GM fiat - an illustration

[pemerton]

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.

So the analogue to this in Torchbearer could include stuff like the following:

*In the example I've just given, of Gerda having set the deadfall, if there was also an Aetherial Premonition spell then she would be granted a bonus die to determine her disposition in the Flee conflict (because the magical alarm alerts her better than the deadfall, giving her a better head-start);

*As per my example upthread, the players want to lure the assassin into their warehouse trap, and cast Aetherial Premonition to help with this, gaining a bonus to the resolution of their strategem (the details would depend whether it's a versus test, or extended Trickery conflict).​

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Frankly. I don't really understand. I assumed the what you described is how TB basically works, though perhaps with the exception that the bad result is that you're ambushed instead of directly stabbed and then whether you get stabbed is resolved separately.

But of course we are again in a situation where people make comparisons to games without properly explaining how those games work, so confusion can be expected.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

“Prep situations not plots” is pretty clear and we can understand the benefit it brings to play.

But running high myth just seems like a preference. There may be reasons behind it, though… and that’s more what I mean. Why do you run high myth? What does that do for play?

That kind of thing.

So what is the reasoning for some of these choices? That NPCs use rules similar to PCs and that there is a diegetic aspect to classes, for example. What principle guided that decision?

It gives the GM limits and helps to extrapolate consistently. There just is less "GM makes a stuff up" on the spot, and when they do there are usually established benchmarks for doing so. It is very good limitation on GM fiat, and as you want that I don't quite get how you do not see the value.

Like for example in paradigm where the NPCs can whatever capabilities the GM decision space for "is there an NPC here that can do X" is wide open, but if it is established that there are limits on how common NPCs of certain levels are and that they need to roughly follow the class limitations for their capabilities than we have structure and limits for that GM decision.

Like there has been a lot of "but don't you get it is still the GM deciding things?" Yes, everyone gets that! It is just that not all decisions are equal, and if we elide what sort of guidelines and limitations the GM has for their decision making then we miss a lot. So it is not so that the high myth and other such guidelines can make the fictional reality a perfect objective reality that runs itself and the GM doesn't need to decide anything. Of course it is not that, and if it was a we wouldn't need the GM as a computer could run it. But it is a framework for the GM decision making.

I think 5e would benefit greatly from more specific principles for both playing and GMing. The rules should stop trying to be everything to everyone and should commit to a play approach. Especially since the people who have been playing for decades already know they can change things as they’d like.

I agree. Though we might disagree on what those principles should be.

Which would lead you to the conclusion that it has nothing to do with the amount of myth, no? That it’s more about process.

No, though myth is just one part of the picture. But I already talked in length how the myth sets limits on the GM.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I actually agree that plausibility, at some level, can be an appreciable element. Not always, and IMHO it's not the weightiest one, but it sometimes rises to a high priority. But for me that is much more likely to be in terms of character and motive. A badly drawn character in terms of how it is played can really sour a game.

I think with character motivations and personalities it is most important to get things "right." Bad and inconsistent characterisation is at least to me far more jarring than most other minor inconsistencies. This is why I greatly dislike mechanics that compel characters, (PCs specifically) to react or act in certain way. We humans are far better judge of what reaction is appropriate in the situation than the dice.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I feel like Fiat should also be an option

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think with character motivations and personalities it is most important to get things "right." Bad and inconsistent characterisation is at least to me far more jarring than most other minor inconsistencies. This is why I greatly dislike mechanics that compel characters, (PCs specifically) to react or act in certain way. We humans are far better judge of what reaction is appropriate in the situation than the dice.

If we are taking social skills or social combat, I agree. I want any social skills to be light (I.E. they should inform RP rather than force RP). When it comes to magic or powerful fear effects though, I am fine with things that impact PC and NPCs behavior.

 

[thefutilist]

“Prep situations not plots” is pretty clear and we can understand the benefit it brings to play.

But running high myth just seems like a preference. There may be reasons behind it, though… and that’s more what I mean. Why do you run high myth? What does that do for play?

I consider No-myth + fail forward as an entirely different mode to situation play + conflict resolution.


I got back into role-playing about 2007 and started using no-myth + fail forward to what was essentially genre sim. I played with different groups and spent maybe 2010 to about 2019 doing the more narrative version of no-myth. I never found it that satisfying, there were great moment but really expressive play seemed just out of reach.

The switch to situation play involved a reorientation towards the medium, a change in my creative relationship toward other players, a change in in what the purpose of play was and a change in how I 'read/interpreted' the fiction. So pretty big stuff.

It might sound strange but that switch in perspective carries over into all sorts of games, it's not just a mechanical thing. How I approach In A Wicked Age and The Quiet year, was very different. My approach to rules texts changed, I used to be in the camp of 'these are rules, follow them to get the required play experience' now I don't think that way at all.

I don't know if it was 'just' the switch to situation play that caused all this but it gave me a new metric of judgement to apply to all the other stuff.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

So, what you're essentially saying is that anyone emphasizing simulationist play is for all intents and purposes delusional? Not the most conducive to discussion rhetorical tactic.

 

[Joanna Geist]

Alright, maybe I haven't communicated clearly. I'll try harder.

The GM can obviously cheat by not following the rules.

The GM is not obligated to follow the rules.
The GM is cheating if he doesn't follow the rules. That's what "cheating" means.
The players are not obligated to follow the rules.
The players are cheating if they don't follow the rules. That's what "cheating" means.

Don't misunderstand what I mean by "obligated". No one is truly obligated to do anything. You aren't obligated to breathe - you can choose to hold your breath, at least until you lose consciousness.

Another example : At an official street fighter tournament, you aren't obligated to follow the rules. You can, as a human with free will, choose to cheat at any time. There will be consequences, of course, namely your disqualification and possible suspension. But this has no bearing on whether you're obligated.

Whether you're obligated to follow rules or not, failing to follow them is still cheating.

An obligation to follow the rules would just mean you were prevented from choosing to cheat.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I will just add situational adventures are definitely a good mode in my opinion for doing genre. I don’t follow a lot of the lingo in this thread so we might all be talking past each other. But I mean it in a style that works well with traditional GM authority and mechanical resolution