Be a GAME-MASTER, not a DIRECTOR

[hawkeyefan]

Up thread.

Okay.

Ok, so you have a setting. The player adds a vague story: and sure that is great. But this is again my main point: Even if the player writes a whole paragraph, it is still minimal effort. The player says "a beast" then shrugs and walks away. The DM then has to do all the work. But everyone wants to give the player equal credit, for just about zero work or effort.

Well, the player doesn’t write a paragraph. We talk it out together. As GM, I took some notes. There is a Steading Sheet for the town, so as we created NPCs we added them to the Steading Sheet.

So the player came up with the idea of a dangerous beast that killed one of his dogs and was a possible threat lairing near town. As GM, I came up with what the creature was and why it was near town. What that amounted to was selecting a monster from the book and coming up with some details about it. I jotted down some notes about it. This was a name, a page number, and a bullet list of three or four things.

And I get that many DMs don't want to do the hard "thinking part", so having the players come up with stuff is a great idea for them. And some DM just love having the players tell them what to do....I'd guess so they can blame the players too if the game is not "fun".

So this is where you try to criticize this style of play based on your own flawed understanding of it. There’s plenty of thinking by the GM in this kind of game.

So, again....the player says a couple words, but the DM must do all the work to fill in everything.

So if I'm following, you as GM do very little...even nothing. You have the setting in the book, and the players add in their random things...that you flesh out and create.

No, I don’t think you’re following. The fact that you’re calling player ideas “random” is very telling. Why are they random? They’re things chosen by the players specifically connected to their characters. It doesn’t get less random than that.

Certainly ideas created by the GM that have nothing to do with the characters would be just as random, if not more so, no?

I guess this is a "player lead" game? It does not seem all that fun for the DM though. The players just say "make this" and then DM bows and says "yes player".

What the hell does this mean? Do you really assume this is what happens?

If you do no prep, then this is a pure improv game? You just do the Quantum Creation right in front of where ever the players move their characters?

No, not really. There’s a map with the major locations. There are details about those locations. There are NPCs and monsters. All of these are provided by the setting guide. But they’re all sketched. It’s all described loosely. Any truth is left up to be decided in play.

This seems to me to be a very casual random game. The players tell you to make stuff up on their whims. You do so. And it's just pure chaos. Player one says the back is over there...player two says the back is over there....so now the town has two banks....or does the back just move depending on the players whims?

No one keeps track of anything? So there is just "something anywhere?"

I'm lost

Well, there’s no bank. It’s a quasi-iron age setting. But once we establish where a location is, then that’s where it is. The Steading Sheet has a map of the town and you mark a building and enter it.

Look at it this way… from the players’ perspective, it’s no different than your method. No one knows where the lost tower is until it’s established in play.

It doesn’t all have to be established ahead of time. You can have ideas and thoughts about it all, but you don’t commit to it until it comes up in play. Then, once something is established, you lock it in.

 

[pemerton]

I'm thinking here of "system" as including just those procedures and practices that can be stated and reiterated. Systematized, essentially. Part of my reasoning is that while one could say that rules/norms govern all our speech acts; to call those that are left vague, applied ad hoc, or that no one can quite articulate, "system", might leave no room for fiction that is not system.

Thus the sort of fiction-to-fiction movement I'm thinking of is when I advance the fiction following no procedure that I can articulate. Charles compliments my hair. Judging his overture to be facile, I say that I look at him with disdain before turning and leaving the room. In some sense, Charles' compliment has moved me to leave the room - fiction-to-fiction. I could say that there were unwritten rules in play - system - but unless I can leave room for fiction that isn't system, it's going to be system-to-system all the way down.

I'm not sure what the objection is to it being system all the way down.

I mean, Edwards uses "system" to mean a means by which in-game events are determined to occur <The Forge :: GNS and Other Matters of Roleplaying Theory, Chapter 1>. Extrapolation from fiction to fiction - intuitively or ad hoc, or in accordance with some regularised framework - is one way of determining that in-game events occur.

Penny For My Thoughts is characterised in many places as an RPG, was winner of an "Indie RPG award" award, and has the characteristics you've proposed for RPGs.

There is no GM/referee role in A Penny For My Thoughts, and players don't declare actions for their PCs. When my group played it we noticed that it was not a RPG, in that there are not characters that one plays. There is no adjudication of actions. There is not really situation, either.

That's not determinative of anything, but is why I don't regard it as a RPG, but rather a different sort of story-generating/story-telling game.

 

[pemerton]

Like the example above. The DM makes everything, and the players just say "we ride our bikes north". Ok, so I don't see any "sharing" or the players doing 50% of the world building. Then, the DM with all the power just says "oh look a gorge!". Again, no "sharing by the players". Then the players make a rule check to jump over the gorge. "No sharing". Then the game has a line "oh you make it to the other side, but something bad happens". So the DM...alone with all the power decides what that 'bad thing' is.

I assume this is meant to relate, in some way, to my imagined example of Apocalypse World play:

*using dice to distribute obligations on one or more participants to come up with ideas for how the fiction might unfold that depart from their initial vision - Apocalypse World uses this a lot. Here's an illustration, which begins in media res, with the PC escaping from hostile enemies on a motorbike: the GM narrates a threat (maybe "As you're racing along on your bike, you crest a ridge only to see that there is a gorge right in front of you - you're going to tumble right into it!"), and then the player declares an action (let's say, "I gun my engine, race as fast as I can down the sloe between ridge and gorge, and jump it!), the GM calls for a move (in this case, Act Under Fire, given that the PC is trying to do something under serious pressure), and the player rolls the dice. If the player succeeds on their throw with a 10+, then they get what they wanted - their PC jumps the gorge on their bike. If the player fails on a 6-, the GM gets to bring the thread home: the PC and bike go tumbling into the gorge. If the player rolls a 7-9, though, the GM has to "offer [the player/their PC] a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice" (p 190). That would be an example of the dice imposing an obligation on the GM to come up with ideas for how the fiction might unfold that depart from their initial vision (which was of the PC and bike tumbling into the gorge) and from the player's initial vision (which was of the PC dramatically jumping their bike over the gorge). Maybe the GM decides on a worse outcome: "Your gun the engine, and take off over the gorge. Miraculously, you make it to the other side, but while you survive the landing your bike doesn't. The front forks are mangled, and that thing is not going anywhere. What do you do?"

This example said nothing about any world-building, or how that was done. I guess I took for granted that it would follow the "First Session" rule for Apocalypse World.

As far as shared fiction goes, here are the examples of that that I provided:

*That the PC is escaping from hostile enemies on a bike [I didn't say how this was established];

*That the PC crests a ridge and sees a gorge [a GM move - putting the PC into a spot];

*That the PC tries to jump the gorge [a player-declared action];

*And then three possibilities:

*That the PC succeeds in jumping the gorge [the player's declared action succeeds, as per the rule for rolling 10+ on Act Under Fire ("you do it", p 190)];

*That the PC falls into the gorge [the GM makes as hard and direct a move as they like, bringing the threat home, as per the rules for rolling 6- on a player-side move - in this case, the GM is inflicting harm, and also taking away the PC's gear, namely, their bike];

*That the PC makes the jump, but wrecks their bike in the process [the GM provides a worse outcome, in this case taking away the PC's gear, as per one of the options provided to the GM by a 7-9 result on Act Under Fire].​

You can clearly see how the shared fiction is established, including the role of dice in that process. (Notice how the dice are binding on everyone. That's their point. If Vincent Baker wanted GM storytime, he would have written rules for that instead.)

 

[pemerton]

This seems to me to be a very casual random game.

This, to me, is very telling. Because based on your respective posting histories, I would guess that @hawkeyefan's Stonetop game is as serious, if not more serious - in theme, in tone, in the way play unfolds and the way participants engage with the fiction and the play about that fiction - than your D&D play.

Part of what leads me to make that conjecture is that you don't seem able to envisage players playing seriously. Without more, that would probably be enough for me to infer that your RPGing is not all that serious.

 

[clearstream]

I'm not sure what the objection is to it being system all the way down.

Less objection and more question: were it all system, then what is reserved for fiction?

I mean, Edwards uses "system" to mean a means by which in-game events are determined to occur <The Forge :: GNS and Other Matters of Roleplaying Theory, Chapter 1>. Extrapolation from fiction to fiction - intuitively or ad hoc, or in accordance with some regularised framework - is one way of determining that in-game events occur.

Edwards defines "system" in a couple of places

to be more precise, these are the things which must be imagined by the real people. In this sense, saying "system" means "imagining events to be occurring"​

​

System: a means by which in-game events are determined to occur.​

Other than system, what is imagined is characterised as character, setting, situation and colour. If the latter four are fiction, and they matter to resolution, then they are part of the means by which in-game events are determined to occur, implying that fiction and system are one and the same.

But on that account a statement like "there's the fiction and the system is how the fiction moves forward" can't be right, because it is not the case there's the fiction and the system: there's only the system. One way out of that is to suppose that fiction amounts to descriptors of parts of system (here a cog, there a spring, etc.) If right, then fiction continues to be part of how the fiction moves forward, seeing as those descriptors are consequential in system terms.

There is no GM/referee role in A Penny For My Thoughts, and players don't declare actions for their PCs. When my group played it we noticed that it was not a RPG, in that there are not characters that one plays. There is no adjudication of actions. There is not really situation, either.

A referee isn't required for RPG, as the "no dice no masters" RPGs (e.g. Dream Askew) attest. Characters are built into your "figure as being a single person" which is certainly the major category of RPG games. My present take based on observing what folk commonly count as "RPG" is that the roles taken go beyond those of individualised imagined persons with known identities living within defined game worlds.

That's not determinative of anything, but is why I don't regard it as a RPG, but rather a different sort of story-generating/story-telling game.

Taxonomically storytelling games would be a superset of which individualised-character-based story-telling games are a subset. That would make my conjecture apply to storytelling games. Currently I believe the superset is better known as "RPG". Could there be RPG (in the sense of TTRPG, which is what I take us to be discussing) that does not involve storytelling?

Technically my guess at what unites these games adheres to the necessary move of making oneself subject to game (in order to become a player). The adoption of what I've called the lusory-duality enables storytelling play. With an accompanying assumption that game play will extend into player imaginations. Players adopt stances or attitudes toward the game world by which they will imagine what it is like to be X, from which they will form a conversation.

 

[AnotherGuy]

@hawkeyefan once the initial content or path has been determined how much continued creative input does the player have outside of their traditional character actions?
Can they expand more?

So, for instance PCs use a map they acquired to seek an entrance to a long last tomb but say they fail that skill challenge to progress the story
(a) The traditional response would be players would have to think of an alternative way of finding this entrance via DM decides;
(b) The modern approach would be, instead of an outright fail resulting in a No, the DM adds a cost to continue, the Say Yes, but approach; or
(c) The players provide creative input for a path forward which the DM must accept as having a reasonable chance of success by letting the dice decide.

Is (c) on the table as that continued creative player input?

EDIT: And if yes, do the players amongst themselves decide which input will be established by vote/unanimously, the table (including the DM) or just the first person to come up with an idea?

 

[pemerton]

say they fail that skill challenge to progress the story

I'm not @hawkeyefan. But I believe that Stonetop is based (at least in part) on DungeonWorld, and DungeonWorld is based very largely on Apocalypse World, and Apoclaypse World, in its acknowledgement pages, says "The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards" (p 288).

And in that essay, Edwards says

There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). Story Now has a great deal in common with Step On Up, particularly in the social expectation to contribute, but in this case the real people's attention is directed toward one another's insights toward the issue, rather than toward strategy and guts.​

(Note that, by "theme" in this quote, Edwards means "a judgmental point, perceivable as a certain charge [some stories] generate for the listener or reader." So theme is the players response to the premise, which is set up by the game itself.)

I would therefore assume that, in Stonetop, there is no "the story", and so the idea of failing a skill challenge to progress the story probably doesn't have any purchase.

 

[clearstream]

I would therefore assume that, in Stonetop, there is no "the story", and so the idea of failing a skill challenge to progress the story probably doesn't have any purchase.

Saying something like "failing a skill challenge to progress the story" can be read as "given a binary or trinity of results, result 1 injects change along some lines, while result 2 injects change along some other lines, etc., so that how we pictured things going forward from result 1 (the result we planned for) differs from how things are liable to go forward from the result we rolled (result 3, say.)

The case I'm pointing to is that where players have an expected "the story" which is now dashed. In this case there's no pre-scripted story that is now thwarted, but there is an expected story that is derailed. The possibility of derailment elevates the experience: players can feel daring, bold, heroic, tragic because the story can be forced to progress along other lines... telling the story that they didn't want.

This doesn't contradict your point at all, the story being told always progresses. There's no prewritten story to "fail", even if failing the skill challenge snuffs out a planned or preferred storyline. @AnotherGuy for vis.

 

[Umbran]

Your original statement was that players "own" their PCs and the gm everything else pretty much leads there for a lot of folks.

With respect, it was Bloodtide's original statement. I opened with "If, as you say, the players own their PCs, and the DM everything else..."

The point I was making is that no logic or path was given to take us from the start ("Players own PCs, GM everything else") to the end (having "share" mean "anything").

And you aren't spelling it out, either, which doesn't help. This discussion feels like there's resistance to the idea that people who play a game together are sharing elements of that play with each other.

Having one kid own the sandbox, and the other own the Tonka trucks does not somehow make the meaning of "share" weirdly undefined. How we share stuff is, again, a kindergarten-level thing. Why is it a problem here?

If other discussions (which seem to center much own ownership, rather than the nature of sharing) matter so much, I remind you that sharing does not need to change ownership - it can be a temporary agreement to allow use (a social-contract license, if you will: you can use it, but don't intentionally break it, etc.). At that sandbox, when kids go in for supper, the ownership of the trucks and sandbox have not changed. They were lent out to each other for a while to use, but when Sally goes home, she can take her trucks with her and the kid with the sand then doesn't have them to use.

Perhaps the "social contract license" thing gives some people pause? Admittedly the terms of social contracts are often unstated. Well, then state what you want to be part of it in Session Zero, and make sure the others agree!

F'rex, in the sandbox, there's a level of wear and tear that may happen to a truck - scratches to the paintjob from sand and all, that is allowable, but wholloping a truck with a cinderblock is probably out....

If Sony and Marvel can work out how to share Spider-Man, you can work out how you share game stuff with your players.

 

[pemerton]

With respect, it was Bloodtide's original statement. I opened with "If, as you say, the players own their PCs, and the DM everything else..."

The point I was making is that no logic or path was given to take us from the start ("Players own PCs, GM everything else") to the end (having "share" mean "anything").

This issue of "ownership" seems to be pointing back to a post I made upthread:

Do you know any RPG that uses group votes as its method of action resolution? Off the top of my head, I don't. But there are other ways of mediating multiple inputs into a single decision - for instance, allocation of "ownership" of different bits of the fiction to different participants

I elaborated this point in a subsequent post:

*allocation of "ownership" of different bits of the fiction to different participants - a lot of RPGs use this, by giving the players ownership over their PCs, and what their PCs hope and think, and perhaps also who their PCs have close relationships with; while giving the GM ownership over NPCs, and bits of the setting that are unconnected to or only loosely connected to the PCs. If everyone respects that ownership structure, then shared fiction can be created by integrating the contributions of multiple participants.

It was simply an example of one way to combine inputs from multiple participants into a single shared fiction. It's not the only way. And for RPGing it probably needs supplementation by other ways, because on its own it can't really create or resolve conflict, because conflict depends on one person being able to mess with, or at least to threaten, another person's stuff.

I'm surprised it's controversial (not for you, @Umbran, but apparently for some other posters) that this is one method in RPGing for establishing the shared fiction.