NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Aldarc]

The irony is that a very common complaint about 4e is that it separated from D&D too much.

It still preserves a lot of D&Disms that probably don't necessarily make as much sense in the context of the World Axis mythos, the power sources, or the 4e system that they created. (I'm calling you out right now, Wizard class!) I also think that 4e D&D would have been better as a game - though not necessarily as a game that was trying to be D&D - were it built from the ground up to work with the World Axis mythos without also trying to preserve D&D classes, spells, etc. for the sake of it.

 

[Celebrim]

The players make things happen. Not me.

With no intention to be hurtful, that's disingenuous. I understand the stand you are making, but there is no such thing as a DM who isn't making things happen. You may be trying your best to minimize your own agency and maximize the player agency, but even minimizing their own agency the GM is shaping events in a fiat manner based on whim and preference. It's not a matter of whether you do or don't do these things, but what techniques you use to ensure player agency despite doing them.

Once things start, I react to them (mostly, existing NPCs continue doing what they were doing until a PC interferes).

Setting up a world filled with NPCs with their own motives and devices and playing them out can be part of a pattern of play that allows for restricting your own agency as GM while granting it to the players, but it is still a means of making things happen. You're still crafting a story, even if you limit the resources of NPCs to things you've fore ordained or which fit to the demographics and realism of the setting. Moreover, there is no such thing as a GM who doesn't use coincidence to their own advantage for ensuring a story happens. No GM is fully realistic - at least no good GM - and says that as is realistic, nothing happens. Rather, all GMs are like the writer of a Batman comic book. If the PCs hide in an alley, then they will witness a mugging. Things coincidentally happen in front of the PCs rather than where they couldn't react to them because that keeps things happening. And that is making things happen.

This even applies to railroading. There is no such thing as a GM who doesn't using techniques for railroading, even if they aren't conscious of doing so or have never thought about their process of play in those terms. I recognize that most good GMs are very consciously trying to not railroad their PCs and so get quite offended when I point this out, but railroading is always a spectrum between minimal railroading and maximal railroading. There is always some compromise you have to make in reality to deal with the unreality of the world and the need for the game to be fun.

 

[Micah Sweet]

With no intention to be hurtful, that's disingenuous. I understand the stand you are making, but there is no such thing as a DM who isn't making things happen. You may be trying your best to minimize your own agency and maximize the player agency, but even minimizing their own agency the GM is shaping events in a fiat manner based on whim and preference. It's not a matter of whether you do or don't do these things, but what techniques you use to ensure player agency despite doing them.



Setting up a world filled with NPCs with their own motives and devices and playing them out can be part of a pattern of play that allows for restricting your own agency as GM while granting it to the players, but it is still a means of making things happen. You're still crafting a story, even if you limit the resources of NPCs to things you've fore ordained or which fit to the demographics and realism of the setting. Moreover, there is no such thing as a GM who doesn't use coincidence to their own advantage for ensuring a story happens. No GM is fully realistic - at least no good GM - and says that as is realistic, nothing happens. Rather, all GMs are like the writer of a Batman comic book. If the PCs hide in an alley, then they will witness a mugging. Things coincidentally happen in front of the PCs rather than where they couldn't react to them because that keeps things happening. And that is making things happen.

This even applies to railroading. There is no such thing as a GM who doesn't using techniques for railroading, even if they aren't conscious of doing so or have never thought about their process of play in those terms. I recognize that most good GMs are very consciously trying to not railroad their PCs and so get quite offended when I point this out, but railroading is always a spectrum between minimal railroading and maximal railroading. There is always some compromise you have to make in reality to deal with the unreality of the world and the need for the game to be fun.

Nobody completely follows their principles, true. We all just do the best we can. Continually busting chops, however (as you seem to be doing in this thread) isn't as productive IMO as you seem to think it is, and in fact works against pleasant discourse and raises hackles unnecessarily.

 

[Celebrim]

Nobody completely follows their principles, true. We all just do the best we can. Continually busting chops, however (as you seem to be doing in this thread) isn't as productive IMO as you seem to think it is, and in fact works against pleasant discourse and raises hackles unnecessarily.

I'm not "busting chops" as you seem to think, nor am I suggesting that the problem is a failure to adhere to one's principles.

I'm asking instead for people to examine their own process of play to see it for what it is outside these arguments about the right way or the wrong way to do things.

I am suggesting the statement "The players make things happen. Not me." is objectively false and lacking in self-awareness, but not that a GM making things happen is wrong. There are quantitative differences in how a GM can "make things happen" while they all are forms of "making things happen". There are skillful and unskillful ways of "making things happen" and there are skillful and unskillful ways of "letting things happen" as well. But it's not possible to give the players perfect agency or to fully divorce what happens from GM whim and fiat, much less desirable to do so.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The build struggle is real. I am a big Traveller fan and I have to work with players all the time on it. Chargen is random, but you can make a lot of informed choices to ensure (generally) the type of character you want. A lot of folks dislike not being able to just pick the things they want and how good they are at them. Even further, they view career paths like D&D class system. A career path is nothing like that. Its simply a background generator and skill delivery system for the character. For example, one player chose the scholar career and became a doctor. He was upset and said the system sucks becasue he couldnt effectively heal in combat (traveller is more heal after the battle mechanically) even though he had a dozen skills to chose from in any give situation. In his mind "doctor" was essentially a D&D cleric.

I haven't played Traveler since the early 80's (and will forever regret losing track of my boxed set). Yeah, I loved the random chargen.

Diving further into our earlier discussion, D&D has an oversized impression on TTRPGs in general. Especially, the trad/neo-trad approach of a GM role. Some games allow metacurrency to override GM decisions, other games allow a player to temporarily take on the role, and even others share the GM role equally amongst the players. So, symmetry, and more importantly, the expectation of symmetry, is going to vary.

Agreed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I haven't played Traveler since the early 80's (and will forever regret losing track of my boxed set). Yeah, I loved the random chargen.



Agreed.

Most memorable part of the game (which was nonetheless solid otherwise). Used to play with my best friend and my old group all the time.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not "busting chops" as you seem to think, nor am I suggesting that the problem is a failure to adhere to one's principles.

I'm asking instead for people to examine their own process of play to see it for what it is outside these arguments about the right way or the wrong way to do things.

I am suggesting the statement "The players make things happen. Not me." is objectively false and lacking in self-awareness, but not that a GM making things happen is wrong. There are quantitative differences in how a GM can "make things happen" while they all are forms of "making things happen". There are skillful and unskillful ways of "making things happen" and there are skillful and unskillful ways of "letting things happen" as well. But it's not possible to give the players perfect agency or to fully divorce what happens from GM whim and fiat, much less desirable to do so.

It think this is an overly literal interpretation on both fronts though. When someone says 'the players make things happen', they mean they don't railroad the players, they react to the actions the players take. They may also introduce things. And the Gm is still in control of the setting, but it is expressing a different mindset from the one that was prevalent in say the 2E era where the GM was literally expected to help usher the players through a kind of story or series of set pieces (and very different from the adventure path approach that was popular in the 2000s).

 

[Celebrim]

It think this is an overly literal interpretation on both fronts though. When someone says 'the players make things happen', they mean they don't railroad the players, they react to the actions the players take. They may also introduce things. And the Gm is still in control of the setting, but it is expressing a different mindset from the one that was prevalent in say the 2E era where the GM was literally expected to help usher the players through a kind of story or series of set pieces (and very different from the adventure path approach that was popular in the 2000s).

I'm not saying that there aren't meaningful differences between processes of play. I'm saying that your definitions of "railroad" and "react" are not reified enough to be meaningful. Yes, there are (or can be) real differences of mindset and intentionality on the part of the GMs, but when you start looking at what railroading is as a process or what reacting to the actions of players is as a process, what you find is that there are big overlaps.

I've been playing from the early 1980s to now, and I have to say that the differences in eras aren't as great as some would make of them. It's more about focus or goals or how you maintain the illusion of perfect freedom than it is complete difference in technique. For example, when Gygax writes in something as "primitive" (meaning early and not poor) as G1: Steading of the Hill Giant chief that you can't burn down the steading because it's made of wet green wood, he's applying a railroading technique to achieve some desirable story.

 

[Bill Zebub]

For example, when Gygax writes in something as "primitive" (meaning early and not poor) as G1: Steading of the Hill Giant chief that you can't burn down the steading because it's made of wet green wood, he's applying a railroading technique to achieve some desirable story.

Hmm. If we define railroading to apply to preparation for play, as opposed to actions (or really reactions) taken once play has commenced, then yeah it's a meaningless term.

So I think I'll stick with the stricter definition.

Then again, there's clearly a distinction between traditional adventure/dungeon preparation and the Dungeon World (AW) approach of Fronts.

 

[KYRON45]

If you can't act to some extent, you'll never be as good of a GM as a person who can. If you don't have the spatial skills to make interesting maps, you'll never be as good of a GM as a person who can. If you don't have the tactical skills to play monsters and NPCs to the best of their abilities in combat, you'll never be as good of a GM as a person who can. If you don't have the fortitude to make lots of notes in preparation to play, you'll never be as good of a GM as one who does. If you can't do voice work to some extent, it harms your ability to GM compared to someone who can. If you can't craft a fine dramatic story you'll never be as good of a GM as someone who can. If you can't narrate a compelling visual picture, you'll never be as good of a GM as someone who can.

As a GM, you have to wear a lot of hats. Very few of us are great at all those hats, but your job as a GM is to lean hard into the areas you are good at, while working your best to make up for the deficiencies you may have in other areas.

Sadly, GMing is a skill. Just as with athleticism, we might not all have the capacity to be world class. But that doesn't mean even if we can't be world class, that there isn't value in developing the capacity we do have.

How good a DM you have to be is directly relative to how good your players are. I wonder if there is a math formula for that?

Player: How come you aren't more like Matt Mercer?
DM: How come you aren't more like his players?