GM fiat - an illustration

[Maxperson]

Max, you said yourself your game likely is similar to @bloodtide ‘s.

No I didn't. I said there were some things he has said that indicate he is not as radical as he sounds in some areas. I never said or implied that I run things similarly to how he posts. That's your invention.

 

[Maxperson]

No new procedure or technique need be learned. Just a reorientation, the same as someone in 1982 who'd played only D&D modules would need to re-orient a bit to play CoC.

Healing surges were not a reorientation on healing slowly a bit at a time daily. AEDU was not a reorientation of how classes worked. Those were new procedures. As were many other changes that 4e introduced. THAC0 to 3e high AC was a reorientation.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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

I think, in this case, the point of contention has become the concept of 'solve', which for one of you is being defined as something like "the players deduced the solution to the crime" whereas the other is defining it as something like "the players roleplayed solving a crime". Neither of these is incorrect in some sense, but they don't necessarily describe the same thing.

 

[zakael19]

I mean my answer would probably be to just roleplay it, but this is not the answer you seek. But certainly this can be formed as some sort of a conflict or a task? Like there is something the character wants (advance the relationship) and then there can be various outcomes for that, some more to their liking and some less, some perhaps a bit of mixed blessing. So depending on the exact system, I would imagine you could mechanise it. In Blades in the Dark, could see this as a consort roll, perhaps with a clock or clocks for how the relationship building is going.

Yeah, so "just role-play it" is actually saying "just fiat it" which I'd explicitly said the games I'm playing right now look to primarily to handle this sort of thing and I'd like a little more. I also dont see honest relating as a conflict - and I'm not sure "resolution" is possible! Both sides are trying to feel each other out, draw the intangibles, establish common ground, explore possibilities. Consort is like, kinda there - but it's missing some of the vulnerability and openness context, mainly because Blades isn't interested in that sort of thing really. A different FITD I run replaces it with Connect, which is about approaching with empathy and openness and relating - but again, do I really want to slap down a big ole clock that says "She Likes You" and you keep rolling Consort to see how it goes? (edit: I guess we could add in some Threats and some fun psychological harms, but again that's a very different light on things!)

For a transactional style of relationship, absolutely! And I think most of what we explore in Blades is very transactional. For instance my Cutter tonight went to a bar to grab a hook-up to get some Stress relief (Vice), that was flirting and a quick scene (with some cool world establishment along the way from other players) but nothing significant.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No I didn't. I said there were some things he has said that indicate he is not as radical as he sounds in some areas. I never said or implied that I run things similarly to how he posts. That's your invention.

I do think he's more extreme that I am for sure, but not the the extent that it appears.

Sure… it may just be the way I interpreted the above!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Well, I cite actual play pretty often, though I'm usually not super precise about it. Honestly a lot of it was not exactly memorable at the time, and/or was long ago. I can give pretty detailed accounts of some 4e and PbtA play from the last year or so.

Actually I think our 4e game, which is recorded here in the pbp section is somewhat germane. The game started with my PC having been kidnapped, and the other PCs showed up and rescued me. So there was an immediate question relating to who did it and why.

The 'solving' of that mystery didn't seem much like a puzzle though. It felt more like simply the unfolding of a plot.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Great! So it seems that all three of you agree that whether or not the mystery is “solved” does not prevent the situation from resolving. Whether the players succeed fully, succeed partially, or fail altogether at discovering some, all, or none of the details of the mystery, play can and does go on. The scenario reaches some form of resolution regardless of how much of the prewritten backstory becomes known to the players. I hope you won't be surprised to know that this is how us narrativists play too when we play with pre-written backstory.

If that’s the case, then when we go back and look at the prewritten backstory, we realize that the only purpose it’s serving is to provide a scaffolding for play, it’s situational material.

Which leads me back to what I’ve been trying to point at from the start: If the investigation can resolve meaningfully whether the players uncover the backstory or not, then the so-called "objectivity" of the mystery is structurally irrelevant to the experience of continued play. What matters is not whether the GM has a secret answer, but whether the investigation changes the fiction, the characters, and the stakes — whether the players’ actions materially shape how things turn out.

That’s why I keep pressing on what you mean by “solving” the mystery. Because from everything you've said, it seems like you’re using "solved" as a kind of metaphysical status — something that exists outside and beyond play — when what actually matters is how the investigation procedurally reshapes the situation at the table.

This puts me in a great position to argue that, what I think you all actually mean when you say that there needs to be a pre-written backstory for things to feel "real" is something actually a little different. I think what you’re pointing at is the desire you have for your players to arrive at their conclusions by navigating clues and circumstances that present themselves as objective, external facts via logical extrapolation and a little bit of guesswork. You want the players’ logical leaps, their deductions, their failures and insights to feel like they are being tested against a solid, pre-existing framework, rather than something improvised in response to their actions.

That’s a valid aesthetic preference. But it’s not the same thing as saying that the existence of that backstory is what makes the mystery “real.” What makes it real is whether the players' engagement with the investigation carries weight in how the fiction unfolds. You can structure that weight around mental struggle against pre-authored material (the puzzle solving element), sure — but as many on the other side have tried to made clear, you can also structure that weight through emergent, procedural play that makes the ongoing and developing mystery have real consequences and provoke hard choices on the go.

Well, you probably won the thread!

But more productively I was thinking about the original point of the thread. We should be able to now discern different forms of fiction, how they do work, and maybe most interestingly how that bears on different rules formulations and process of play.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think, in this case, the point of contention has become the concept of 'solve', which for one of you is being defined as something like "the players deduced the solution to the crime" whereas the other is defining it as something like "the players roleplayed solving a crime". Neither of these is incorrect in some sense, but they don't necessarily describe the same thing.

Yes neither is better but they are different. And this is why I used the language of ‘really solve’ the crime. Because in the former the players actually solving it is the heart of the experience.

 

[FrogReaver]

Here's a thing that can be solved, but is not pre-authored: what is the smallest prime number greater than 1 trillion.

So if your definition of what can be solved excludes simple mathematical examples, than your definition is a flawed one.

Every prime number is pre authored.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure… it may just be the way I interpreted the above!

So a double standard for those on your side of the debate vs. those not.