GM fiat - an illustration

[pemerton]

In real life, everything that happened before now is pre-authored, including what is a prime number and what isn't (once the concepts of numbers and prime are determined).

In reality, the question of whether things are authored at all is a contentious one, discussion of which violated board rules.

But we are talking about solving problems. Problems can be solved although no solution is pre-authored: mathematics is an example. (No one authors prime numbers; their existence and identity is the outcome of the stipulation of a system of axioms.)

To address @EzekielRaiden also: another example, but one that is less well known than mathematics and so not one I've mentioned upthread, is legal reasoning. Legal reasoning provides methods of generating answers to questions that had not occurred to anyone when the law was authored. The answers are not pre-authored.

The general pattern that unifies mathematics and law is the existence of canonical inference rules. There are RPGs that have these too: rules and principles that direct how scenes are to be framed, and how consequences established.

That is how play can yield an outcome, including the solution of a mystery, although no single person authored it.

 

[pemerton]

It isn’t bizarre to avoid long reads in forums. We have been going at this for days.

Yet you don't have time to read the counter-example.

For someone who accuses others of ignorance and the like, as I said I find it bizarre.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Read my example of Cthulhu Dark play. I linked to it upthread.

OK, so you are asserting that something is impossible. I've provided you with a counter-example, but you are not going to actually look at it.

Bizarre.

Your actual play reports are not even remotely as illuminative as you seem to imagine them to be. They often lack crucial information about the underlying process, which is the exact thing we tend to be discussing here.

 

[pemerton]

No game is perfect, but I do my best.

I don't understand how this relates to my post. Do you use knowledge skills in the way that I mentioned?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yet you don't have time to read the counter-example.

For someone who accuses others of ignorance and the like, as I said I find it bizarre.

Pemerton just give me a concise example of the kind of mechanics or procedures you have in mind. I don’t want to read a lengthy counter example (yes because I have better uses of my time)

As far as I know I haven’t accused anyone of ignorance here. If I have said anything that sounded that way it was probably in a moment of frustration. I don’t think anyone in this thread is ignorant. I may be frustrated that I am not getting my point across but I don’t think am engaging with ignorant posters

 

[Micah Sweet]

In reality, the question of whether things are authored at all is a contentious one, discussion of which violated board rules.

But we are talking about solving problems. Problems can be solved although no solution is pre-authored: mathematics is an example. (No one authors prime numbers; their existence and identity is the outcome of the stipulation of a system of axioms.)

To address @EzekielRaiden also: another example, but one that is less well known than mathematics and so not one I've mentioned upthread, is legal reasoning. Legal reasoning provides methods of generating answers to questions that had not occurred to anyone when the law was authored. The answers are not pre-authored.

The general pattern that unifies mathematics and law is the existence of canonical inference rules. There are RPGs that have these too: rules and principles that direct how scenes are to be framed, and how consequences established.

That is how play can yield an outcome, including the solution of a mystery, although no single person authored it.

I don't see how the logic of mathematics has anything to do with what we're discussing here, but ok.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't understand how this relates to my post. Do you use knowledge skills in the way that I mentioned?

I use knowledge skills more or less like the books say. It's not my absolute preference, but actual gaming is about compromise. Nobody's perfect, least of all me, and nobody gets everything they want all the time.

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton just give me a concise example of the kind of echanics or procedures you have in mind. I don’t want to read a lengthy counter example (yes because I have better uses of my time)

The procedures are the standard ones for Burning Wheel, or Prince Valiant, or a 4e D&D skill challenge. There are parallels in AW and DW, though they're not identical.

The GM frames a scene, in accordance with principles that establish how this is to be done - those principles relate to player-established priorities for their PCs.

The players declare actions for their PCs, that engage with the framed scene. If the player succeeds, the rules indicate what happens next - generally the PC succeeds at their action. (In AW and DW it's sometimes a bit more complicated than that.)

If the player fails, the GM narrates a consequence that negates what the PC was attempting to achieve. In AW/DW, this is the time the GM makes "as hard and direct a move" as they like.

At all times - framing scenes, establishing consequences - the GM is obliged to "make a move that follows", That is, the fiction is a constraint. So are the player-established priorities. Further constraints are likely generated by the local, particular details of the action declaration.

In this sort of RPGing, there is not "collective authorship", any more than a D&D combat is collective authorship. The procedures make sure of that. Sometimes the only thing that follows is something that no one at the table would author were they free to author as they like.

The system of constraints, and the narrations that they permit and oblige, are the analogue to the inference rules of mathematics or of law. Obviously they are different sorts of inference rules, operating on different material and in a different domain. The participants need to be on the same page even moreso than in law (which requires more same-pagedness than mathematics) - but then, that is generally true for any successful RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

I use knowledge skills more or less like the books say. It's not my absolute preference, but actual gaming is about compromise. Nobody's perfect, least of all me, and nobody gets everything they want all the time.

My point, though, is that I assume you don't regard the use of knowledge skills as "unreal".

 

[pemerton]

I don't see how the logic of mathematics has anything to do with what we're discussing here, but ok.

Because it refutes the assertion that the only way to have an answer is for someone to have already thought it up.