GM fiat - an illustration

[Crimson Longinus]

If only it was possible to download the rules kernel for free: DriveThruRPG

Yeah, I've read it. Now please quote a rule and explain step by step how it achieves what you claim.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's that strange interstitial period where people wanted RPGs to be like stories, but the game design technology wasn't really there so it had to come from outside the rules. Or against them.

I never really noticed at the time, because I never wanted RPGs to be like stories, and I don't run published modules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Upthread I posted this:So it seems that you agree!

It does tell you something about my capacity to immerse. It also informs you on my preference for what I consider "real" events in an RPG. Our preferences are obviously quite different but equally valid.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's that strange interstitial period where people wanted RPGs to be like stories, but the game design technology wasn't really there so it had to come from outside the rules. Or against them.

It was like the hobby’s adolescent years. All pimples and hormones and cracking voices.

 

[pemerton]

I don't have interest in reading Burning Wheel just to make a point to you in a thread. I actually have to write a movie review today so I am going to spend time doing that. But I can weigh in on the thread if I have concise and clear information. What I meant when I first mentioned the rulebook was: I am sure we would understand it if we read the rule book, but we haven't so if you could just explain what you mean more clearly when you talk about the rules we can have common ground on that front (I was soliciting clarifications and trying to avoid making assumptions in my recent responses to you)

I already posted one key rule, upthread, in reply to you:

the Burning Wheel rulebook which says, among other things, that "The GM is responsible for challenging the players. . . . The GM presents the players with problems based on the players' priorities" (Gold Revised. pp 10-11)

I've posted these, and other, extracts in other threads that various posters in this thread have participated in. Eg @Crimson Longinus participated in the thread in which I posted this reply to @Micah Sweet:

The Burning Wheel Gold Hubs and Spokes (which anyone can download for free if they wish to read it: DriveThruRPG) does use the word story. I don't think the use is ambiguous. Here are some examples (from pp 10-11,13-14, 24, 32, 59, 72):

One of you takes on the role of the game master. The GM is responsible for challenging the players. He also plays the roles of all of those characters not taken on by other players; he guides the pacing of the events of the story; and he arbitrates rules calls and interpretations so that play progresses smoothly.

Everyone else plays a protagonist in the story. Even if the players decide to take on the roles of destitute wastrels, no matter how unsavory their exploits, they are the focus of the story. The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book. . . .

Burning Wheel is very much a game. While players undertake the roles of their characters and embellish their actions with performance and description, rolling the dice determines success or failure and, hence, where the story goes. . . .

Testing abilities is a good thing! Not only do tests drive the story by providing tangible results for our actions, they allow the character a chance to improve his abilities and attain greater heights. . . .

Dice rolls called for by the GM and players are the heart of play. These are tests. They determine the results of conflicts and help drive the story. . . .

When a player sets out a task for his character and states his intent, it is the GM’s job to inform him of the consequences of failure before the dice are rolled. . . . Failure is not the end of the line, but it is complication that pushes the story in another direction. . . .

Character traits . . . help capture our imaginations and immerse us in the story. . . .

Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.

Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.​

The use of "story" here to mean (something like) sequence of fictional events that manifests premise/theme, rising action, crisis, etc doesn't cause any problems, in my view. It helps make clear how the game is intended by its designer to work.

The thread in which I posted the following has participation, within a page or two, by @Micah Sweet, @Maxperson and @FrogReaver:

In Burning Wheel, an action declaration consists of intent and task. If nothing that matters to the player is at stake, the GM says "yes" and the intent and task are both realised. Here's an example:

the two characters could see an exposed trapdoor. "Does it have an iron ring?" I asked. When told yes by the GM, Aramina used her Call of Iron spell to pull the ring towards her, lifting the trapdoor open (the GM said 'yes' to this, which meant no Tax check was required).

The reason that nothing is at stake here is because Aramina has no Belief or other PC build element that makes opening trapdoors, exploring secret places, or Calling Iron a priority.

If the GM does not say "yes", then the dice must be rolled. (This is called "say 'yes' or roll the dice" - the phrase was coined by Vincent Baker in Dogs in the Vineyard, and the Burning Wheel rulebook calls it "Vincent's Admonition".) The task and intent, taken together, establish what skill or ability will be tested. The GM is responsible for setting the difficulty, though there are a lot of example difficulties to guide this - in Burning Wheel, setting consistent obstacles over time is one important aspect of world building that the GM has to do.

If the player succeeds on their test, then intent and task are both realised. If the player fails, then the GM is obliged to narrate something that negates the intent, and which may also but need not include failure at the task. Because we are only rolling if something that the player has prioritised is at stake, there is already some relationship between intent and stakes, and this will provide the cue and context for narrating a consequence. Sometimes it requires more imagination than other times. I was pretty pleased with the black arrows!

 

[pemerton]

Probably, but you have to admit the latter has a lot of historical weight in the hobby the former does not, so you can likely get away with not explaining these details more often. But you're right, if there's any reason to think your player's aren't going to assume the mechanical structure and playstyle you intend to employ, some exposition is in order.

I don't introduce that many people to RPGing. But when I've done so, I've not found it to be true that they assume the GM will be the principal driver of play.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I already posted one key rule, upthread, in reply to you:I've posted these, and other, extracts in other threads that various posters in this thread have participated in. Eg @Crimson Longinus participated in the thread in which I posted this reply to @Micah Sweet:
The thread in which I posted the following has participation, within a page or two, by @Micah Sweet, @Maxperson and @FrogReaver:

None of this really answers to the questions raised. How is this not the players and the GM taking turns to say things about the fiction? How does this produce independent truths that can be discovered, that are not authored by some participant?

 

[soviet]

It was like the hobby’s adolescent years. All pimples and hormones and cracking voices.

And then something big emerged!

 

[soviet]

I don't introduce that many people to RPGing. But when I've done so, I've not found it to be true that they assume the GM will be the principal driver of play.

Yeah, I think it has that coding to us but it's not emphasised in the modern game texts and I don't think it's a big part of the cultural coding for people coming into the hobby fresh.

 

[pemerton]

None of this really answers to the questions raised. How is this not the players and the GM taking turns to say things about the fiction? How does this produce independent truths that can be discovered, that are not authored by some participant?

In the play of The Vanishing Conjurer, the player and the GM take turns to say things. How does this produce "independent truths" that can be "discovered"? Because those things are said under constraints.

The rules I quoted state a range of constraints. Reading the whole rulebook, and practice in play, will make more constraints - or at least, the way constraints become particular in the moment of play - clear.

Upthread, in reply to you, I also posted this:

I don't know what RPG you have in mind here. What you've reminded me of is this, from John Harper:

I've seen people struggle with hard moves in the moment. Like, when the dice miss, the MC stares at it like, "Crap! Now I have to invent something! Better make it dangerous and cool! Uh... some ninja... drop out of the ceiling... with poison knives! Grah!"​

​

Don't do that. Instead, when it's time for a hard move, look back at the setup move(s) you made. What was threatened? What was about to happen, before the PC took action? Follow through on that. Bring the effects on screen. Bring the consequences to fruition.​

You seem to be envisaging the sort of bad GMing that Harper criticises, rather than GMing that actually conforms to principles like make a move that follows.

And that blog post gives some simple examples:

When you make a regular MC move, all three:
1. It follows logically from the fiction.
2. It gives the player an opportunity to react.
3. It sets you up for a future harder move.

This means, say what happens but stop before the effect, then ask "What do you do?"

• He swings the chainsaw right at your head. What do you do?
• You sneak into the garage but there's Plover right there, about to notice you any second now. What do you do?
• She stares at you coldly. 'Leave me alone,' she says. What do you do?

When you make a hard MC move, both:
1. It follows logically from the fiction.
2. It's irrevocable.

This means, say what happens, including the effect, then ask "What do you do?"

• The chainsaw bites into your face, spraying chunks of bloody flesh all over the room. 3-harm and make the harm move!
• Plover sees you and starts yelling like mad. Intruder!
• 'Don't come back here again.' She slams the door in your face and you hear the locks click home.

See how that works? The regular move sets up the hard move. The hard move follows through on the threat established by the regular move.​

The general point is that it is possible to establish constraints on what someone says, in playing a RPG, other than the constraint of stick to what you've already written down.