GM fiat - an illustration

[pemerton]

You don't know what moves are?

I don't know what you mean by "only moves". Like, what are you saying about "only moves"?

 

[Bedrockgames]

So I infer from this that you can't explain your play to a new player. All you can tell them is that "it's an organic process"! But when they go outside and start planting flowers, you have to tell them they're doing it wrong.

I find it very easy to explain to new players how to play

 

[pemerton]

I find it very easy to explain to new players how to play

But you won't tell us in this thread how you would explain to someone what it means to "investigate"?

 

[Bedrockgames]

But you won't tell us in this thread how you would explain to someone what it means to "investigate"?

They aren't hostile Pemerton. I've already explained it to you in previous threads. And I also know you know perfectly well how I run games. But importantly, this isn't about one particular method

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't know what you mean by "only moves". Like, what are you saying about "only moves"?

I mean that action declarations and moves are different thing. The former can be basically anything whilst the latter are limited set of things with limited set of outcomes.

What do you mean, why? Because it's not what the rules tell the GM to do. Prep in AW is of threats and fronts. (In the revised edition I think the terminology is thinned down to threats only, but my copy is the original.)

But certainly this is just establishing a threat in a concrete way?

 

[pemerton]

I also know you know perfectly well how I run games.

I think I know how you run games. I've described it in this thread. But you reject my description! So I'm curious how you would describe it.

For instance, would you say stuff like "You tell the other participants what your character is doing?" and "The GM will then tell you what your character sees" and etc? And if they asked "How does the GM know what to say - do they just make it up?" would you reply with stuff like "No, the GM has notes that they refer to, and extrapolate from"?

And if not, then what do you say instead?

 

[pemerton]

I mean that action declarations and moves are different thing. The former can be basically anything whilst the latter are limited set of things with limited set of outcomes.

Yes. I know this. I've often posted it. It seems possible that you learned this by reading a post of mine!

But I don't know what you are talking about with "only moves". What is supposed to be the difference between player-side moves, and the GM making a soft move in response to a non-player-side-move-triggering action declaration, as far as the relationship to prep is concerned?

But certainly this is just establishing a threat in a concrete way?

Are you asserting? Asking? Are you referring to the AW rulebook?

From p 136:

A front has some apparently mechanical components, but it’s fundamentally conceptual, not mechanical. The purpose of your prep is to give you interesting things to say. As MC you’re going to be playing your fronts, playing your threats, but that doesn’t mean anything mechanical. It means saying what they do. It means offering opportunities to the players to have their characters do interesting things, and it means responding in interesting ways to what the players have their characters do.

Accordingly, when you create a front, follow your own inspiration. Choose the things that are suggestive to you, that put you in mind of apocalyptica, romance, violence, gore, danger, trauma.​

Krumptown is burned down is not a threat. Burning down Krumptown is something that a threat might do. I posted an example of what they might look like upthread.

 

[FrogReaver]

I know you aren't purposefully meaning to offend with this comment, but I have to say, your description here feels dismissive of the PbtA/FitD approach.

Huh?

Why is there an an assumption that in PbtA / FitD / Ironsworn the majority of "facts" or "truths" are yet to be made up? Like, somehow, because every single fine detail isn't written in stone, that somehow the players are working in a "primordial sludge" of some kind of Inception-style amorphous mind-space that is impossible to comprehend, and anything the players do in that space is ultimately meaningless?

First of all, this discussion is centered on mysteries in narrative games that don't have these details made up yet. That's why I'm talking about that. If they have these details made up before the game, then the mystery is just as real/objective/etc as in any non-narrative game.

In reality, the "liminal space" between pre-authored backstory and what's left to in-play discovery is usually ~5-10% of the total fictional framing. Often less than that, occasionally a little more.

But no matter which, the players aren't starting from zero. There's still a ton of backstory and framing already in play. There are always vectors for them to pursue in the goal of uncovering "the truth of the mystery."

But that 10% makes a huge difference in allowance. All I'm doing is leaving enough wiggle room in the premises to allow for the unforeseen and dramatic, and giving myself room to focus on that---if I so choose to---by following the principles espoused in the Ironsworn system.

I know nothing about Ironsworn. If it works differently than what I'm talking about then I'm not talking about it.

One of PbtA's core principles is Give the players their due. When the players win, they get to win. If they overcome the collective obstacles needed to solve the mystery, no single die roll is going to deny them that win.

In my example they would have failed on the last one. So they didn't 'win'.

BitD / Ironsworn's use of clocks/objective trackers makes very easy to chart individual "evidence threads" and compare their overall progress. If they fulfill the grounding requirements of "closing the investigation" (i.e., all the clocks are full), the players win, period.

That wouldn't happen until the final clue is put in place, which is excluded in my example. (Clocks at least in BitD (a game i'm somewhat familiar with) seem to me like a poor way of handling the solving of a mystery).

If I happen to choose Solution X, Solution Y, or Solution Z at the very last moment, it will always follow from what has already been established, including actions and moves taken by the players to that point.

If all those solutions are still possible at the very last moment then you haven't solved the mystery and can thus still fail to solve it by failing the next dice roll or rolls.

In the majority of cases, the actual "truth of the mystery" doesn't deviate from the pre-prepped material---but what does deviate are the suddenly heretofore unknown connections between elements that play has revealed, or a shift in perception or motivation for one of the mystery's participants, or a crucial piece of evidence suddenly becomes more germane to the proceedings.

This idea of deviation from pre-prepped material seems strange here. How or why would that happen?

And yes, occasionally, a new "Solution XY" or "Solution YZ" may arise if the players' pursuits create a golden opportunity to drive the action in a way that they're angling for. But that "solution ending" will never negate any of the players' prior efforts or discoveries. If it does, I-as-GM am no longer playing FitD / Ironsworn in full faith.

Right, I never claimed anything previously established would be negated. Though, that's kind of sad for the mystery genre, which is chock full examples where all the clues you've established pointing to the guilt of person X are later revealed to be a frame job. I guess frame jobs in a mystery cannot happen in these games, or if they can, how is it possible to still uphold this while not negating prior player discoveries?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes. I know this. I've often posted it. It seems possible that you learned this by reading a post of mine!

But I don't know what you are talking about with "only moves". What is supposed to be the difference between player-side moves, and the GM making a soft move in response to a non-player-side-move-triggering action declaration, as far as the relationship to prep is concerned?

I don't get what you don't get. If you mean that the prep will not contradict moves, then that seems plausible enough (at least for most of the time,) but that's not what you said, you said the prep doesn't contradict action declarations, and that I have an issue with.

Are you asserting? Asking? Are you referring to the AW rulebook?

From p 136:

A front has some apparently mechanical components, but it’s fundamentally conceptual, not mechanical. The purpose of your prep is to give you interesting things to say. As MC you’re going to be playing your fronts, playing your threats, but that doesn’t mean anything mechanical. It means saying what they do. It means offering opportunities to the players to have their characters do interesting things, and it means responding in interesting ways to what the players have their characters do.​

​

Accordingly, when you create a front, follow your own inspiration. Choose the things that are suggestive to you, that put you in mind of apocalyptica, romance, violence, gore, danger, trauma.​

Krumptown is burned down is not a threat. Burning down Krumptown is something that a threat might do. I posted an example of what they might look like upthread.

I have the revised and it has just threats. But these threats are threats for some reason. Pyro Cult is not a threat if they're just chilling! But the prep might say that the Pyrocult has burned down several settlements including Krumptown, killing all its inhabitants, then that's a threat.

 

[FrogReaver]

What do you mean, why? Because it's not what the rules tell the GM to do. Prep in AW is of threats and fronts. (In the revised edition I think the terminology is thinned down to threats only, but my copy is the original.)

So have we now came full circle? Are we back to Narrativist games like AW don't allow prep for most details and certainly not enough to pre-establish the facts of a mystery?