GM fiat - an illustration

[Maxperson]

Again though, a game like Dungeon World handles this without the character of fiat. The player describes the action, the GM's job is just to decide what move is triggered. Technically they could say 'none' and try to move on to the fight they imagined, but this is so explicitly a betrayal of the agenda, principles, and techniques the game describes that it would be hard to characterize as legitimate GMing.

I'd expect a move involving a roll of the dice would happen and the outcome of that, combined with other details, would suggest following fiction. General mechanics that handle any sort of situation that is not just cut and dried.

Okay, but D&D doesn't. The question wasn't, "What does fiat bring to Dungeon World?" It was an open question, and so included all RPG systems including D&D.

DM Fiat is the best tool D&D has.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay, but D&D doesn't. The question wasn't, "What does fiat bring to Dungeon World?" It was an open question, and so included all RPG systems including D&D.

DM Fiat is the best tool D&D has.

I accept that is a valid opinion. I'm not arguing with anyone about what D&D is, or should be.

Honestly I think classic fiat play can be avoided in D&D. 5e at least has the rudiments of a process where play moves from scene to scene based on principles and agenda that are more tightly focused on player-centered fiction, and probably using techniques like partial success, fail forward, and others. It's not the best Narrativist system, but you can make it work.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay, but D&D doesn't. The question wasn't, "What does fiat bring to Dungeon World?" It was an open question, and so included all RPG systems including D&D.

DM Fiat is the best tool D&D has.

That's true. I don't recall a "narrativist or gamist discussion only" tag in the OP either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I accept that is a valid opinion. I'm not arguing with anyone about what D&D is, or should be.

Honestly I think classic fiat play can be avoided in D&D. 5e at least has the rudiments of a process where play moves from scene to scene based on principles and agenda that are more tightly focused on player-centered fiction, and probably using techniques like partial success, fail forward, and others. It's not the best Narrativist system, but you can make it work.

If you want to, sure. You can inject simulationist elements into any game too if you do a little work.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Okay, but D&D doesn't. The question wasn't, "What does fiat bring to Dungeon World?" It was an open question, and so included all RPG systems including D&D.

DM Fiat is the best tool D&D has.

The OP is about the role of fiat in the resolution process... or perhaps roles of it in the resolution process.

There's always going to be some amount of GM fiat. However, usually this is going to be in the setup of a conflict or obstacle. Not necessarily in its resolution.

D&D would seem to at least imply if not explicitly state that the DM is allowed to use fiat to resolve a situation or conflict.

In that sense, I don't think "DM Fiat is the best tool D&D has". I'm not even sure what that means.

 

[pemerton]

If we think about what happens in a typical sequence of play in a reasonably typical RPG, it looks roughly like this. First, in the fiction:

*One or more people are confronted with some sort of obstacle, challenge or similar opportunity for or instigation to action;

*The confronted person(s) takes(s) action to try and overcome or surmount the obstacle, take up the opportunity, etc

*Something happens as a result of what is done​

Then we can talk about how this happens at the table.

*Someone authors the person(s) who will be confronted - including, in particular, giving them motivations/goals such that certain events or states of affairs count as obstacles or opportunities, etc, for them;

*Someone authors the particular obstacle, challenge, opportunity etc that confronts them;

*Someone authors the actions taken by the person(s) confronted;

*Someone authors the resulting events/consequences.​

It's generally taken for granted that the authorship of those to be confronted is done under constraints - we call these the game's PC build rules.

The authorship of the motivations/goals for those persons is a contentious matter among RPGers, in part because it's often something that the rules are rather silent on and so it is left as an exercise for the participants. There are a couple of currently active threads - one about using published adventures, another about GMing mysteries - which to me seem to indicate that it is at least quite common for these motivations/goals to be "pre-packaged" in the sense that they are negotiated among the participants as a precursor to play ("We're going to play this sort of game") rather than being worked out as part of play.

Where we get into GM fiat terrain is in the ensuing steps.

It's common for the GM to be the one who authors the obstacle/challenge/opportunity. What constraints govern this can depend on game rules - eg classic D&D has rules for building a starting dungeon of an appropriate level; Burning Wheel requires that the obstacle/challenge "speak", in some fashion, to a player-authored priority/motivation/goal for the character who is to be confronted by the obstacle/challenge; 4e D&D has expectations for assigning difficulties to obstacles; etc. There may also be non-rules-generated constraints, from X-card-y stuff ("No giant spiders, please") to shared expectations around what is fun, what makes sense in genre, etc. (Eg in my GMing of FRPGs I don't use sci-fi elements as components of the obstacles that I present .) Obviously there is a lot of scope for GM fiat here, but it varies across RPGs.

It's probably the norm for the players to author the actions taken by those who are confronted by the challenges/obstacles/opportunities. But there is plenty of evidence that GMs play a role in this too - eg by reminding players of their character's alignments, by asking "Are you sure?", by using explicit or implicit cues to signal what actions must be declared if the adventure is to progress (eg no killing the "quest-giver"), etc. But mostly this stuff probably doesn't count as GM fiat - it's more like GM commentary/advice/suggestions/directions.

The step of authoring what follows from what the confronted person(s) do(es) is probably the most contentious in RPGing, and is probably where the greatest variation in approaches to GM fiat is found. Constraints that operate here can include those that consist in or follow from mechanical processes (D&D combat is a well-known example), or those that follow from non-mechanical principles (eg the Apocalypse World rules about when the GM may make a move as hard and direct as they like, and when they are more constrained), or those that combine both mechanics and non-mechanical principles (eg the rule in BW that if a player succeeds on their roll, then not only does that player's character succeed at their task, but they also attain their intent).

The example of the assassin who circumvents the Alarm spell lives in this space. The situation is one of the player's character camping. This provides an opportunity (eg to rest and recuperate) but also a threat (of being ambushed etc). The Alarm spell is cast in response, with the intention of reducing that threat. (By stipulating that intention I set to one side, here, the possibility suggested by @Pedantic and @Joanna Geist that the player's use of the spell is an invitation for an ambush.) What happens? In the assassin example, the GM uses their authority over vast elements of unrevealed backstory and setting stuff to establish and (ultimately) reveal a fiction in which the Alarm spell, although well-cast, does not actually protect the character who cast it.

Aetherial Premonitions, on the other hand, feeds into a mechanical process for determining whether camping leads to an ambush or some similar consequence, and so it is only after the mechanical process is resolved that the GM might then be entitled, by the rules, to author some explanation about super-capable assassins or whatever. This is structurally similar to D&D combat, where the GM can't author that an opponent dodges deftly until after the dice are rolled and reveal a miss by the attacking character.

The GM doesn't have unilateral power to interrupt the spell in either version. Your party members are present. Hopefully they are at least smart enough to keep watch for sixty seconds while you cast a spell that serves their self interests.

The GM can fiat up a monster with a 90d covert rank, sure. But the GM can also decide that a mountain falls on you at any time

If that last sentence is true, then the first sentence is not true. If the GM has the power to declare that any event they like is occurring, then (as a special case of that) they have the power to declare that some event occurs which interrupts the casting of the spell.

this is true no matter what game you're playing. In any game where one party has infinite resources and others do not, fair play is required for the game to function at all.

It doesn't actually matter what the book says. The GM can still do whatever he wants. Certainly, he may find himself without players and/or with additional black eyes, I'm not disputing that. But he still has the capability.

It's not true in all RPGs that the GM can (eg) declare that a mountain falls. That depends on the rules for framing obstacles and for narrating outcomes/results/consequences, as per what I've written just above in this post.

And I don't think it's very useful to say "it doesn't actually matter what the books says". Here's an illustration to show why:

Suppose that I'm discussing chess with someone. We're discussing the utility of rooks vs bishops, and one of us makes the point that bishops are confined to operating on, and threatening, squares of just one colour. It would be silly to respond, "But that doesn't matter because you can always cheat and move your bishop onto an adjacent square of a different colour". I mean, yes I'm sure that's a thing that someone playing chess once did; but the possibility of flagrant cheating isn't something to be factored into a discussion of how the game plays. (Unless there is a "meta" for the game in which cheating is so rife that it has to be factored in to anyone's approach to play.)

RPGing is the same. People can cheat on dice rolls; that doesn't mean that we don't talk about play assuming proper and honest use of the dice. Participants - players and GMs - can ignore the rules. That doesn't mean that, in discussing play, we assume that they will do so.

 

[Pedantic]

Just going to fire off some thoughts/clarifications/rejoinders as we have a pretty significant amount of daylight between us:

ON RANDOMNESS:

I'm going to tag @thefutilist here rather than replying to his post to me as some of what I'm saying here engages with his response.

Though my post you replied to doesn't enumerate the entirety of what I would be conceiving in such a system (which would either be Torchbearer flat-out or kindred), I want to be clear that your conception of such a system would be (a) short-shrifting the layered and longitudinal decision-space (giving significant expression and consequence to both tactical and strategic play) inherent to deciding to cast the equivalent of an Alarm spell while (b) also imagining an increased signature on play of fortune resolution ("randomization"...which also isn't total randomization as the decision would entail mustering currency, possibly proactively generating toll on character, while simultaneously engaging with advancement scheme in a thoughtful way). I don't mean to point at you directly, but I definitely feel like there are some confounders to your sense of how this comes together holistically in various games. For example:

* Various forms of Poker feature the randomization of drawn hands, drawn cards, and blind hole cards (which may be blind to opponents or even blind parts of a hand that you are to play). My sense is that your hypothesis on these kinds of games should be that skill is mostly noise and randomization is the signal. Even in relatively "simple" (not simplistic) games of Poker, this is just not true and results bear that out. Better players win more than worse players and the best players in the world and at the table dominate. You'll see a very stray rogue win by someone who isn't on the level of a great or world class player, but overwhelmingly tables are won by better players and the long haul of strategic play over time absolutely bears out that better players (and certainly world class ones) dominate results.

* The game you're imagining (some kind of deck building game akin to MtG or something) has a host of consequential, randomized elements that you're eliminating from your scenario and its analysis. These include (i) match-up, (ii) starting hand drawn, (iii) early game draws, (iv) resource for ramping and "curving out", (v) opponent's own (i-iv) which lets them interrupt your sequences/curve-out/meta-scheme, and even (vi) fortune resolution within play (some novel cards/games feature dice rolling along with the other layers of play). Yet, like Poker, these random elements don't swarm over the Skilled Play valuation of games individually and certainly over a sequence of games. Controlling for ridiculous match-up problems, it is a fairly trivial matter to suss out poor players from good players and that only increases as you move toward a tail (the elite and world class players are profoundly better than average players and examination of play easily susses that out).

Alright, give me a little credit as a person who's played games before. I don't particularly like poker (I'm in the particular board game camp that objects to gambling as a game mechanic in general), but I by no means don't understand it. I'd have more fun playing a round of The Gang, but question of risk analysis combined with push your luck can be an interesting and valid gameplay mechanism, it's just not a lot of fun in its pure form. There's a surprisingly small overlap between people who are good at (and enjoy playing) poker, and your eurogame crowd, precisely because the gameplay loops offer entirely different kinds of engagement. On the other hand, I've put more time in Netrunner than any other game, and that's entirely repeated risk analysis, modified by matchup knowledge, and is interesting entirely as a function of card distribution.

My objection has to do with the deployment of randomness, because the when and how it's used in a design is significant to the outcome. I used the card game scenario because I think the particular approach (controlled randomness of available resources, mitigated by planning for specific matchups) is a good analog for the kind of gameplay Alarm encourages in D&D. Generally, I object to randomness playing a significant role in determining resolution, vs. determining board state going into the situation. Your MtG player proposal is pretty funny actually, because there's a whole trend of fairly expert TCG players going on to design games that undermine the necessary variability of card draws. It's easy to misunderstand the drive as a player to reduce variability as a design directive instead. I've got a whole other rant on the underlying problems with what I'd call "dude-basher" card game design to begin with (in the briefest, most provocative terms: if your ability to draw for answers is determined at deck construction, your game is bad), but that's an entirely different diversion.

Ultimately though, I don't think the test you're proposing here, "can we separate good vs. bad players through analysis of repeated play?" is getting to the heart of the problem, That it's possible to be skilled at a game doesn't really say much about whether the game is engaging. I'm much more concerned with the kinds of decisions the gameplay creates, the points at which variable lines of play become possible, and whether or not different strategies are viable. I agree that a game that does not permit skilled play (or with trivial optimization cases) isn't interesting, but that's just one criteria. There's a lot of things to worry about after that that different players will evaluate differently, but I'd probably start with these questions:

• How often does it produce non-trivial decisions?
• How much influence can a player build over the board state?

ON GMING SIMULATING COMPETITION

While it isn't in your face as a physical randomizer like fortune resolution, I also think you're significantly short-shrifting the significant signature of randomness that is (even an expert) "GM simulating competition" in the way you're imagining. To unpack that "in the way you're imagining" (presumably here, based on this conversation and prior ones), I presume you're referring to (i) mental modeling of extraordinarily complex systems, (ii) articulating the complex systems' dynamics to amateur and expert player alike in such a way that those players can functionally perform their OODA (Observe > Orient > Decide > Act) Loop based on the GM's description of fictional positioning, then (iii) employ some kind of principled opposition regime in a way that sufficiently corrects for personal bias while engaging with and deploying (this GM's perception of...which also must be functionally conveyed to players) fictional positioning & simulation scheme-derived countermeasures.

This is the usual no-true-simulation version of the No True Scotsman argument, which, much like you have given up trying to break out into its component parts, I have no real patience for at this point. Until a better simulative technology than a human making up the world comes along, I'll continue to use the one we have. The gameplay enabled by a player interacting with the wide array of possibilities that can spin out from an unbounded board is too valuable and interesting to toss out with the resulting shortcomings.

However, something substantive here that I do want to focus on is the proposed interrelation of the GM modeling these complex systems and what you're calling "principled opposition," because it is significant to the simulated opposition I'm talking about that the GM behave differently when performing those two tasks. It's an interesting historical accident that we combined with the judge who in theory is maintaining and reporting the board state with the player animating the opposition. You can just as easily envision wargames that shifted toward a one vs. many structure, while maintaining a separate judge. Regardless, the GM is functioning as a separate entity across those two roles; the hunter is not the board state, and is, ideally, as limited as the PC in accessing that information.

This is what I mean by "simulated opposition." The GM takes on the role of the opposition, attempting to limit their interaction with the gamestate to the same tools available to a PC.

In competitive games, including solo games like crosswords, including solo games like crosswords, you're testing a specific skill or variety of skills. In the case of a crossword someone has constructed a puzzle but it's not enough that it just be hard A good crossword, even at the highest level, has to reveal itself as hard and fair. Such that if you fail and someone explains why you failed, you can slap your forehead 'doh, of course.'


There are people that consider some games more pure than others. So chess is more pure than poker because it doesn't have random elements. I'm not one of those people. Good competitive games can include randomness for a variety of reasons. The important thing is that skill will eventually reveal itself because there is still skill involved. But too much randomness can destroy the ability show skill.

This focus on "skill" does such a disservice to the whole endeavor. The whole reason people develop these skills is because the thing they are doing is interesting. Games are a fun trick for the human pattern seeking endeavor, where we create and model systems, then find patterns in these artificially defined and limited spaces that we can exploit toward an agreed end. Being good at that is less important than wanting to do it, and appreciating those patterns in the first place. I will certainly learn from a conversation after a game about a different line I could have taken, and may play better in future, but I played the game to see what would happen when I pursued a line, and to enable the conversation at all.

Getting to make an interesting and impactful decision at all will always be more important than making the right choice.

 

[Maxperson]

The OP is about the role of fiat in the resolution process... or perhaps roles of it in the resolution process.

There's always going to be some amount of GM fiat. However, usually this is going to be in the setup of a conflict or obstacle. Not necessarily in its resolution.

D&D would seem to at least imply if not explicitly state that the DM is allowed to use fiat to resolve a situation or conflict.

The DM can use it in the resolution system. It's baked into the ability check system very clearly. You only roll if the outcome is in doubt. The DM decides if the outcome is in doubt, or if it automatically succeeds or automatically fails. The latter two options are DM fiat. The DM decides.

It can be used in other places as well. Once the players dropped a large avalanche of boulders onto a giant in a ravine. I could have asked for damage, but I decided that the giant couldn't survive it and just declared it dead.

In that sense, I don't think "DM Fiat is the best tool D&D has". I'm not even sure what that means.

DM fiat allows the DM to step beyond the game when the limitations are inappropriate or in the way of something much better that makes as much sense or more to happen. And it's required when the game is vague or doesn't address something, which 5e does three times a day and every other Tuesday.

There is no single tool that is better for resolving things. There will often be a better tool for X or Y particular instances, but those tools are highly limited to whatever specific thing they address, so are not as good overall as DM fiat.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Point of order: Fiats are terrible cars for GMs, as they have almost no trunk space for all their RPG books. And if they have miniatures or especially terrain, forget it.

 

[bloodtide]

It's common for the GM to be the one who authors the obstacle/challenge/opportunity. What constraints govern this can depend on game rules -

Though plenty of games have no constraints.

It's probably the norm for the players to author the actions taken by those who are confronted by the challenges/obstacles/opportunities. But there is plenty of evidence that GMs play a role in this too - eg by reminding players of their character's alignments, by asking "Are you sure?", by using explicit or implicit cues to signal what actions must be declared if the adventure is to progress (eg no killing the "quest-giver"), etc. But mostly this stuff probably doesn't count as GM fiat - it's more like GM commentary/advice/suggestions/directions.

Okay.

The step of authoring what follows from what the confronted person(s) do(es) is probably the most contentious in RPGing, and is probably where the greatest variation in approaches to GM fiat is found. Constraints that operate here can include those that consist in or follow from mechanical processes (D&D combat is a well-known example), or those that follow from non-mechanical principles (eg the Apocalypse World rules about when the GM may make a move as hard and direct as they like, and when they are more constrained), or those that combine both mechanics and non-mechanical principles (eg the rule in BW that if a player succeeds on their roll, then not only does that player's character succeed at their task, but they also attain their intent).

I would just point out the Beyond the Game bit here. While some games say clearly when and how a player-DM can make a move, a lot of games don't have that structure. In D&D combat, for example, a DM can create or use any foe/monster/creature they want. So sure you can "follow the combat rules all day long", but the DM can really control things.

The example of the assassin who circumvents the Alarm spell lives in this space. The situation is one of the player's character camping. This provides an opportunity (eg to rest and recuperate) but also a threat (of being ambushed etc). The Alarm spell is cast in response, with the intention of reducing that threat. (By stipulating that intention I set to one side, here, the possibility suggested by @Pedantic and @Joanna Geist that the player's use of the spell is an invitation for an ambush.) What happens? In the assassin example, the GM uses their authority over vast elements of unrevealed backstory and setting stuff to establish and (ultimately) reveal a fiction in which the Alarm spell, although well-cast, does not actually protect the character who cast it.

Okay.

Aetherial Premonitions, on the other hand, feeds into a mechanical process for determining whether camping leads to an ambush or some similar consequence, and so it is only after the mechanical process is resolved that the GM might then be entitled, by the rules, to author some explanation about super-capable assassins or whatever. This is structurally similar to D&D combat, where the GM can't author that an opponent dodges deftly until after the dice are rolled and reveal a miss by the attacking character.

Now compared to "the DM can do whatever they want" vs "only after a mechanical process is resolved can the DM act, by the rules", makes that second one very limiting. As this is the games intention.

I'm not sure I follow your D&D example. I can give a character a spell/ability/item well before any combat dice are rolled so they can dodge attacks.

If that last sentence is true, then the first sentence is not true. If the GM has the power to declare that any event they like is occurring, then (as a special case of that) they have the power to declare that some event occurs which interrupts the casting of the spell.

Okay.

It's not true in all RPGs that the GM can (eg) declare that a mountain falls. That depends on the rules for framing obstacles and for narrating outcomes/results/consequences, as per what I've written just above in this post.

Some RPGs limit a DMs power to do anything.

And I don't think it's very useful to say "it doesn't actually matter what the books says". Here's an illustration to show why:

Suppose that I'm discussing chess with someone. We're discussing the utility of rooks vs bishops, and one of us makes the point that bishops are confined to operating on, and threatening, squares of just one colour. It would be silly to respond, "But that doesn't matter because you can always cheat and move your bishop onto an adjacent square of a different colour". I mean, yes I'm sure that's a thing that someone playing chess once did; but the possibility of flagrant cheating isn't something to be factored into a discussion of how the game plays. (Unless there is a "meta" for the game in which cheating is so rife that it has to be factored in to anyone's approach to play.)

RPGing is the same. People can cheat on dice rolls; that doesn't mean that we don't talk about play assuming proper and honest use of the dice. Participants - players and GMs - can ignore the rules. That doesn't mean that, in discussing play, we assume that they will do so.

This is how and why RPGs are unique.

A board game like chess is made for A)Nearly everyone B) Nearly every age (6-99) and C)to be played in a short amount of time. So the game has a simple direct set of rules and a very simple direct way to win and end the game. Chess is a game you can play in the back seat of the family car with your sister on your way to Wally World.

Like all board games, chess is very limited. The rules of most board games are pamphlets.

RPGs are very, very, very different. They are unlimited. The only limit is your imagination. The rules of most RPGs are very complex and vague, and you can't "win".

Why? Why does unlimited authority improve your game?

Because the ability to do anything is better then having limits on what you can do.

You make comments about why you think games that limit the GM’s authority suffer in some way… but your comments also show that you have at best a rudimentary understanding of such games.

I do often use the examples of others from such games too.

It’d be awesome if any of your examples didn’t include absurdities like the players taunting the GM.

This is not exactly an absurdity...

But in general all these games share some core things, which is that it's irrelevant if you get out of one or another situation. There's always another. These are pretty easily constructed, beating one is fun, perhaps, but playing them is the point. It's a very different mentality than what you're espousing. You cannot analyze it in terms of trad play values (though you can certainly compare the two).

Except the game(s) are different from say D&D. There are limits put on the 'player-DM'. The 'player-DM' has rules in the rulebook they must follow.

There are differences.

So the games can't be exactly the same in every way.