GM fiat - an illustration

[AbdulAlhazred]

The how is the thing here. If a GM is deciding you suddenly face an Ogre Because he is trying to kill the party, versus you suddenly face an ogre because thirty minutes ago the PCs killed that ogres brother, those are two entirely different things

Exactly! The social dynamics of play, its process, and agenda. We've been saying this for at a dozen years here!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've never found this argument compelling, because you can get usually get far enough on what's ruled out to have a gameable state. If nothing else, whatever the GM comes up with to defeat your alarm this time is something you can prepare for next time, and at the very least they'll have to make something else up. I personally think you can do a lot better with more descriptive rules, but that's the baseline.

Setting that aside though, there still isn't an alternative; the gameplay substitution of turning that board state over to dice doesn't produce the same kind of gameplay. Specifically choosing what counters to deploy can't be emulated by interpreting a die result to explain what that choice might have been.

I'm actually curious as a design question if you could get close. If you could somehow specify the possible fictional states ahead of time to a level of completeness you wouldn't lump into fiat, and then select from that total set some amount of possibilities the GM could introduce, which could be prevented through various resource expenditures by the player, maybe with roughly assigned probabilities to each scenario?

Ultimately, it just becomes an asymptote to "the GM tries to simulate everything" as you expand the set. It's funny, because that same fuzziness about how big that set is is the entire gameplay driven justification for "why an RPG and not some other game?"

Just go read/play TB2e, there's plenty of game there! Quite hard core play actually.

 

[bloodtide]

I’d be willing to bet that if you even DM regularly, your game is a bog-standard viking hat DM power fantasy.

Bogs? Vikings? By the Bristling Beard of Odin it is not so!

I would imagine that you care about your game and your setting far more than your players do.

More then my bad players, equal with my good players.

What example? The ham sandwich joke? I read it, I don’t think it makes a point.

Well, maybe:

Ok, so limit your self you go to a McDonalds for dinner. You can order anything you want, form that Mcdonalds. So you can only order the food that is there.

I'm limitless, and can go anyplace and get any food I want.

See how you limit yourself to the Mcfood, and I can eat any food I want. This type of limit is bad.

The character doesn’t make the inn, silly. The inn’s always been there in the game world, and the player has the Knight character declare that he knows about it.

No different than when you tell your players an inn is nearby.

Except it is not though. If any other player asked if there was an inn nearby would you give the same answer?

Your game play alters game reality on the players whim, then you say "wink wink" it has always been this way.

It’s not about permission. And there are plenty of other parts of the game where I simply introduce new information just as you would in your game.

Oh, well that is good at least.

The difference is with Spire, I also have to do so in response to player prompts like the Pubcrawler ability. It’s a type of imagination that your game seems to lack.

I'm glad my game does not have this servitude. Where the player makes a demand, "backed by the rules" and the DM just rolls over and bows down to say "yes player, as you command".

The rules are hostile to the GM? No they’re not. Just because a rule gives some authority to a player doesn’t make it hostile to the GM.

Well, the rule examples you gave are all DM hostile and attacks on the DM. They are all "the player demands the DM do something"

Maybe there are other rules? Maybe some player only focused ones?

I’m sure your players act like they’re looking around a room and then say “what do I see” and you tell them what they see.

My players are Role-Playing Acting nearly all the time in my game.

Yes, players eventually catch on when they are being railroaded. If they didn't, people wouldn't complain about railroads because they would never realize they are on them

Nah, this almost never happens.

Then I pick six to potentially happen in the game and then roll!

So I have infinite possibilities, too! And then six can potentially happen, instead of just the one!!

I would just recommend a more open mind with more then just a few small limited things.

Approach A
1. Imagine all possibilities
2. Choose one of them

Approach B
1. Imagine all possibilities
2. Choose six of them and roll a dice

So I would guess the above two approaches look the same to a lot of people? You start with 'infinity' and get it down to just one. All the same to many...

Except it is not. As soon as you Choose, your limiting the outcomes. And what you Choose, by logic or bias or DM Fiat will greatly effect the outcomes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Nah, this almost never happens.

I would say this happens all the time.

 

[thefutilist]

I just really, really do not think the Alarm spell is such a situation and I feel that the TB method that is seen as preferable to some strips elements that I feel to be important. But like I've been saying before, it also is a matter of preference at what level of detail you want to handle certain things in an RPG. In practice we end up eliding various factors that matter when utilising various rules, and I don't think there is one objective answer to how much is too much.

It's more fundamental than that. You're resolving conflicts between elements in the situation. The TB2E mechanic is triggered off intent and is only resolving a conflict if you really squint. They're not really comparable.

Resolution on a different level of granularity would look something like:

Player: I camp and set wards to protect myself.

GM: Someone is trying to attack you, let's roll conflict to see how well your wards work.

Then either something like:

Succeed: Your alarm alerts you in the middle of the night, you awaken to see Henrik the hunter stalking towards your tent.

Fail: You wake up to an intense pain in your stomach. Henrik the hunter is hovering over you holding a bloody knife.

The positioning of the two established elements have changed relative to each other but there's just less detail.

 

[pemerton]

A) You are correct that not all Jacksons would take out a hit on the party. Presumably the DM knows the personality and motivations of this particular Jackson and has determined that he would send an assassin.

B) The DM would also presumably know what means are available to the Jackson, and been able to figure out not only that he could send an assassin(had the contacts and means), but also how good of an assassin. Not all assassins are created equal. Some Jacksons might only be able to send a moderately decent assassin, while the BBE-Jackson would have access to the best.

C) Like A and B, the DM presumably knows what other plates the Jackson has spinning around and would know if the Jackson could or would send the assassin.

<snip>

You are overestimating how much the DM needs to know in order to make a good decision. What I list above is enough to be able to simulate for the game whether or not the Jackson could or would send an assassin, and how to go about determining if or when the assassin finds the group.

You didn't actually list anything, though.

What you said is that the GM will know Jackson's personality and motivation, and thus has determined what Jackson would do. Of course someone can decide something about what a character might do, that is consistent with that person's personality and motivation, that is very different from there being a unique or even narrowly-constrained possibility as to what that character might do, given some mentioned personality and motivation.

You also said that the MG will presumably know what means are available to Jackson and thus will be able to make further inferences. What is the basis for this presumption? I've read a lot of RPG materials over the past 40-odd years. I've prepared a lot of them, too. Just considering, say, the material found in the City of Greyhawk boxed set, it doesn't tell me whether most NPCs have the means, knowledge etc to hire an assassin of such-and-such quality. That's before we get to the question of what quality means in the context of trying to ambush someone protected by an Alarm spell - which depends heavily on things like Perception. In many RPG rules, an assassin of a given level or points-build may be quite variable in their perception skill.

Finally, you also say that the GM will presumably know what other plates Jackson has spinning around. Most material I'm familiar with doesn't tell me how many children most NPCs have, let alone how to determine whether one of those children has an upcoming wedding or birthday which might consume the attention of the NPC. And that's just one of a million "spinning plates" that Jackson might be dealing with.

All I can see that you're really pointing to is that a GM can make decisions about what a NPC might do, and in making that decision might have regard to some of the relevant in-fiction factors.

Why? The gamists still set up camp in the safest spots, take the best precautions, set watches, etc. to minimize the dangers to them. That would include a potential assassin.

And what benefit flows from those choices? And what trade-offs are involved? And did any of it ever matter, if the GM has decided that because of his son's upcoming wedding Jackson is too busy to send an assassin after the players' characters?

There are no failure points in a game where the DM and players are on the same page. The players know and trust the DM to have good reasons for why things happen the way that they do.

Yes, if the players are happy to go along with what the GM says, then - by definition - they will be happy to go along with what the GM says.

This doesn't tell us anything about @Manbearcat's point, though, which is that this does not robustly support challenge-oriented ("gamist") play.

 

[bloodtide]

I would say this happens all the time.

I guess this does depend on the quality of the players a lot.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Ok, so limit your self you go to a McDonalds for dinner. You can order anything you want, form that Mcdonalds. So you can only order the food that is there.

I'm limitless, and can go anyplace and get any food I want.

See how you limit yourself to the Mcfood, and I can eat any food I want. This type of limit is bad.

For which of us might it be more difficult to find something we truly liked?

You’re struggling to understand your own metaphor, mate.

Except it is not though. If any other player asked if there was an inn nearby would you give the same answer?

Your game play alters game reality on the players whim, then you say "wink wink" it has always been this way.

Well, there is no “game reality”. There’s just make believe that we agree on. So yes, it can change. You’ve pointed out how you as DM have control of the muultiverse… obviously, you change things now and then.

In my Spire game, a player had the ability to say there was an in or tavern nearby, once per game session. It’s pretty minimal by comparison, and totally manageable.

If one of the other players asked if there was an inn or tavern nearby, I’d answer based on what I thought would make for interesting play. If I said no, and the Knight player then chimed in to use his ability, then I’d say “Oh right, it does turn out that there’s an inn nearby… you didn’t think of it at first because it’s owned by a drow named Haggard… and you slept with his wife” or something else suitably complicated.

I'm glad my game does not have this servitude. Where the player makes a demand, "backed by the rules" and the DM just rolls over and bows down to say "yes player, as you command".

Well, yeah… you’re scared oof the very idea of player authority. Of course you don’t want a game that enables it.

Well, the rule examples you gave are all DM hostile and attacks on the DM. They are all "the player demands the DM do something"

Hostile in what way? Attacks in what way?

My players are Role-Playing Acting nearly all the time in my game.

How do your players know if there is a chest in a room? How do they learn if there’s a secret door?

Nah, this almost never happens.

I would imagine that many of your players absolutely know they’re being railroaded. My guess is that they tolerate it because they either like it or it’s the only kind of game they’ve ever known and so they don’t realize how much better it could be.

I would just recommend a more open mind

That’s hysterical.

 

[hawkeyefan]

All I can see that you're really pointing to is that a GM can make decisions about what a NPC might do, and in making that decision might have regard to some of the relevant in-fiction factors.

I think that many folks have been doing this so long and are so comfortable with it, that they no longer realize what they’re actually doing. They think of the setting as some independently operating entity. I mean, that starts out as the goal… to make decisions as if that was the case. And that’s perfectly fine as a goal or a guiding principle to GMing.

But folks get so comfortable with it, that when they talk about it, they describe it that way. But that’s not what it is. It’s a collection of many, many GM decisions, combined with details that have been established in play, connected to nearly innumerable blanks spots.

It makes discussion difficult.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think the players need to individually check every possible methods of entrance. Like they can say they check all entrances to the place and the GM tells them what they are.

What if some of the entrances are hidden (say, smuggling tunnels) or seem to be rusted shut, or . . . ? What if the GM doesn't have all the entrances written out for every warehouse in this particular town?

Maybe we go back to dice rolls and so on, but that is what I thought we were supposed to be avoiding.

What is salient to the situation needs not to be just one thing. This is what I meant when said you probably understand "the situation" far more narrowly than I do, and I think @thefutilist alluded to in their post about different approaches of handling the situation; that in different games different things can be salient. D&D for example is the sort of game where locations, distances and placements of doors tend to matter, so they are part of resolving the situation.

That last sentence is true, yes. I'm someone who has made that point often and loudly.

When does the GM draw the map? Make all the decisions about distances, sight-lines, etc?

And how does the GM decide the point from which the assassin strikes? Do all assassins always strike from outside 20', worried about the possibility of otherwise triggering an Alarm spell?

The claim that all this stuff can just be done, so that it is following by extrapolation of ingame causation rather than GM decision-making, I find to be belied by my own experience.

In my Torchbearer game, the principle settlement that the PCs spent time in for the first part of the campaign, was the Wizard's Tower. This is a small-ish village clustered about the eponymous tower. I did not have a map of every building in the settlement. When the PCs decided to go and confront the NPC Gerda at her apartment, I had to make a decision on the spur of the moment as to what the architecture would be like. I decided that Gerda, as she was (i) a Dwarf, and (ii) was spending most of her time in her apartment brooding over her cursed Elfstone, would have set up a deadfall above the (obvious) front entrance. And then, once the PCs had made their way through that, I narrated the interior architecture which set the framing for (first) the Pursuit conflict (as Gerda tried to flee) and (subsequently) the Kill conflicts.

If the resolution of the deadfall, or of the pursuit, was done via map-and-key tracking of distance and location, rather than tests against appropriate obstacles, play would not have been better. And fictional positioning would not have been enhanced - asking a player questions like "Where do you stand as you open the door?" or "How do you operate the door latch?" don't establish and enhance fictional positioning, in my experience - rather, they prompt the player to try and guess which squares/positions/methods are safe or hazardous. Which is less verisimiltudinous than the actual surprise that was generated when - the players not having had their PCs Scout the entrance to the apartment - I called for Health tests to avoid/resist the stones from the deadfall.

Some situations in some games are such that, it becomes too much of "GM makes something up" and some additional structure would be beneficial. I for example have long advocated for more guidance, examples and structure for 5e skill section (sadly 5.5 made it even worse than it was, which certainly was an impressive feat.)

I just really, really do not think the Alarm spell is such a situation and I feel that the TB method that is seen as preferable to some strips elements that I feel to be important.

I don't think I've seen you actually articulate what those elements are.

The example of Torchbearer play that I just gave seems relevant here, too, at least to me. There are "objective" difficulties for various tests in Torchbearer. I just actually performed a little experiment - I checked my table of difficulties for avoiding traps/hazards, complied by reference to the examples in the rulebooks and other published scenarios:

To not fall into a concealed pit: Health Ob 2
To leap to safety from a collapsing or false floor trap: Health Ob 2 or 3
To not plunge into a crevice that opens beneath you: Health Ob 3
To not slide down a slippery chute with treacherous footing: Health Ob 3
To avoid injury and being swept downstream, when falling into a stream from a height: Health Ob 3
To avoid a blade trap by moving away in time: Health Ob 3
To avoid a rockslide: Health Ob 3
To dodge the falling rocks from a tremor: Health Ob 4
To avoid being speared or slashed by a trap: Health Ob 5
To leap clear of the flaming liquid sprayed into the corridor: Health Ob 6
To escape a collapsing cavern before its ceiling comes down: Health Ob 6​

Which told me that Gerda's deadfall trap should be Ob 2. And then I went back to my session notes:

Whereas Megloss's house (as had already been established) is on the edge of the village, overlooking a cliff, Gerda's apartment - I now narrated - was at the centre, near the base of the rise on which stands the wizard's tower. I decided - but didn't tell the players at this particular point - that Gerda would erect a deadfall trap over the entrance to her apartment. The players declared that they opened the door and went in. I called for Heath tests against Ob 2 (and as one of the players noted, this time cloaks and woollen sweaters didn't help; though I allowed Golin's player to add +1D to his pool, given Golin wears a helmet). Telemere and Fea-bella were both Injured by the falling stones!

Telemere's player then noticed that he should have used his Instinct - When I enter somewhere new, I check to see if I am being watched - and he used it now. Golin helped, as he also had a salient Instinct - Always look for weak points. Telemere could see that the downstairs rooms seemed dusty and empty, but that someone seemed to have stuck their head out of the door at the top of the staircase - Gerda!

Another Scout test was made, to ensure the staircase was safe. It was.

As the PCs were being cautious, Gerda decided to Flee, and the PCs pursued.

In other words, I successfully replicated my reasoning from July 2023, based on the actually established fictional positioning. In making the decision about Ob 2 (rather than the more severe Ob 3) I would have had in mind not just the fictional positioning that pushes that way, but also a general sense of the mix of difficulties that make for a good Torchbearer session, and would not have wanted to set this early obstacle too high.

The skilled play aspect was also preserved, in that Telemere's player could have used his Instinct, but didn't. And the player was able to recognise this. (This fits into @thefutilist's idea, upthread, of crossword puzzles + figure skating.)

So to me, based on my experience, the Torchbearer resolution in this scene did not disregard fictional positioning - it had regard to it, and reinforced it. And the use of rolls (on Health, on Scout, etc) were part of that.

If 5e D&D had a more structured system for framing and resolving skill checks, I think it would become more like Torchbearer! And then natural further questions would arise, like - what effect does the placing of an Alarm spell have on the difficulty of a Stealth check to ambush? Specifying the AoE as a 20' cube rather than (say) one campsite or room doesn't help with that - it hinders it.

Like if an enemy bypassed their defecences via certain method, then it is useful information. They can take precautions against that methods in the future and use similar method against enemies. To me this is morefun information than just dice odds. It gets the players engaged in the fiction. Making it all just a roll removes this aspect. That's what I do not like about it.

Why would the use of methods not be relevant to dice rolls?

When a PC takes the high ground in a fight, that - presumably - helps their rolls that resolve the combat. Why would things be different for a PC (say) choosing a room with only one door as a precaution against being ambushed?

I prefer to run 5e in pretty high myth way, prep situations not plots, and have clearish mental guidelines to fiction rules connections. These all are sort of "limits to GMs whims" that you as well seem to desire.

Like before the session begins I want to have clear picture of what the situation is, what are salient parts, what are the motivations of NPCs, and what their capabilities are. I also have more general ideas about the setting, and what rules are used to represent what, which help me to extrapolate consistently. Like as one example that I've mentioned before, I like more powerful NPCs to (roughly) use similar class mechanics than PCs, and the classes sort of have diegetic existence. I also have rough ideas of what levels mean and how common NPCs of various levels are. So if I need to extrapolate capability of a just invented NPC, I have guidelines for it, it cannot be just anything. Similarly this is information the players too can use. Like in the last session they were dealing with a wizard antagonist, and when sussing out what the NPC could potentially do, the knowledge whether certain spell was a wizard spell was relevant to them.

<snip>

I suspect they have more than myth in them, at least the way I mean myth. Like they are not just situations, they're plots. It is the plot that makes them railroads, the GM having to contort the play into a certain path.

Suppose the situation is you have upset this powerful figure (let's call them Jackson).

At what point do the players learn that the resulting situation is you are being pursued by an assassin hired by Jackson? Or that the situation is Jackson's assassin will come for you this night?

If the players don't know those things, and the GM is making "offscreen" decisions about what the assassin learns about the PCs, how the assassin approaches them, whether or not the assassin bypasses the PCs' Alarm spell, then to me it is getting closer to plot than to situation. Like, you are attacked by an assassin is a situation; but the assassin snuck past your Alarm spell (because that's what made the most sense to me, the GM, as expositor of the fiction) looks like plot to me.