GM fiat - an illustration

[nevin]

This thread is about identifying and analysing GM fiat as a way of establishing the shared fiction in RPGing. My experience is that, often, many cases of GM fiat go unnoticed, or at least unremarked upon. Here's one example, that I posted in a recent thread:



In this post I want to present another example, and say a bit about it. My example is the Alarm spell, from D&D 5e:

Casting Time: 1 Minute​

Range/Area: 30 ft. (20 ft. )​

Duration: 8 Hours​

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You set an alarm against intrusion. Choose a door, a window, or an area within range that is no larger than a 20-foot Cube. Until the spell ends, an alarm alerts you whenever a creature touches or enters the warded area. When you cast the spell, you can designate creatures that won’t set off the alarm. You also choose whether the alarm is audible or mental:​

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Audible Alarm. The alarm produces the sound of a handbell for 10 seconds within 60 feet of the warded area.​

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Mental Alarm. You are alerted by a mental ping if you are within 1 mile of the warded area. This ping awakens you if you’re asleep.​

On its fact, this spell looks like something that a player could use to help control the risk environment for their PC. But on closer analysis, it turns almost entirely on GM decision-making that is significantly unconstrained.

For instance,

* Does the player's character have an uninterrupted minute of time to cast the spell?​

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* Does any potential intruder come within 8 hours, or do they turn up (say) 8 hours and 5 minutes after the spell was cast?​

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* Does a potential intruder come within the warded area, or open the warded portal? Or do they sneak around the warded portal, or inspect/attack from outside the area?​

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* If the caster (and friends) are asleep, and are woken by this spell, how much can the intruder accomplish while they rouse themselves?​

All of this depends on GM decision-making. That decision-making is largely unconstrained, except by some pretty loose notions of "fair play". By choosing to use the spell, does a player actually affect the risk to their position in the game? Does this happen in any way other than by invoking the GM's notion of "fair play"? Perhaps if the GM is relying on a very precise timeline for introducing threats, the 1 minute and/or 8 hour issue might be obviated. But that still leaves the other issues.

Here is a superficially similar spell from a different game - Torchbearer 2e's Aetherial Premonition:

The caster sets an aetherial alarm in the Otherworld to provide warning against approaching danger.​

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AETHERIAL PREMONITION EFFECT​

This spell wards a camp, house or the like. It creates the sound of a ringing bell in the event of trouble. Cast this spell as you enter camp (before rolling for camp events) and the spell grants +1 to the camp events roll. The watch in camp are granted +1D to tests to avert disaster.​

The fiction of this spell is very much the same as that of the D&D Alarm spell. But the gameplay is different:

* The player is permitted to have their PC attempt to cast the spell as part of the declaration that the party is camping - if the roll to cast fails, then the GM might narrate that as an interruption of the casting, but there is no unilateral power the GM to narrate some interruption analogous to something disturbing the caster during the 1 minute casting of Alarm;​

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* The way the use of the spell affects the risk to which the player's character is exposed is clear, and not subject to GM decision-making: when the GM makes the camp event roll, as part of the process of determining what happens during the camp phase (which can include resting in town - "camp phase" and "camp event" are semi-technical terms), the player benefits from a +1, which reduces the likelihood of bad results and increases the likelihood of good results;​

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* If disaster strikes (due to a poor camp event roll), the benefit of being alerted is clear: the watch gain a bonus die in their pool when they declare some action in response​

It's possible, in TB2e, for a wily intruder to avoid the alarm, but that would be a narration adopted after the camp event roll is made and an unhappy event results despite the bonus. And it is possible for the watch to be too distracted or drowsy or whatever to effectively respond, despite the alarm; but again, that would be a narration adopted after their test to avert disaster fails, notwithstanding the +1D bonus.

The GM is not at liberty just to narrate things in such a way that the spell makes no difference.

Some RPGers might prefer the GM fiat-free Torchbearer 2e approach; others might prefer the approach of the Alarm spell, which puts some parameters around the GM's narration (eg the GM can't just narrate someone wandering into the warded area 4 hours after the spell is cast without also narrating that the alarm is triggered) but otherwise leaves the GM free to introduce a threat, or not, that does or does not trigger the alarm, as they see fit.

But I think the difference between the two approaches is clear.

So this line of thought could be applied to nearly anything in game. Those who say it can't happen are wrong. The guy running the game can do ANYTHING behind the screen. God X makes BBEGI unable to be hit. Boom rolling die 20's in combat pointless. But the alternative is rules with less flexibility and DM can't design the story and encounters

 

[Maxperson]

Baseball does have a rule about when it HITS a bird (live ball). And for anything else, there is an umpire decides clause.

The point is, not all sports have rules for all circumstances that can happen in play. And at least one major league sport has an "umpire's decision."

Incomplete rules are not limited to RPGs. (in fact, referees in many wargames are given the same level of discretion, where it's intended for a game to be 3 or more people: one or more per side, plus a referee.)

Okay, sure. If a meteorite hits the ball in mid flight, the umpire can decide. Outside of these extreme, EXTREME corner cases like eagles flying off with the ball and meteorites, the rules are contained. You can go years with each major league baseball team playing hundreds of games without seeing an instance where there's an "umpire decides" incident.

It's still apples and freaking orangutans to compare a board game or sports game to RPGs when it comes to how much of the game is contained within the rules and how much is not.

 

[nevin]

Well, the OP here is using "DM Fiat" as "the DM taking any action independent of the rules".

A game rule can tell a GM what to do within some very set limits.

Or a game can have nearly no 'GM rules', so the GM can to whatever they want absolutely on a whim. This is "dm fiat" to some as the GM is not following any rules.

Assuming we are talking DND. Dm gets to mangle or change the rules anyway they see fit. The my world has little magic and the mage will only get his spells when I say so being the most normal abuse of the rules. D nD was built so that DM could build the train while it goes down the track. Arguing about the rules being broken is silly as they decide which rules to use change, or ignore.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well the big difference is that if the GM has a plot planned out then he's not really reincorporating what the player says. He's not taking it into consideration because he already knows the outcome. If the GM doesn't have a plot planned out, then he is listening to what the players are saying and taking it into consideration.

Okay… so this is the GM creativity that the players are to judge?

Wouldn’t they be able to judge it if the GM had left the NPC’s decision up to a dice roll and then narrated the result?

I don’t think I’m seeing a distinction here except for how the NPC’s decision is determined.

 

[pemerton]

So this line of thought could be applied to nearly anything in game. Those who say it can't happen are wrong. The guy running the game can do ANYTHING behind the screen. God X makes BBEGI unable to be hit. Boom rolling die 20's in combat pointless. But the alternative is rules with less flexibility and DM can't design the story and encounters

Huh? Obviously your example about "the screen", "to hit" and "rolling d20s" is all written with D&D in mind.

But what other RPGs do you have in mind when you assert that alternatives to GM-driven D&D make it impossible for the GM to design the story and encounters?

Unless by "design the story" you mean railroad, in which case what you say is possibly true.

 

[bloodtide]

For my part, I can say that the sessions I run today, using systems both newer (eg Torchbearer 2e, Burning Wheel, MHRP, D&D 4e) and older (eg Prince Valiant, Classic Traveller) are better than the ones that I was running back then (using AD&D and Rolemaster).

I guess by whatever you count as better?

That's partly because I've become better at my craft; and partly because the systems are better suited to what I am trying to do. My relative lack of prep (none for some sessions) hasn't had any sort of adverse consequences!

Having the right system is a big deal.

Like nearly anything, lots of preparation is always better then little or none. Though it does depend on the outcome you are looking for from the game. And if you keep the game very simple you don't need much prep.

The main difference between the above and more 'skilled' play is that the decision criteria for the participants will be a bit different.

I'd point out the big difference is that the DM does not make the decision.

Well the big difference is that if the GM has a plot planned out then he's not really reincorporating what the player says. He's not taking it into consideration because he already knows the outcome. If the GM doesn't have a plot planned out, then he is listening to what the players are saying and taking it into consideration.

Well, the problem here is the idea that anything a PC does or says automatically alters game reality. This would not be true in any classic traditional game. It makes for a poor game if everything in the game reality just alters at the players whim.

 

[pemerton]

I guess by whatever you count as better?

Well when I talk about better sessions, I mean that they are more engaging for the GM and players, that more interesting things happen more often, that the sort of stuff that we enjoyed in the old days but that might have occurred once every two sessions now happens multiple times per session.

Like nearly anything, lots of preparation is always better then little or none. Though it does depend on the outcome you are looking for from the game. And if you keep the game very simple you don't need much prep.

How simple do you think Torchbearer 2e is?

 

[thefutilist]

Okay… so this is the GM creativity that the players are to judge?

Wouldn’t they be able to judge it if the GM had left the NPC’s decision up to a dice roll and then narrated the result?

I don’t think I’m seeing a distinction here except for how the NPC’s decision is determined.

Wait a moment let me back up. I'm trying to describe why not using dice is desirable but that's an aesthetic preference thing. Use dice, don't use dice. My broader point is that not using dice doesn't tell us anything about whether this is GM story time or not. Using dice in a consequential way is disruptive of the GM telling a story but so what. That only matters if the GM is working backwards to get to the outcomes he wants.


Or if you really wanted to frame it in terms of story control. Then yeah the GM has story control when they decide resolutions by fiat and the player has story control when they decide resolutions by fiat.


Let's say the hitman example happens in apocalypse world. The hitman is pleading at the lover and the MC decides by fiat what the result of that is. The inverse would be true if the girlfriend was pleading at the hitman. The player gets to decide by fiat. That's just how that particular game works.

 

[pemerton]

My broader point is that not using dice doesn't tell us anything about whether this is GM story time or not.

"GM story time" is narrower than GM fiat, agreed.

Some avenues for GM fiat, though, tend to invite GM story time; or facilitate it.

 

[bloodtide]

Well when I talk about better sessions, I mean that they are more engaging for the GM and players, that more interesting things happen more often, that the sort of stuff that we enjoyed in the old days but that might have occurred once every two sessions now happens multiple times per session.

This is good.

How simple do you think Torchbearer 2e is?

Well, I'm not focused on the rules here.

I know many such games have a detailed setting built into the core rules as a core part of the game itself, with the rule of "if you use these rules you must use this setting." Plus a lot of such games have a very defined setting in general with rules saying what sort and type of game the game officially is officially. And if you don't use the rules, then your "no playing the game".

It goes back to the Alarm example, where it was said the DM "can't be expected" to know all about an assassin that might encounter the alarm cast by the PC. Well, in the classic tradational game, many DMs would know all about the assassin, right down to their personality in detail. Mostly because the DM wants to make it all up and is willing to devote considerable non-game time to doing so.