GM fiat - an illustration

[hawkeyefan]

I understand what you are saying. What I am saying is that I don't get how you can decide something that is in doubt by fiat. In the fiat decision there is automatically no longer any doubt, which is contradictory to their being doubt. If a DM is using fiat to decide what is in doubt, I question whether that DM really understands how fiat or doubt work.

It's not something I could ever imagine doing, because the very nature of being in doubt makes fiat inappropriate as a resolution method.

Is it really so surprising? The DM looks at the fictional situation, evaluates all the factors, decides what’s most likely, and then decides that’s what happens.

This process would be one covered by Rule Zero, which you’ve vociferously defended in the past… so I’m kind of taken aback by your bewilderment here.

I could so someone else maybe making a different decision, but the avalanche was massive enough, with boulders large enough, that not even a giant was going to walk away. But I've seen other DMs make all kinds of calls that I would not have made. That's part of what makes RPGs fun.

Sure, I don’t think we disagree here.

I understand what you have been saying when you say that you could also resolve it with a die roll.

Sure, but in this case I made up a rule on the spot, but one that still allowed chance to play a part. So much more along the “outside the rules” element that GM Fiat offers, but still allowing for chance.

They don't accomplish the same thing. Die rolls are typically resolved in a more narrow manner than fiat. Take the d6 up there. It only has 3 possibilities out of a greater number of possibilities out there. Fiat isn't limited to 3. Or 5 or 10 or however many the die roll represents.

Sure, but that was just an example. I could use a d100 or any other randomizer.

 

[bloodtide]

So I’m confused. “The ability to do anything is better than having limits on what you can do” applies to players or no?

No. The anything ability is not for everyone.

Well, your examples of your game aren’t always very clear… they seem too focused on how awesome you are.

Can't really help but have that shine through.

The examples you have of other peoples’ games are so off base that they tend to reveal your ignorance.

Well, they are just my take.

If players are literally at the table saying “nyah nyah” to the GM because they’ve somehow thwarted him… I would say things have gone terribly wrong.

I agree.

 

[Campbell]

As an addendum, a Torchbearer test is not an abstraction because it does not model a fictional process. Tests sustain the momentum of play by either resulting in a character achieving their aims or gaining a condition / generating a twist. Fictional positioning is an input on resolution, but the point isn't to extrapolate. It's to keep play moving, generate complications that yield interesting and thematically compelling play and bring The Grind to the forefront.

Rules can have many purposes. Not every mechanic is a representative abstraction.

 

[pemerton]

What? Of course those things are fictional positioning. And yes, the GM decides them, which was the point.

What is fictional positioning? What fictional position is constraining the GM's decision about, for instance, the time at which an ambusher strikes?

In TB all this is just abstracted in the roll, as is the enemy's methods (and capability?) of overcoming the countermeasures.

I don't know what the "this" is, in your post.

But there is nothing more abstract about rolling dice to determine if an event occurs, as opposed to deciding an event occurs.

 

[pemerton]

Nope. Only one of those things is true in the board state that is at stake. We can quibble about how we get to that point, but we have used our limited technology, the brain of the GM mapping from prior events and established facts about the world, to get to one singular result that is true of the current board state. It is a professional failing for the GM to allow that process to interfere with the separate process of determining what the opposition does.

You can assert this. But what does it actually look like? I've got 100s if not 1000s of hours of GMing experience in Rolemaster and AD&D (two systems that use the approach you are describing). How is the board state established? What is the process, for instance, for deciding that the assassin is highly perceptive, but hung over, other than imagination?

 

[hawkeyefan]

No. The anything ability is not for everyone.

This is my point. Constraint on the players makes the game function. If they can just make up anything they want whenever they want, then we're not really playing a game so much as taking turns in some kind of shared storytelling exercise. Constraint is needed.

So, what some folks are saying, myself among them, is that constraint on the GM can actually be a good thing just as it can be for the players. The constraints should be different because it's a different role, but they can still result in interesting play.

Now, if you're not familiar with this kind of game... and it seems you are not... I'm not sure why you assume you can comment on it more accurately than those who are.

Well, they are just my take.

Right. But if you were in a discussion with someone and they said that in their game one of the players cast fireball, and then had to flip 12 coins to determine the damage... you'd easily recognize that they were not really playing the game as intended.

This is how your take on other games comes across.

 

[thefutilist]

I can confidently report, though, that my Rolemaster experiences were not illustrations of such contexts!

Was that because you lacked the contextual knowledge when playing Rolemaster?

I started with Vampire 2E in like 94 or something and I would have really liked a whole book on robust fictional positioning procedures. It would have clarified a whole of things it took blood and sweat to learn.

It would also have been great because I would have learned far more quickly that I don't want think about the positioning of alarms and I don't want to play in games where such precise positioning matters.

(also your TB2E play sound cool)

 

[Maxperson]

Is it really so surprising? The DM looks at the fictional situation, evaluates all the factors, decides what’s most likely, and then decides that’s what happens.

This process would be one covered by Rule Zero, which you’ve vociferously defended in the past… so I’m kind of taken aback by your bewilderment here.

That isn't deciding something uncertain. It's being certain that the most likely option will always happen. You can't be both certain and uncertain at the same time.

As for rule 0, there's no contradiction in what I am saying. Can rule 0 be used. Yep. Should it? No, because it's a bad tool for this particular job. I've only defended what rule 0 is capable of doing. Never have I defended everything you can do with it, and in fact have argued quite often that you can do things with it that are bad/wrong.

Sure, but in this case I made up a rule on the spot, but one that still allowed chance to play a part. So much more along the “outside the rules” element that GM Fiat offers, but still allowing for chance.

Why is your DM Fiat better just because you have used to to add random chance?

Sure, but that was just an example. I could use a d100 or any other randomizer.

Make a d1000 and you still won't cover all possibilities.

 

[bloodtide]

This is my point. Constraint on the players makes the game function. If they can just make up anything they want whenever they want, then we're not really playing a game so much as taking turns in some kind of shared storytelling exercise. Constraint is needed.

I agree.

So, what some folks are saying, myself among them, is that constraint on the GM can actually be a good thing just as it can be for the players. The constraints should be different because it's a different role, but they can still result in interesting play.

Well, no. This comes from the strange idea that everyone must be equal in all things always, and the DM is "just a player in the game like all the other players". The reason to have limits in a game is to enhance the game.

The player in an RPG limits themselves to a single character with the basic goal of having an adventure through that character. This should be easy to understand as it is no fun, and there is no game even, if a player can just do anything. It's like round one of the game would just be the PC rules the multiverse.....and end game.

The DM does not have a character in the game though. The DM is the whole mutliverse of the game. Unlike the player, the DM has no personal stake in the game. So what is there to limit? The thing I guess so many players want to take away from the DM is the power to hurt, harm, kill or do anything 'bad' to any character in anyway. And this is just ruining the game exactly like the above by making the character immortal. If nothing negative can happen to the characters, there is no game.

Now, if you're not familiar with this kind of game... and it seems you are not... I'm not sure why you assume you can comment on it more accurately than those who are.

Never said that.

Right. But if you were in a discussion with someone and they said that in their game one of the players cast fireball, and then had to flip 12 coins to determine the damage... you'd easily recognize that they were not really playing the game as intended.

Depends on the game?

This is how your take on other games comes across.

It is just a failure of comprehension

You can assert this. But what does it actually look like? I've got 100s if not 1000s of hours of GMing experience in Rolemaster and AD&D (two systems that use the approach you are describing). How is the board state established? What is the process, for instance, for deciding that the assassin is highly perceptive, but hung over, other than imagination?

Well, it is more then just imagination: It is a lot of mental skills and abilities.

 

[Pedantic]

You can assert this. But what does it actually look like? I've got 100s if not 1000s of hours of GMing experience in Rolemaster and AD&D (two systems that use the approach you are describing). How is the board state established? What is the process, for instance, for deciding that the assassin is highly perceptive, but hung over, other than imagination?

I believe I was pretty clear. The GM attempts to map from prior established facts and causal chains of events to get to the current board state. My whole initial point was that reducing that process to a single thing, instead of acknowledging that you could use a bunch of approaches with different implications for play (say, the GM doesn't have to respect causality, but must respect rising action, so whatever is narrated next must be more exciting than what came before, or perhaps we're dealing with a rule of cool system where we accept whatever the GM proposes, unless a player proposes an alternative that the table thinks is more appealing).

It would obviously be superior if we could examine the imagined space to determine what's happening directly, instead of suffering the limitations of doing so on the GM's limited processing power, and limited communication, but we can't, so we put up with the shortcomings. In exchange for that frustrating limitation, we get a significantly more dynamic board to play on, that allows for novel and interesting lines of play to emerge.