knowledge, it might be because the party is not at the right time and place in the adventure for the GM to reveal it.

This could well be true. But first, in my example of the dragon trapped in a magical circle, I was - I thought fairly obviously - positing that the GM was revealing it. After all, it was an example of a GM doing exactly that.

And second, a lot of GMing does not involve an adventure either homebrewed or pre-made, and does not use the notion of the party being "at the right time and place in the adventure". Some GMing doesn't use the notion of the "party" either.

 

[pemerton]

What I never do is ask, "so are you guys ready for the next scene?"

Nor do I, as a general rule. Likewise a sausage-maker often does not show the customer how the sausage is made.

But I assume in this thread that we are allowed to talk about how the sausage is made. We're like at a sausage-makers' convention.

 

[pemerton]

My question was more about who decides what scene is framed, specifically because there seems to be an issue about GM authorship here.

The players and GM together decide what scene is framed. As the rules I quoted say, it's a social activity. People can say what they would like to do or see.

That said, if a player fails a check then the GM is allowed to narrate the consequences, and that might mean a scene gets framed that the player doesn't necessarily want.

My more recent BW play has involved rotating GMing - as in, I do the GM's job for my friend's character (the necromancer Thoth) and he does the GM's job for my character (the Dark Elf Aedhros) - when both our characters are in the same scene, we alternative or divvy it up as makes sense, depending on whose issues are at stake. Here's an example of me framing a scene in response to a failed test:

Aedhros followed one of the guards - George, as we later learned he was called - who also happened to be the one with the loot. Aedhros ambushed him from the darkness, and took him at knife point back to the workshop, where Thoth subjected him to the necessary "treatment" (successful Torture test to inflict a PTGS 7 (Midi) wound), granting +2D to Death Art (and also sending George into a swoon, perhaps a blessing as it meant he did not need to witness the horrors of the Death Art performance). The dice were now rolled for the (careful) Death Art test, with 7 successes needed to raise the body from the ship as a Walking Dead. Only 6 successes (on 9 open-ended dice, with a Fate Point spent) were rolled, and so it failed. Looking at the GM advice for failed Death Art, I rolled an unwelcome summoning result, and something weird and creepy scurried out into the darkness.

And then, at that very moment - acting carefully, and failing, licenses a time-sensitive complication - there was a knock on the door. (How this door relates to the secret door onto the docks is not quite clear, but can be resolved in due course.) Serap, the maid servant of Lady Mina, had been told that Thoth was a surgeon whom she might be able to afford, to treat her mistress. She had 1D of coin to offer; Thoth insisted on 3D, and opposed Haggling checks were made (her rank 3 vs Thoth's Beginner's Luck) and they were tied, which I had agreed prior to rolling would be a 2D compromise. She paid the 1D now, and the rest would be paid after treatment.

Thoth has an Affiliation with the nobility. He also has the Belief Cometh the corpse, cometh Thoth. Being called away from his lair to treat a dying noblewoman speaks to both these priorities; while putting pressure on his Belief that I will give the dead new life.

Here's an example of my friend framing a scene for Aedhros which was not the bringing home of a consequence (back then, my friend's PC was Alicia):

Our last session ended with Alicia and Aedhros sitting out-of-the-way on the docks, Aedhros quietly singing Elven lays. I had set as homework for my friend to determine what trouble might result from this, to be the start of our next session of this game. It turned out that, despite having over 20 months to do his homework, he hadn't!

(I had done some homework of my own, writing up the Elven Ambassador to Hardby, and the Ship's Master from last session, as NPCs. But we didn't end up needing them.)

After a bit of prompting, he decided that a petty harbour official came up to Aedhros, telling him to move on and stop begging. (The singing being treated as busking, and hence a type of begging.)

The significance of the trouble-for-singing is that Aedhros has an Instinct to quietly sing the Elven lays when his mind is elsewhere, and another to always repay hurt with hurt; and also has a trait Self-Deluded and a Belief I will never admit that I am wrong.

You seem to take issue with the GM deciding stuff. But by your definition of scene framing, the GM decides that. How do you square those? Or am I misunderstanding you on some level?

I don't take issue with the GM deciding stuff. I mean, imagine a game of chess. I start moving your pieces. You might complain about that - that doesn't mean you have an issue with moving the pieces; or even that you have an issue with me moving the pieces. All it means is that you have an issue with me moving your pieces.

I don't enjoy RPGing - either as player or GM - where the bulk of significant fiction flows from the GM. In this thread, @hawkeyefan has talked about the GM controlling information. I don't enjoy that sort of RPGing. The DMGs from two editions have been quoted, both providing examples of the GM establishing situations where the meaning of the situation is decided by the GM and is opaque and/or irrelevant to the players. The 2nd ed DMG characterises the "meaning" of player actions in terms of elements of the fiction that the players don't even know about (eg it may be meaningful for a player to have their PC ignore a magic sword, if in doing so they pass up the chance to acquire a power that they didn't know the sword possesses; it is meaningful for the players to have their PCs choose to wait and find out what a dust cloud heralds, when only the GM has the least notion of what that might be).

In Burning Wheel, the GM present situations (as I quoted upthread from the rulebook). I've just given examples of how these situations can be established. What is key is that they speak to the player-authored priorities. And not just in the sense of a hook, but in terms of what the player is provoked or invited to do in the scene. Here is how the scene with Aedhros and the petty official unfolded:

Aedhros's response was to sing a short verse of the Rhyme of Unravelling, breaking the official's belt with the result that his pants fell down. I decided that Aedhros kept singing, sufficently to give me a test to cause the official intense sorrow (this is the Dark Elf version of Wonderment from spell songs). The official - Will B3, we agreed - fell to his knees weeping bitterly, in remorse for all his pointless past actions (including his harassment of Aedhros). An attempt to further grind him down with Ugly Truth (untrained on Perception, and suffering a +2 Ob penalty from the Deceptive trait) failed.

My friend decided that this was about the time that Alicia awoke - she has an instinct If it shines in the dark, steal it, and he wondered if there was anything shiny revealed by the falling down of the official's trousers. I suggested a key. Alicia wanted to steal it as he wept. She called on the spirits of the coastal sea to help, and a mist rose up on the harbour. The successful Spirit Binding gave a helping die for a beginner's luck Inconspicuous test, lifting the key from the helpless, weeping man.

One of Aedhros's Beliefs was that Only because Alicia seems poor and broken can I endure her company. To keep her poor and broken, he pick-pocketed the key from her - an easy success for B4 Sleight of Hand with Stealthy and Inconspicuous FoRKs against untrained Observation.

Alicia, unaware of what Aedhros had done, wanted to know what the key opened. She Persuaded the official to tell her (an easy success against Will 3). I (exercising GMing powers, not playing Aedhros) decided that it opened the strongroom in the harbour office, where records and the like are kept. Alicia and Aedhros agreed to break into it, to find information that might help Alicia pursue her Belief that I will one day be rich enough to BUY a ship, and/or help get revenge on the master of the ship the two of us had sailed on.

 

[pemerton]

How you conceptualise things seems to be preoccupied by some sort of contention or struggle for control between the GM and the player.
I just really do not think things in that way.

Not struggle. But allocation of tasks. As a player, I'm not turning up primarily to learn what the GM has in mind. As a GM, I'm not turning up primarily looking to share a setting or an "adventure" with the players.

I can't recall if you participated in the somewhat-recent thread where I quoted some text from Dogs in the Vineyard (pp 138-9):

Actively reveal the town in play
The town you’ve made has secrets. It has, quite likely, terrible secrets - blood and sex and murder and damnation.

But you the GM, you don’t have secrets a’tall. Instead, you have cool things - bloody, sexy, murderous, damned cool things - that you can’t wait to share. . . .

I want them to figure out what’s wrong in the town. In fact, I want to show them what’s wrong! Otherwise they’ll wander around waiting for me to drop them a clue . . . .

So instead of having the NPC say “oh no, I meant that things are going just fine, and I shut up now,” I have the NPC launch into his or her tirade. “Things are awful! This person’s sleeping with this other person not with me, they murdered the schoolteacher, blood pours down the meeting house walls every night!”

...Or sometimes, the NPC wants to lie, instead. That’s okay! I have the NPC lie. You’ve watched movies. You always can tell when you’re watching a movie who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. And wouldn’t you know it, most the time the players are looking at me with skeptical looks, and I give them a little sly nod that yep, she’s lying. And they get these great, mean, tooth-showing grins - because when someone lies to them, ho boy does it not work out.

Then the game goes somewhere.​

This is what I enjoy, as player and GM. The GM provides the situation, which is laden with relevant conflict; the players declare actions in response to it.

In 5e we roll when there is uncertainty. A character has seen something, and we are unsure whether they know what it is. The situation in in fiction has reached a point where there is uncertainty of outcome. A roll using appropriate skill is being made to determine the outcome.

Who is the we? I mean, if the player asks "Do I recognise the statute" then they have declared an action for their PC, and the appropriate action resolution rule gets applied. But I am talking about a situation where the GM calls for a roll independent of the player declaring an action. In that context, who is the we?

 

[pemerton]

Do you object to it's use? Or it's origin in wargaming?

Neither. Although I am not a wargamer, and don't do much wargame-style RPGing. (I GMed a bit of White Plume Mountain around 2 years ago, I think it was.)

My point is that, if you object to some technical term ("jargon") because it has its origins in an approach to RPGing that is not yours, then I think you're being a bit precious.

 

[pemerton]

Sure, but that's completely independent of game system.

No it's not.

A Burning Wheel PC has Beliefs, Instincts, Traits, Relationships, Affiliations and Reputations. These all provide information, context and grist for the GM to frame a scene.

An action declaration in BW requires declaring intent and task, and if the test succeeds then the player (and their PC) get their intent. And Let it Ride applies, so the GM is not entitled to subsequently pull the rug out from under them. Conversely, if a test fails then the GM must introduce some complication or consequence that thwarts the player's intent and reframes the scene (or frames a new scene) that still speaks to those player-determined priorities.

A BW player has mechanics - Circles and Wises - to introduce new content into a scene, or to establish a new scene, that will speak to their priorities.

An AD&D or RuneQuest or Rolemaster or 3E D&D game has none of these things ready-to-hand. Resolution is not sensitive to intent. It is possible for a task to fail and the scene not to change, except that now we know (eg) that the PC cannot pick the lock on the door in front of them, or (eg) doesn't know anyone in the town they just arrived at. There is no analogue of Circles or Wises.

System is fundamental here.