GM fiat - an illustration

[Crimson Longinus]

This is strange to me. I don't see what the tension is supposed to be.

It's a principle of Apocalypse World to always say what your prep demands. Prep is binding on the GM.

But there is no process, in AW, whereby prep can produce a "negation", by the GM's reference to it, of a player's declared action.

There is pretty clear and obvious tension between the two. The prep says "the X is at Y", the player says "I search the X at Z."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

For a start, guidelines - your word - is not a synonym for rules and principles and requirements.

Eh. I'm not lawful enough to think that there is a significant difference. But regardless, this really answers nothing.

 

[soviet]

There is pretty clear and obvious tension between the two. The prep says "the X is at Y", the player says "I search the X at Z."

I think the negation is more along the lines of 'this character can't be persuaded to confess'.

Logistical things like 'the X is at Y' aren't negations in the same way. I guess you could over-use it, but I don't think anyone is saying the X must teleport to z just because someone is looking for it there.

Note that what could be found at y is some other clue or lead towards x. It doesn't have to be a flat 'nope, nothing happens'.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is strange to me. I don't see what the tension is supposed to be.

It's a principle of Apocalypse World to always say what your prep demands. Prep is binding on the GM.

But there is no process, in AW, whereby prep can produce a "negation", by the GM's reference to it, of a player's declared action. I don't think there is in Dungeon World either. As the AW rulebook says, the purpose of prep is to give the GM interesting things to say when the rules call upon them to say things. I would expect DW to work the same way.

I have always understood these sections to be in tension because, as "play to find out what happens" is presented, there should be almost no prep at all, and certainly nothing like knowing very specifically that there is a demon on the second floor of the dungeon who might know about the players. I have had folks tell me, point-blank, that Dungeon World is supposed to be, at least practically if not theoretically, truly "no-myth", where there isn't any myth, at all, whatsoever, only and exclusively that which is explicitly established in play, and nothing else: hence, play to find out what happens.

E.g.: "This is how you play to find out what happens. You’re sharing in the fun of finding out how the characters react to and change the world you’re portraying. You’re all participants in a great adventure that’s unfolding. So really, don’t plan too hard. The rules of the game will fight you. It’s fun to see how things unfold, trust us."

This comes across to me as extremely strong, as advocating avoidance of preparation as much as humanly possible--do only the absolute bare minimum and nothing more. But then, as quoted above, the "exploit your prep" description is almost entirely in the opposite direction, entailing that you already know the whole layout of a dungeon before the party goes there, that you know exactly what is inside (and whether it could turn its baleful eye/s to the PCs), etc.

I've resolved this myself by, more or less, only preparing when I know I need to and trying to keep that preparation very, very light. It's forced me to become much better at improvisation than I was before, I can tell you that much.

So suppose a GM comes up with a brilliant idea for a clue. Then writes a crime that will yield that clue.

The crime was causally downstream of the clue. So by your lights that's not a mystery.

But for all you know, every CoC module ever was written in the way I just described!

Both the clue and the crime precede any possibility of the actual mystery-solvers doing the mystery-solving. The person authoring the story cannot solve that mystery, for the same reason that (for example) a suspense-thriller author cannot actually get the feeling of suspense from their own work, because...they know everything that is going on in the work! They might come up with an idea for an incredible tension-raising scene, and from that tension-raising scene produce a whole dang suspense-thriller novel, but they won't personally be feeling that thing. The future audience, to whom both the clue/scene and the crime/suspense are causally upstream, can solve the mystery/experience the suspense. You can't throw a surprise party for yourself, because you already know about the surprise.

Hence why I referenced the Clue/Cluedo method earlier. Nothing to do with pre-authorship there. Nobody at that table is meant to know the truth--all they have are their own cards and what they can extract from their fellow players over time. But the evidence, and the perpetrator/weapon/location to which that evidence points, is causally upstream of the investigation.

If the chain of events goes...

We investigate -> We establish (by rules, procedures, etc.) things that are true -> If successful, we determine the perpetrator (etc.)

Then I don't see how one can argue that it isn't that establishment (by procedure, rules, etc.) which caused the perpetrator to be one suspect and not another. If you are causing the solution, you aren't solving it, you're creating it. What is required, from my perspective, is:

An event occurs -> We investigate -> By our examinations, we learn what already was true -> If we succeed, we determine the perpetrator (etc.)

That's the causal process of solving a mystery. The thing above is a causal process for playing characters who are mystery-solvers, but it doesn't actually involve the personal act of solving a mystery oneself.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think the negation is more along the lines of 'this character can't be persuaded to confess'.

Logistical things like 'the X is at Y' aren't negations in the same way. I guess you could over-use it, but I don't think anyone is saying the X must teleport to z just because someone is looking for it there.

Note that what could be found at y is some other clue or lead towards x. It doesn't have to be a flat 'nope, nothing happens'.

I don't think this really changes the underlying issue. Like the prep could say "'this character can't be persuaded to confess."

There are of course ways to mitigate the tension and if there wasn't the game couldn't function. But I think it is pretty clear that the tension is there, and it is similar thing I've encountered in the Blades.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is obscurantism.

I dont't think having a backstory the players don't is obscurantism. At least it seems a little overly lofty a term with a connotation of deception to apply to that. The players know going in there is information their characters don't have

The players do not, in any literal sense, explore the setting and discover things.

We've gone back and forth so much on this that we just have to accept we aren't going to agree here. Are they literally combing the streets of Salem Massachusetts for clues? No, but you take more and less objective approaches to modeling that and create scenarios where the players are exploring the setting and discovering things in the streets of Salem Massachusetts. And people use this language, exploration, all the time to talk to describe this type of adventure. And they are in fact discovering things because the GM has created facts that can be uncovered during play

I've watched a video of you and @robertsconley RPGing, that you linked to some while ago. It looked exactly like every other bit of RPGing I've encountered and heard of - the GM said stuff, the players said stuff, the stuff being said was integrated in various ways, follows in various ways, etc.

I will @robertsconley defend his own game, because I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I don't think either of us would claim that how we run games is fundamentally different in terms of player and GM interaction than standard sessions. Neither of us is trying to reinvent the wheel there. But I think you believe you have greater access to the truth of how this process unfolds than others, at least than us, and you speak with such authority on the matter. But I find your descriptions of the process extremely reductive. I feel these interactions are much more organic and fluid than you observe.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think the negation is more along the lines of 'this character can't be persuaded to confess'.

Logistical things like 'the X is at Y' aren't negations in the same way. I guess you could over-use it, but I don't think anyone is saying the X must teleport to z just because someone is looking for it there.

Note that what could be found at y is some other clue or lead towards x. It doesn't have to be a flat 'nope, nothing happens'.

In fact, at least in good PbtA praxis as I understand it, it should not ever be a flat "nope, nothing happens."

I don't think this really changes the underlying issue. Like the prep could say "'this character can't be persuaded to confess."

There are of course ways to mitigate the tension and if there wasn't the game couldn't function. But I think it is pretty clear that the tension is there, and it is similar thing I've encountered in the Blades.

In general, I would call that thing half-finished prep. That is, if it actually is the case that a particular character cannot be persuaded to confess--which is a perfectly reasonable stance for some characters!--then there needs to be something more involved. The adventure must point onward. So, for example:

• This character can't be persuaded to confess, but their poorly-treated manservant could turn against them.
• This character can't be persuaded to confess, but they keep mementos of their crimes, which would incriminate them.
• [Ditto], but they crave status and power, so a tarnished reputation may be as much of a punishment as actual jail time.
• [Ditto], but their higher-ups would sack her if her indiscretions were corroborated, making them useful later.
• [Ditto], and that's okay because the party can go to his rival with their evidence.

Etc. Point being, just a flat "this action is pointless" is bad prep. A pointless action is made useful by having it then point to something else that potentially could be leveraged, if the players act decisively and succeed in their efforts. Even if those efforts fail, "fail forward" ensures an adventure continues, even if it is changed or wholly different from the original adventure. E.g., maybe the suspect is a powerful noblewoman, the party tries to appeal to her poorly-treated manservant, but he balks as they cannot offer him assurances that he'll be employed if his employer were to go to jail....and the PCs fail badly trying to convince him, which drives him to reveal their efforts to his employer. She, naturally, sends out her retainers after the party, and now they're on the run from pseudo-legitimate law enforcement, making a hash of whatever plans they had and now putting them on a fugitive adventure instead. To fail, even under fail forward, is still bad; but it is bad in a way that creates further story rather than a way that dead-ends the story.

 

[zakael19]

“Play to find out” is about plot and questions and themes (eg: most well written narrative games tell you what the game itself is playing to find out), not “make everything up.” It’s more an answer to heavy GM authority scenarios a la written campaigns.

Prep in a PBTA is to ensure you can adhere to your other principles for that game (portray a world with integrity for instance), and give you things to say so you’re not flailing.

The key with Fronts / Threats / BITD factions is they’re not forcing things on the characters except by providing opposition to what the players have espoused they want via the stuff they’ve picked for their agents of play. When I build a Threat in Stonetop responsive to a set of rolls and fictional events, it’s also something that is a) clearly telegraphed and b) will advance towards its Doom with or without player involvement eventually. It’s showing a world of danger and mystery, being a fan, and all the other good stuff.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I’m a bit behind on the thread but it seems to me like there are 2 meanings of find, discover, reveal, etc. being used in this discussion.

I agree that narrativist games allow for a 'who-done-it' scenario without details preauthored and that this can/will produce an answer to that question through play. In some sense whatever answer play produces can be called finding, discovering, revealing, etc. the answer to the mystery of 'who-done-it'.

But when a solution is pre-authored and yet-to-be-found/discovered,revealed then that play produces both that same kind of finding, discovering, revealing etc. that was mentioned above, (usually producing a less interesting and compelling fiction in the process, narrativist games are great for more book/movie like narratives emerging from play) AND it produces a kind of finding, discovering, revealing, etc. that isn't present in narrativist games, namely, the finding, discovering, revealing, etc. of the preauthored solution.

Definitionally that may be a bit tautological, but it's precisely the difference we are talking about. So why does this difference matter? Because knowledge of the fact of preauthorship impacts how the game is played, sometimes in process, sometimes in how players make decisions, and oftentimes in both. Essentially it's the difference in what you love about narrativist games, and what we love about non-narrativist games. (IMO, how players make decisions is one aspect narrativism doesn't emphasize enough due to it's focus on process and distribution of authority, but it's at the heart of where I see the differences arising).

More broadly, this discussion is hard to have because the words we are using almost always apply to both game styles in some way. We've went through this same exercise with 'fiction first' (albeit party roles were reversed). We've went through it with 'player authorship' and 'agency'. We don't have strong terms to delineate the differences and so we stay right at square one.

I'd just like to note here that pre-authorship isn't required.

The only thing that is required is that there is some fact of the matter, within the fictional space. That fact-of-the-matter is most easily done by having it be pre-authored, e.g. by a GM or by an adventure writer, but it does not have to be done that way. Random determination is also possible, or (say) you could have a third party that doesn't know the context picking things out (so that it isn't random, but also isn't strictly "authorship" either.)

I've used the word "established" a lot here, and it's not for nothing. The order in which the truth is established matters. If the truth is pre-established--by whatever means, authorship being only one of them--then it is possible to solve for that truth by gathering evidence that points toward it (or which pushes you away from the false conclusions). If the truth is established by the investigation, if the establishment is causally downstream of the investigation, then I don't see how that investigation can be "solving" the mystery. It is, most certainly, still an investigation. But it is an investigation which creates a truth, rather than an investigation which discovers a truth.

If you're creating the truth, you aren't solving for it--you're building it with your own hands. Even if that creation is divided amongst multiple people and bound by strict and reliable rules and procedures, you are still creating that truth.

I cannot create the truth that 3+4=7, or at least I have no idea how I would create such a thing. But I most certainly can create a solution to X+Y=7 where X and Y are natural numbers, which does not have a solution as stated. I can create that solution by saying, "I declare that Y is 4, and thus X must be 3." Y could be any number of the set 1 through 6 (possibly 0 through 7, if you are like me and consider 0 a natural number); it is my choice to make Y=3 that creates the possibility of a solution in the first place.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'd just like to note here that pre-authorship isn't required.

The only thing that is required is that there is some fact of the matter, within the fictional space. That fact-of-the-matter is most easily done by having it be pre-authored, e.g. by a GM or by an adventure writer, but it does not have to be done that way. Random determination is also possible, or (say) you could have a third party that doesn't know the context picking things out (so that it isn't random, but also isn't strictly "authorship" either.)

I've used the word "established" a lot here, and it's not for nothing. The order in which the truth is established matters. If the truth is pre-established--by whatever means, authorship being only one of them--then it is possible to solve for that truth by gathering evidence that points toward it (or which pushes you away from the false conclusions). If the truth is established by the investigation, if the establishment is causally downstream of the investigation, then I don't see how that investigation can be "solving" the mystery. It is, most certainly, still an investigation. But it is an investigation which creates a truth, rather than an investigation which discovers a truth.

If you're creating the truth, you aren't solving for it--you're building it with your own hands. Even if that creation is divided amongst multiple people and bound by strict and reliable rules and procedures, you are still creating that truth.

I cannot create the truth that 3+4=7, or at least I have no idea how I would create such a thing. But I most certainly can create a solution to X+Y=7 where X and Y are natural numbers, which does not have a solution as stated. I can create that solution by saying, "I declare that Y is 4, and thus X must be 3." Y could be any number of the set 1 through 6 (possibly 0 through 7, if you are like me and consider 0 a natural number); it is my choice to make Y=3 that creates the possibility of a solution in the first place.

Your earlier post frames what we have all been attempting to say perhaps the best of all. The only thing I disagree with here is your premise that authorship cannot be done via some random mechanism.

I would also say the third party picking the solution was an author of that fictional detail.

TLDR: you are just using author much differently than I am.