GM fiat - an illustration

[Micah Sweet]

This is just fundamentally untrue of games like Apocalypse World. The GM has framing authority. They just have restrictions on that framing authority and a differing agenda than simulating a world. 95% of the differences lay in how the GM role functions. My interface as a player in Apocalypse World is almost entirely the same as it would be in a more traditional game.

The GM/MC will sometimes ask questions to establish things, but that too relies on the GM actively asking in accordance with their framing authority.

We have been having these discussions for years and you have been an active participant. Where are you getting this from? Do you have posts or game texts to point to?

The structure of PBtA games that supports what PCs represent (the playbooks, unique specialness of PCs as opposed to NPCs, and the like) by itself is enough to label them narrative games to me.

 

[soviet]

I am sure this isn't accurate, probably for anyone but me, but if the players are in a position to make changes to the game in active play outside of their own PCs actions or knowledge, or the game's rules are largely bent toward producing a specific sort of story experience for the players (by whatever method), or the game itself uses a lot of narrative language in its rules, presentation, and/or design philosophy (obviously "a lot" is subjective), then to me it is a narrative game. I'm sure that there are many games that hit one or more of these points that are quite different from each other.

Now there are games I enjoy that have some element of these things, so I supposed there is a sort of "critical mass" for me personally where it crosses a threshold into being what I think of as a "narrative game" or "storygame", and at that point I cease to enjoy the experience.

I mean, this is just 'I know it when I see it'. I don't know what 'players are in a position to make changes to the game in actual play outside of their own PCs actions or knowledge' means. Which games have that and which games don't? If a D&D player invents the name of the inn they were in last night, is that the same thing?

 

[soviet]

It is when players can introduce new information into the game world. Narrativists would say they adhere to the agreed upon fiction boundaries but otherwise it's wide open. So a player could say, "I go into town and find my sister at the tavern where she works" and that would suddenly be a true fact in the world so long as no one had established anything to the contrary prior to that time. Obviously there are degrees in this as well but that is the simple one sentence idea.

Which games allow you to do that, and which games don't?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, this is just 'I know it when I see it'. I don't know what 'players are in a position to make changes to the game in actual play outside of their own PCs actions or knowledge' means. Which games have that and which games don't? If a D&D player invents the name of the inn they were in last night, is that the same thing?

Technically yes. Whether or not any particular example is going to create an issue has to be determined on a case by case basis, but the more examples accrue, the more likely an issue is to develop.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I never said such an adventure wasn't immersive, I said you aren't really solving a real mystery. You might be producing a solution tot he mystery, or the system might be. My point is because the details of the mystery are established, the players can go through steps of gathering information, seeing clues, putting things together and actually figure out what happened. That is a very different experience from one where the answer to the central mystery was yet to be determined (and so you couldn't do those things because. And again, neither is a better or worse game. But in one you are actually solving the mystery, in the other you aren't

The immersion and playing your character and all of the experiential qualities of play… those are all present in both styles of play we are talking about. So yes, I agree that they are important… but they are common to both types of games, so they can be set aside for the purpose of comparison.

So what we are left with is the actual process of play. Not how players will feel when they are playing it… you’re bringing that in the try and maintain the mystique of things. But we need to get past the mystique and examine what is being done by the GM and by the players.

The GM has made decisions prior to play. Things like “there are four primary suspects” and “suspect 2 is the culprit”. And also likely things like “suspect 3’s kerchief was found at the scene” and “suspect 4 was overheard talking to the victim and threatening him” and so on.

The players then declare actions for their characters to learn these bits of detail, in the hope of learning enough to draw the correct conclusion.

That’s what play consists of.

The notes are information. They aren't the goal

If you’re going to place importance on how the solution to the mystery is determined… that the how of it is so important… then you can’t say that the notes are bot the goal. The notes are everything… the suspects, the clues, the red herrings, the solution… all of that stuff has been determined by the GM, and is revealed to the players through the course of play, assuming they make the right moves or ask the right questions.

We'd have to go over everything to see if it handles any of these things uniquely. But that isn't the point. The point is these are important aspects of play

But not unique to this method.

I don't think we are going to see eye to eye but I think there is a lot more to the point than just figuring out the solution the scenario writer or GM has come up with. Not that this isn't a big part of it, but it feels extraordinarily reductive

I don’t know… calling one form of make believe real and another not real seems reductive to me. Describing what’s actually happening at the table doesn’t seem reductive… it seems accurate.

That you seem somehow put off by such a description doesn't change that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

But actually they do. Most people can get up in the morning and drive to the coffee shop or make coffee at home. That is agency. It is not the power to do anything. It is the ability to do what you are capable of freely. And if you contract away your agency in a certain circumstance, that doesn't remove it. You chosen freely to do that and didn't have to do that.

So you think everyone in the real world has equal agency?

I think this is so obviously untrue that I’m sure I must be misunderstanding your point.

The players may be dong things that require the GM to adapt what is in the notes.

Wouldn’t this then render the mystery unreal, by your reckoning?

Ooh. You breathe and he breathes. Maybe you should pause and consider that.

That there are a couple things my posts have in common with his has no real meaning, so I'd appreciate it if you just respond to my posts and stop trying to link them to other people as if that means something.

Edit: And by the by, that bolded portion is the argument I'm talking about. You're trying to connect people on the same side of things as if we are somehow the same when we are not the same, and that's a wrong thing to do. You should pause and consider that, too.

As I said… if you’re unconcerned with the similarities of your posts and his, that’s fine. You do you.

The same...but different.

A big take away is our games might have some similarities, but are each very unique. While the other type of game you favor is always the same every time.

You have no idea what you’re talking about. I run and play a variety of games, all of which can be very different. From 5e to Call of Cthulhu to Blades in the Dark to Stonetop to Spire to Mothership.

All of them function very differently, with varying levels of GM authority.

As I have mentioned before, in my game we do nearly exclusively in deep immersion in-character role playing(the acting kind).

But the characters don’t ask questions. In a mystery scenario.

Riiiight.

 

[Umbran]

If you never reach the walls, and no one's stopping you from trying, how important is it that they're there?

That one goes both ways - if you aren't going to reach the walls, why do you care if they are there or not?

One of the main points is that the space of play is finite. That the space is curved such that you don't hit a literal wall does not change that there's only so much there, there. The fact that you don't hit a physical barrier created an illusion that the space isn't limited.

If having that illusion is super-important to you, so be it. But there's no real light between agreeing to have that illusion, and just agreeing that the space of play has some boundaries to a continent (like, say, the original Greyhawk) or a city.

Plus, the box is a metaphor. We are speaking about the physical extent of the imaginary world because that is conceptually easy, but geographic limitations are not the only ones we could consider. There are other expectations of play that can be considered agreed-upon bounds to your agency that don't suddenly make the thing into a railroad. As suggested previously - the agreement that you're playing an adventure game, and will be doing adventurous things, and not shifting into playing a farming simulation, for example, is technically a bound on agency.

 

[Maxperson]

As I said… if you’re unconcerned with the similarities of your posts and his, that’s fine. You do you.

Why should I be? The implication you make is the problem. It's not a "you do you" situation. You have no business implying things like that when they mean nothing to begin with. The only purpose it to insinuate something is wrong with it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That one goes both ways - if you aren't going to reach the walls, why do you care if they are there or not?

One of the main points is that the space of play is finite. That the space is curved such that you don't hit a literal wall does not change that there's only so much there, there. The fact that you don't hit a physical barrier created an illusion that the space isn't limited.

If having that illusion is super-important to you, so be it. But there's no real light between agreeing to have that illusion, and just agreeing that the space of play has some boundaries to a continent (like, say, the original Greyhawk) or a city.

Plus, the box is a metaphor. We are speaking about the physical extent of the imaginary world because that is conceptually easy, but geographic limitations are not the only ones we could consider. There are other expectations of play that can be considered agreed-upon bounds to your agency that don't suddenly make the thing into a railroad. As suggested previously - the agreement that you're playing an adventure game, and will be doing adventurous things, and not shifting into playing a farming simulation, for example, is technically a bound on agency.

I agree that those sorts of agreements are restrictions on agency. They are not agreements that I would make, however, because when you are modeling a world I believe you shouldn't then tell the players they can't have their PCs do things that it's within the PCs ability to do. And when I run a game I am always trying to model a world.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Why should I be? The implication you make is the problem. It's not a "you do you" situation. You have no business implying things like that when they mean nothing to begin with. The only purpose it to insinuate something is wrong with it.

No, it’s just pointing out similarities that you yourself have acknowledged, and how those similarities may conflict with other things you’ve said.

But that’s just my take. Like, I honestly don’t see railroading as inherently bad. If the participants are all down for that, cool, who amI to judge.

But you have vociferously pointed out that you are anti-railroad. That you see it as inherently problematic.

To then see you point out how your game is similar to that of the self-proclaimed Master Railroader seems odd. Might be worth looking at.

Again… or not!