GM fiat - an illustration

[AbdulAlhazred]

....was I supposed to? I quibble pretty aggressively with how "gamism" is conceptualized in the first place, and I mostly disagree about what immersion is with people who like it a lot. I don't think I'd be nominated for whatever debate you're casting me in.

Yes! I am assigning homework. It will be on the final too.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I disagree, a decision made without any information doesn't engage agency because the decision is meaningless. Whether you pick door A, B, or C is no decision at all, rolling dice for it is exactly equivalent to just saying 'A', it is equally arbitrary. Agency requires some means to understand the consequences of your decisions.

I don't know I have thought about this one a lot and I still think there is a difference in agency between these two situations:

Your PC is captured by a mind flayer and strapped to a table. The mind flayer says "I am going to roll a d20 and on a result of 20 I will eat your brain, but on any other result, I will release you"

Versus:

Your PC is captured by a mind flayer and strapped to a table. The mind flayer says "I am going to roll a d20 behind this GM screen that I got when I purchased Terrible Trouble at Tragidore. Pick a number. If it matches the result, I eat your brain. If you pick any other number I release you."

Obviously this isn't like having the agency a choice between three corridors with information before hand gives you. But I still feel like the weight of my choice here, and my choice does matter. It means the difference between living and dying. And it is objective (the die is rolled and the result concealed). I am not saying this is an example of a character having full agency I just think there is a distinction between these two things

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What does "addressing premise" mean?

Any RPG, or instance of employment of such, will evince some goals or agenda. Beyond that will be some sort of premise, something which the game/genre/setting says about some elements of situation/setting/character. So, for example, BitD makes some pretty definite statements about authority and views the milieu through a very specific lens which brings that into focus. 4e D&D speaks to the nature, necessity, and fate of extraordinary heroes. 5e seems to be more about depicting a fantasy world and exploring it, though I think honestly it suffers from fairly weak thematics.

 

[Bedrockgames]

5e seems to be more about depicting a fantasy world and exploring it, though I think honestly it suffers from fairly weak thematics.

People use D&D for too many different things for one premise to really work I think. It has to straddle a wide range of playstyels and themes

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't know I have thought about this one a lot and I still think there is a difference in agency between these two situations:

Your PC is captured by a mind flayer and strapped to a table. The mind flayer says "I am going to roll a d20 and on a result of 20 I will eat your brain, but on any other result, I will release you"

Versus:

Your PC is captured by a mind flayer and strapped to a table. The mind flayer says "I am going to roll a d20 behind this GM screen that I got when I purchased Terrible Trouble at Tragidore. Pick a number. If it matches the result, I eat your brain. If you pick any other number I release you."

Obviously this isn't like having the agency a choice between three corridors with information before hand gives you. But I still feel like the weight of my choice here, and my choice does matter. It means the difference between living and dying. And it is objective (the die is rolled and the result concealed). I am not saying this is an example of a character having full agency I just think there is a distinction between these two things

I think it's a tricky example to look at. I think the first options is certainly more clear and player facing. And assuming good faith on the GM's part in the second option, they have equal chances of success or failure, so they're not meaningfully different in any way other than the hidden roll element.

This is also a case of GM fiat feeding into the resolution rather than it being used to decide the outcome. Like, in this scenario I'm assuming the GM has decided that there's a chance the mind flayer is going to eat the character's brain, but it's a slim chance. So he's created some way to determine that. That's not an issue.

What's an issue (assuming this matters to the participants) is if the GM just decides the mind flayer eats his brain. No mechanics are used, it's just the GM deciding what happens.

However... I say all of that with the caveat that the larger picture really matters here. How did the PC wind up imprisoned by the mind flayer? All of this may be the consequences of an attempt to kill the mind flayer that failed... in which case, I think in many games, it would be fine for the character to die. Did the player go into this situation understanding the risks and the potential consequences and so on.

Examining just this specific point without the situation that led to it is tricky.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Examining just this specific point without the situation that led to it is tricky.

I am thinking more about the agency of this situation than the agency leading up to it. So I would assume the player characters ends up on the table as a result of a combat that went south (just bad dice rolls)

 

[hawkeyefan]

I am thinking more about the agency of this situation than the agency leading up to it. So I would assume the player characters ends up on the table as a result of a combat that went south (just bad dice rolls)

Gotcha. In such a case, I would think PC death is on the table (no pun intended). That's a risk just about any time there's combat, especially against dangerous foes.

If not the result of combat, I was imagining some adventure modules from the old days that may have started off like this. In a situation like that... the game begins with the PCs prisoners of the mind flayer and there's a 5% chance he just eats one of their brains... there's no agency happening. It's just GM fiat to open the game that way, and GM fiat to decide there's a chance it eats a PC, even if he makes it a slim chance. There's nothing the player can do about it, nor did they do anything to wind up here.


But in a more combat fallout type of situation, the dice didn't go the players' way... so that's the risk. Now, obviously, the consequence of failed combat is up to the GM. They could have the mind flayer eat the character's brain, or dominate them to make them a thrall leaving the possibility they can be rescued and restored, or they can just leave them for the creatures of the underdark to feed upon, not wanting to consume the gray matter of such weak beings... leaving them alive...

So the GM has a wide range of options of what to do here. How exactly does he make the decision? I mean, any of the above options seems to make sense. They all seem equally plausible at face value. A mind flayer is also an inscrutable type of creature... we can't truly understand its wants or motives. Perhaps something was established during play that makes deciding how to proceed more clear.

But absent that... what should the GM do? Which of the three options (or any additional possibilities) should he pick? How should that be determined?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Gotcha. In such a case, I would think PC death is on the table (no pun intended). That's a risk just about any time there's combat, especially against dangerous foes.

If not the result of combat, I was imagining some adventure modules from the old days that may have started off like this. In a situation like that... the game begins with the PCs prisoners of the mind flayer and there's a 5% chance he just eats one of their brains... there's no agency happening. It's just GM fiat to open the game that way, and GM fiat to decide there's a chance it eats a PC, even if he makes it a slim chance. There's nothing the player can do about it, nor did they do anything to wind up here.


But in a more combat fallout type of situation, the dice didn't go the players' way... so that's the risk. Now, obviously, the consequence of failed combat is up to the GM. They could have the mind flayer eat the character's brain, or dominate them to make them a thrall leaving the possibility they can be rescued and restored, or they can just leave them for the creatures of the underdark to feed upon, not wanting to consume the gray matter of such weak beings... leaving them alive...

So the GM has a wide range of options of what to do here. How exactly does he make the decision? I mean, any of the above options seems to make sense. They all seem equally plausible at face value. A mind flayer is also an inscrutable type of creature... we can't truly understand its wants or motives. Perhaps something was established during play that makes deciding how to proceed more clear.

But absent that... what should the GM do? Which of the three options (or any additional possibilities) should he pick? How should that be determined?

All options being potentially plausible in setting, I think it should be determined by what would be interesting, or what the player wants, or simply by what the DM has determined the mind flayer wants. If there's really only a 5% chance of brain eaten, the illithid is probably fine with keeping the PC alive.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well, I don't agree that you cannot do skilled play. The skills are slightly different, perhaps. But you better be good at spinning lots of plates and making your resources count in BitD if you want your crew to be around next Tuesday. IME it can be a brutally deadly game, though not nearly as much so as TB2e, which absolutely rivals old school D&D for sheer deadly skilled play.

If you say so. And I didn't say you cannot do it, it is just there are elements that undermine it. But perhaps "skilled play" is wrong word. I just feel that malleable myth combined with high level of randomness and the game being geared toward there being consequences most of the time results it not mattering that much what you do for the things going badly. Like whatever you do, the dice are likely to screw you over one way or another.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think it's a tricky example to look at. I think the first options is certainly more clear and player facing. And assuming good faith on the GM's part in the second option, they have equal chances of success or failure, so they're not meaningfully different in any way other than the hidden roll element.

This is also a case of GM fiat feeding into the resolution rather than it being used to decide the outcome. Like, in this scenario I'm assuming the GM has decided that there's a chance the mind flayer is going to eat the character's brain, but it's a slim chance. So he's created some way to determine that. That's not an issue.

I was picturing this more like a James Bond villain situation, where the mind flayer is just enjoying giving victims the chance to guess incorrectly (and you could slide the probability based on what you are shooting for here). So really this is just a roll, happening in the game itself, that will determine how the mind flayer acts towards the player (does it try to eat his brain or let him go)

What's an issue (assuming this matters to the participants) is if the GM just decides the mind flayer eats his brain. No mechanics are used, it's just the GM deciding what happens.

No, it would play out as normal. So if the player guessed wrong, presumably the Mindflayer needs to make its attack. Where it might be an edge case is because the player is already strapped to the table, in some editions that might fall under a coup de grace rule (I can't recall off hand if it qualifies). But I think most likely the player would still have a chance, they would just be strapped to the table and need to figure out a way to attack (so if it is a spell caster he may have a sporting chance)