GM fiat - an illustration

[Micah Sweet]

I'm talking about the GM making those decisions and writing them in their notes. And then, when the players have their PCs camp, and cast an Alarm spell, the next scene the GM frames is the ambush by the hired ninja.

Ok, great! That follows from pre-established world facts that are potentially accessible by the PCs, so I have no problem with it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This claim, asserted as baldly as this, seems wrong.

If I toss a coin to see who has to do the washing up, and I lose, that's fair. I took my chances and lost! If we are wondering who is going to wash up, and you just decide that it will be me, that seems pretty different!

The use of lotteries, in all sorts of contexts that extend well beyond playing games, is a pretty well-known way of disclaiming decision-making. Losing a lottery is quite different from having someone decide that I will get the short straw.

Your example here is more like a choice made on spot, specifically designed to nullify the choices of the other person. That's not same that previously established facts. And the example is flawed anyway, the situation is not analogous. Washing dishes presumably is something neither wants to do. When GM is deciding whether something is possible or not, it is not like that. It is very different sort of decision altogether. Furthermore, when it comes to randomisation in RPGs, it often is the GM who decides the possible outcomes and odds anyway, so any disclaiming is partial at best.

Sure.

And sometimes this is purely "mechanical" (not in the game-mechanics sense, but in the sense that there is an algorithm-like procedure that determines a unique outcome). For instance, the player declares "I look through the archway" and the GM consults their notes to see what it is that one will see beyond the archway.

Other times it's not, though. The Alarm spell example was chosen by me because it's not (outside of some pretty narrow contexts, like dungeon rooms with single doorways).

Mate. A room with single entrance is the expected use case of the spell. Anything other than that is already an unlikely edge case.

The play you seem to be describing here is what I have sometimes called "puzzle-solving" play; and have sometimes called "playing to learn what is in the GM's notes". The clearest example of advocacy and advice for this sort of play that I know of is found in classic D&D rules - eg in Moldvay Basic, Moldvay notes (p B4) that eventually the players' map will come to more-or-less duplicate the GM's map.

I am not talking about any concrete maps here, but sure, close enough.

Now I think I can come up with an example of play that nearly everyone would regard as unfair or unreasonable: the GM builds a dungeon (call it D1); there is a trapped treasure that can only be obtained by speaking a magic word; the magic word is found in a second dungeon (D2) that the GM has (fully or partially) built; in the first session, the GM tells the players that their PCs are at the entrance to D1; the players then have their PCs enter D1, and are promptly killed by the trap on the treasure.

This is unfair, because although in the fiction, the secret word was knowable - all one has to do is go to D2 and learn it! - in the play, the players had no chance to learn it. The GM framed their PCs into a loss.

How close is the secret assassin's guild to the example I've just given? To what degree is it really true that the players could have had their PCs learn about this secret guild? Play time is finite; what the GM makes salient - via exposition and framing - is hugely significant in what choices the players then make.

Well, couple of rather notable differences are that in the first case the GM is bizarrely railroading the PCs super hard, whereas I did not imagine such happening, rather the PCs were more or less free to examine whatever they want. Secondly, the trap seems to be deadly, so information for avoiding it seems rather crucial. I don't think is really the case with the assassin, as it is unlikely that mere surprise would be the deciding factor between victory and death, even if it pushed the odds somewhat towards the latter.

There is a huge range of possibilities here. But for information about the setting to be amenable to being leveraged by the players, there needs to be far more done than simply having the GM write it down in their notes.

Of course the players need to learn about that stuff, but in game where things like this matter, they're constantly trying to and take steps to do so. And yeah, secrets that are too difficult to learn are not fun, and the GM should set things up so that the knowledge is reasonably obtainable (so not like in your dungeon trap example. ) And if I were to put some such super assassin sect in my game I would be likely to foreshadow them somehow before the PCs encounter them in combat. Bigger the danger more obvious the foreshadowing should be is a good old adage. But if you know what you're foreshadowing, then it is hella lot easier to do, so this benefits from pre-establishing the facts!

 

[bloodtide]

I was taking important to mean important to play (like, a main character, principal antagonist, etc); not important in the imaginary setting (like, say, a prime minster compared to a shopkeeper).

Ah, so the again, this is your Chosen Limited Play Style.

This like 'main characters', 'principal antagonist' and such are commonly used in Limited Fiction...like novels, video games, TV shows and movies. And sure you can use them in the Limited Fiction in a RPG.

After all, plenty of people read novels, play video games, and watch TV shows/movies. And some people say "wow, I want my RPG to be just like that!". And it is good enough for a casual game.

The thing is, a RPG can be so much more. Toss out ALL, yes, ALL of that Limited Fictional Constraints. Set your RPG free where anything can happen.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I know that, but I don't accept his attempt to redefine what a railroad is, so that's not a railroad. If he wants to call it something more accurate, then fine.

Predetermination =/= railroad. It can be, but not unless PCs are forced down the path no matter what they say or do. A railroad requires negation of player agency, and as long as they have control over what their PCs say and do(or attempt to do if the outcome is in doubt), they do in fact retain agency.

But just set aside the label and think about the point.

Doesn’t an NPC considered important by the GM indicate something about how play will go?

 

[pemerton]

Washing dishes presumably is something neither wants to do. When GM is deciding whether something is possible or not, it is not like that. It is very different sort of decision altogether.

It is a decision about whose conception of the fiction is to take precedence - the one where the PC gets what the player wanted them to get (eg a peaceful sleep), or the one where the GM's idea for what happens next (eg an ambush) happens.

Maybe the player is indifferent to what happens to their PC, but in that case we've move to what I would see as a pretty passive or "mere participation" approach to RPGing.

A room with single entrance is the expected use case of the spell. Anything other than that is already an unlikely edge case.

The spell doesn't say that. And to me that's a pretty contrived circumstance. Over the past 40 years of GMing I've often had players decide that their PCs spend time in a place, resting or engrossed in activity, such that some sort of alarm/ward would be helpful. But it's not normally in such a place - the last example I can remember is when the PCs rested while in the dungeon of the Moathouse (as per T1).

Normally the circumstance is a more "organic" one - a camp in the wild; at home; during an infiltration; in an inn room; etc.

in the first case the GM is bizarrely railroading the PCs super hard

Huh? This is a standard way to start a classic D&D campaign.

For instance, from Moldvay Basic, pp B3-B4, B51:

It is the DM's job to prepare the setting for each adventure before the game begins. This setting is called a dungeon . . . The dungeon is carefully mapped on paper . . . A dungeon may be designed by the DM, or may be a purchased dungeon . . .

Each game session is called an adventure. . . . An adventure begins when the party enters a dungeon, and ends when the party has left the dungeon and divided up treasure. . . .

At the start of the game, the players enter the dungeon and the DM describes what the characters can see. . . .

Before players can take the characters on adventures into dungeons, the DM must either create a dungeon . . . or become familiar with one of TSR's dungeon modules.​

And plenty of modules begin by framing the PCs into the dungeon situation (eg The Lost City, each of the G modules, etc).

Bigger the danger more obvious the foreshadowing should be is a good old adage.

Well this doesn't work well for ninjas, if the goal is naturalism - the more dangerous the ninja, the more secret they are!

But if you know what you're foreshadowing, then it is hella lot easier to do, so this benefits from pre-establishing the facts!

I don't think this is especially true. Apocalypse World sets out a relatively formal set of principles that allow "foreshadowing" without puzzle-solving play.

 

[pemerton]

The thing is, a RPG can be so much more. Toss out ALL, yes, ALL of that Limited Fictional Constraints. Set your RPG free where anything can happen.

I'm reasonably confident that there is more happening, across the scope of my RPGing, then is dreamed of in your imagination.

 

[FrogReaver]

What? No you don't. It's quite possible you have no agency in any of those situations, if there was no way to know anything about what was behind the door in the first place. The last example you gave just ensures that's the case.

There's no meaningful difference between a choice with a random effect on the outcome, and no choice.

I disagree here. Let me illustrate it thusly.

Player 1 comes to a fork in the road with indistinguishable left and right paths. He throws his arms up and says I’ll stand here till something changes.

Player 2 comes to the same fork and chooses to take the left path. He then chooses to backtrack and go down the right path.

I’m not sure about Player 1, but Player 2 exercised his agency to gather information about the unknown. The choice of left or right just wasn’t the right place to look for agency in that situation.

 

[pemerton]

I disagree here. Let me illustrate it thusly.

Player 1 comes to a fork in the road with indistinguishable left and right paths. He throws his arms up and says I’ll stand here till something changes.

Player 2 comes to the same fork and chooses to take the left path. He then chooses to backtrack and go down the right path.

I’m not sure about Player 1, but Player 2 exercised his agency to gather information about the unknown. The choice of left or right just wasn’t the right place to look for agency in that situation.

Let's describe Player 2's actions not in terms of what the character did, in the fiction but what the player did, at the table.

The player declared an action that prompted the GM to tell the player more of the stuff written in their notes. (Or, if the GM had no notes, prompted the GM to make up some stuff and tell it to the player.) This about the minimal amount of agency that can be exercised in a RPG - without it, either (i) everyone just sits around saying and doing nothing, or (ii) the GM provides a monologue.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Failure doesn't remove agency, but the fact that the result is random instead of based on fictional positioning removes the agency of engaging that fictional positioning! Like in D&D it matters whether you block other entrances and put the Alarm on the only remaining one or just put it middle of the empty field. In TB it doesn't matter. Like this cannot be so bloody difficult! It is perfectly fine to say that this is the sort of detail you don't care about. Not everyone does, and even I care about it only moderately. But it still is meaningful difference, and one where the players making decisions that affect the effectiveness of the spell is replaced with randomness. That is loss of agency!



I TB seems to undermine it same way than Blades does. By replacing relying on fictional positioning by randomness.



Assuming the rules allow them to. Not all social rules work so. And even then, the player was denied the agency of determining the emotional reaction of the character to the situation.



It was discussed in length then, people did not agree then, and they will not do so now.



So speaking of oversimplification... It is not that simple. Like some things are way more causally obvious than others. That something is extrapolated, is not the same than it being made up fully on spot. Like It is not wild extrapolation if in a forest known for its aggressive flying monkeys the PCs get attacked by flying monkeys. If they got suddenly attacked by say, modrons, then that would not feel like a similarly coherent extrapolation.

Just a few things.

Blades doesn’t undermine skilled play. It isn’t as focused on it as other games. Torchbearer is very focused on it. At least that’s my understanding from reading it and from playing Mouseguard, which is similar but not as intense. Others can correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m not sure why you think that you can’t do more to secure your camp in Torchbearer. There’s more that can be done than Aetherial Premonition.

Torchbearer also, if I recall, has different camp events based on different area types… so there’s one for the wilds, one for ruins, one for dungeons… and so on.

 

[Maxperson]

But just set aside the label and think about the point.

Doesn’t an NPC considered important by the GM indicate something about how play will go?

No. They might encounter the NPC. They might not. They may interact with the NPC. They might not. How it goes depends on them, not me. The NPC is like the tree or hill over there that I also put into the game. Worldbuilding is not railroading.