GM fiat - an illustration

[AbdulAlhazred]

What I've found is that if you're both playing to find out what happens. Then fiat is fine as long as it's seen as living world + choice the person is making in response to you. You need to be on the same page that this is something that can actually go either way. If the GM or Player for that matter, treats their characters as these immovable fanatics that can never be swayed. Then you're probably on different pages as to the purpose of play.

Remember, this kind of play is often pretty heavily centered on understanding the character in the context of the fiction, discovery of character. Usually certain things are established initially, such as perhaps a love interest in order to have a place to start from.

And I think this is fundamentally where the difference is with trad play. In trad play it's perfectly acceptable to start with a blank slate. Your main goal is to explore, and then possibly elaborate on or alter, some pre-existing fiction.

Honestly, I have seen plenty of cases of backstory and player invented goals used by GMs in trad play to build on. I have only seen one GM do that to really explore character in a deep way. Maybe two, and those are some really extra talented ones!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No more than yours.

So I of course have not been present in your games, but by your description of them I do not believe this to be true. And I think games of narrativist style tend to have more collective storytelling aspects than more traddish games. Like at least how we play Blades in the Dark, it definitely has more collective storytelling than the D&D I am running. And this is not a bad thing at all. It is just a different flavour, that's all. In fact, I sorta wish our Blades GM would lean even more heavily on this, as I feel it works well with the system.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Or an investigator for a law enforcement agency!

I don't canonically know of such. One could be present. I know there's a forensic investigator, but not one who is an LEO.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So I of course have not been present in your games, but by your description of them I do not believe this to be true. And I think games of narrativist style tend to have more collective storytelling aspects than more traddish games. Like at least how we play Blades in the Dark, it definitely has more collective storytelling than the D&D I am running. And this is not a bad thing at all. It is just a different flavour, that's all. In fact, I sorta wish our Blades GM would lean even more heavily on this, as I feel it works well with the system.

IMHO the division as to who authored what is not that different, it's more the why, which leads to the what. In BitD or DW, say, the GM is framing every scene. Maybe what they say is depending on a question they asked or a player describing what their character wants (is a warehouse with one entrance). In BitD the milieu is pretty constraining too. Only certain stuff will be found in Doskvol, and 'things' always go a certain way there.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not confused by what you're asserting. I'm saying that it is wrong. It rests on a false premise that nothing can be solved unless it is pre-authored. Just as does @EzekielRaiden's example of an examination.

But this just means we are at impasse. I don't think you are right, and you don't think I am right. To me it is pretty clear the point I am making is valid and makes sense. But if I fail to persuade you fair enough. Also to be clear here my position isn't that nothing can be solved unless it is pre-authored. My position is establishing mystery in this way, where the GM establishes the clues, facts and background, and the players are free to explore the geography of the mystery, is a game where they are actually solving the mystery. I contrasted that with one example, the Hillfolk campaign where the clues were being effectively authored by the players, and would not describe this as really solving the mystery. The point of play there is not for the players to feel like they have discovered something that was really there be discovered all along. Either way, it is a tangent. I don't think we are ever going to agree on it. We just have very different ways of talking about and thinking about RPGs, which is fine

 

[Micah Sweet]

What is real or not isn't, as far as I know, a matter of preference.

As far as the difference between RPGing and collective fiction-writing: consider how a standard D&D combat is resolved. No one pre-authors the outcome. Nor is it written via collective authorship - as, for instance, a group of script-writers sitting together deciding how an imaginary melee should unfold. It is resolved by applying the rules of the game.

Yes, because it is determining the course of current events that haven't happened yet.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not confused by what you're asserting. I'm saying that it is wrong. It rests on a false premise that nothing can be solved unless it is pre-authored. Just as does @EzekielRaiden's example of an examination.

It seems to me like less of a false premise and more of a definitional disagreement.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Have fun. And the goal is to have fun. And sure the players can 'pick' something....it does not matter to me.

Besides fun. What is the goal in game? To beat the dungeon? To solve a mystery? To explore a region?

Obviously, this may change at times. But how are these goals set?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, I'm not saying one or the other is a better game experience either, just that these kinds of clean room hypotheticals don't really produce much. Years ago there was a forum on which the rule was, no hypotheticals, only discussion of actual play.

I am fine with posting actual play, provided we make a point of not attacking one another's material and are keeping the examples concise (I could easily see real play in a debate like this creating bad blood because people are also putting their hard work out there to be judged and I think concise is better because reading actual play can be a big ask in terms of time investment. The initial example I gave was from an actual campaign.

 

[pemerton]

So I of course have not been present in your games, but by your description of them I do not believe this to be true. And I think games of narrativist style tend to have more collective storytelling aspects than more traddish games. Like at least how we play Blades in the Dark, it definitely has more collective storytelling than the D&D I am running. And this is not a bad thing at all. It is just a different flavour, that's all. In fact, I sorta wish our Blades GM would lean even more heavily on this, as I feel it works well with the system.

I've never played BitD.

The allocations of authority in (say) Torchbearer 2e, or Prince Valiant, or 4e D&D, aren't any different from what we did in Rolemaster.

But as I have often posted, including not too far upthread, GMing techniques are different across those RPGs.