GM fiat - an illustration

[Bedrockgames]

The obscurantism is in your description of play, that is, in referring to "objective facts that can be discovered".

We just have a basic disagreement on how to describe these things. I doubt either of us are going to convert the other to our way of thinking on this matter

A sentence written in the GM's notebook is an objective fact that can be discovered - by taking the GM's book and reading it.

An imaginary state of affairs described by a sentence in the GM's notebook is not an objective fact that can be discovered. It is something that the players can imagine, if prompted to do so by the GM, in accordance with the procedures of playing a RPG.

Yes it is. It is an established fact in the setting that the players can discover. If the GM commits to Mr. Body being dead in the lobby and having been killed by Mrs. Peacock with revolver, those are objective facts that can be discovered in the setting through investigation. No prompting by the players is going to change that Mrs. Peacock used a revolver to kill Mr. Body in the lobby. That is what makes it objective. They can objectively be right or wrong in their investigation and they can objectively fail or succeed in solving the mystery

For reasons that escape me, you will not actually talk about what actually happens at a RPG table - who says what, how participants are led to say those things, how this results in shared imagining etc. You will only speak about imaginary causation between imaginary events and imaginary people. That's the obscurantism.

A few reasons. First because most people accept that objective mysteries exist in RPGs. And most people would understand what I mean by players 'really solving' it. You want to break down play scientifically. But I am not at all interested in that form of analysis because as I have said many times, it is organic. I am not prescribing a set of procedures to follow. Thosethings are going to vary. There isn't just one process for exploring this. The important issue I was bringing to the table was that agency isn't expanded by giving players information if that information reveals things that would make their choices in an objective mystery lose meaning.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This right here is a huge part of the confusion and disagreement happening in this discussion.

Because it is about modeling causation in an imaginary space

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also @pemerton I must emphasize once again this is a massive tangent over a throw away remark I made about 'real mysteries'. My overall point was about agency. Another poster mentioned you could swap out 'real' with 'genuine' or 'sincere' or whatever else works for you. But I do think it is a bit silly people are seriously questioning that there can be a distinction between a mystery like this that the players are actually solving (something most gamers have known, experienced and seen) and other types of mystery adventures where the players aren't solving an objective mystery. It feels like a lot of navel gazing and hair splitting over something most people just understand intuitively through play

 

[zakael19]

I do think that the Blades book could be clearer. Or at least, it could be organized better. But I do think it's more complete than many texts. Certainly D&D and other games suffer from this, often by assuming some prior knowledge or experience on the part of the reader.

I don't think you need anything beyond the Blades in the Dark book to really understand, though. What I think happens is accumulated wisdom of the sort you're talking about from other games is applied in areas where it shouldn't be for a game like Blades. Like your GM just deciding by fiat that the targets of your score learned about the score. If he had only read the BitD book and acted on the guidance it provides, I don't expect he'd have done that.




I think the book mostly provides answers to all the questions that are being posed here, but they may be scattered about a bit, or they may have some subjectivity to them. Page 8 of the book talks about the phases of play at a high level, and makes it clear that they are there as a tool, and that there may be some blending at times.

But aside from a few things, I think it makes many things very clear in the book. The Score is generally the most focused part of the game, though.

Saying that the book could be organized better is putting things somewhat lightly... The amount of times an answer to something is in a single paragraph under a completely unexpected section is really annoying.

Kinda wandering off into teh weeds here, but it's pretty clear to me that BITD was designed to be that answer to the old question Baker posed: how would you make a PBTA-like game that focused on a cohesive group working together towards common goals. The Crew playbooks give you that center, and the mechanisms and phases of play cement it. Can you relax them? Sure. Do I think the game was intended for significant "unstructured" events and simultaneous scores? No, not at all - in part because it breaks significantly from the fictional inspirations. Other FITDs that wander away from lose the focus that Blades gives you.

When I'm running a FITD, we do a pretty sustainable loop: session 0 wraps with a clear first goal of a Score (or equivalent) set to do the Approach/Detail in Session 1 and go. Session 2 is fallout, character exploration in downtime (very rarely a Threat Roll if the fiction requires - mostly Gather Info / Fortune), and then again narrowing into both in character and in the clear meta channel our objective & some details about the next Score...and so forth. I find that keeping to the clear structure helps give focus to Score-time; and then relax the tension and delve into costs and relationships in Downtime.

What I do like is that newer FITDs have added in some "raid" structures that are like a reverse engagement roll - discovering how much warning you have before a hostile faction (inclusive of the cops) comes calling.

 

[pemerton]

For example, the above only makes sense if the referee chooses to present it in the third person. In contrast, what I and others do is roleplay as Horne, and talk in earnest, expecting the players to pick up on my tone of voice and act accordingly. As for things like smell, taste, or touch, we have to describe them, but a referee can choose to do so in a way that is only a step removed from actually having something there for the players to smell, taste, or touch.

<snip>

My approach, as highlighted in the video of our session, is that wherever possible, I had you and the other players interact in the first person. One thing that the video is missing is the fact that, due to technical limitations, we had to run the session using theater of the mind. Typically, I will reinforce the viewpoint with the use of maps and minis.

Maps and minis are not remotely first person. Or second person. They are god's-eye-view.

I watched a bit of this video that Google turned up:
The description of something making a noise like a steam kettle didn't seem to me to be "only a step removed from actually having something there fore the players to smell, taste, or touch". It also either made assumptions about the character's mental states (ie that, upon hearing the noise, they would think of a steam kettle) or else involved meta-gaming (that is, trading on the player's knowledge of an out-of-game thing, namely, a kettle, to try and then get them to think of the sound happening in the fiction).

 

[pemerton]

I disagree. The very knowledge that you have prepared a solution is information the players have that they can use to inform their play.

It's more verisimilitudinous when the detectives know, in advance, that because they're playing a game they will be able to find the clues that they need!

 

[zakael19]

Maps and minis are not remotely first person. Or second person. They are god's-eye-view.

I watched a bit of this video that Google turned up:
The description of something making a noise like a steam kettle didn't seem to me to be "only a step removed from actually having something there fore the players to smell, taste, or touch". It also either made assumptions about the character's mental states (ie that, upon hearing the noise, they would think of a steam kettle) or else involved meta-gaming (that is, trading on the player's knowledge of an out-of-game thing, namely, a kettle, to try and then get them to think of the sound happening in the fiction).

Yeah, when I allude to a real life smell/taste/touch/sound - it's to provide an analogy the player knows that gives some handle on what my personal imagination is trying to convey for "the purple-red ichor of a tree spirit spilling over your hands."

Or I might just ask the character what the smell that turns their stomach so is, and how it makes them feel...

 

[pemerton]

It was just an example, the details could be anything. And "action declaration" is not same as move. Players can declare their characters do all sort of things. Now if you claim that the moves in AW cannot produce results that could contradict GM's pre-established myth, then that's another matter.

In AW, when a player says what their PC does, one of three things happens:

* The player's action declaration triggers a player-side move, which is then resolved;

• The player's action does not trigger a player-side move, and the GM makes a soft move;
• The players action does not trigger a player-side move, but hands the GM an opportunity on a plate, and so the GM makes as hard and direct a move as they like.

Where is the tension supposed to exist, that @EzekielRaiden asserted?

Moving from bottom to top:

The GM always says what prep demands, and so in making a hard move will not contradict their prep.

The GM always says what prep demands, and so in making a soft move will not contradict their prep.

How is the resolution of a player-side move going to contradict the GM's prep?

 

[pemerton]

You want to break down play scientifically. But I am not at all interested in that form of analysis

But you are dead keen on making assertions about what is "real", and what is "objective".

As I've posted, those assertions are purely dogmatic. They're not grounded in any actual demonstration of the "reality" or the "objectivity".

It is an established fact in the setting that the players can discover.

So, I'm thinking of an established fact in my old Rolemaster game, about who killed Derf. You're a player. How do you discover that? (Without just picking up and reading my old logs of play.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In AW, when a player says what their PC does, one of three things happens:

So does "negation of action declaration" mean something else to you than" what the player wishes to accomplish with the action they declared for their character doesn't come to pass"? Because I am not talking about moves. Like before we argue for 60 pages about this, I'd like to clear up some semantics first.