GM fiat - an illustration

[Crimson Longinus]

You can prep harsh things, but there's intervening space. When I prep a Threat for Stonetop, it ends in an Impending Doom that is likely "The town of stonetop is razed/conquered/fields corrupted/cistern poisoned/affliction spread throughout leaving all dead/" etc. And then you work backwards to the first signs, say - merchants on the Maker's Roads report Hillfolk gathering in bands, watching them just off in the plans, or something. Probably 4 or so "steps" between "here's a first warning" and "oops all dead" so that the PCs have space to comprehend and choose to take action (whatever that might be). If they dont, and it's time to make a hard move or as the fiction demands - you Advance Towards Impending Doom.

I believe Fronts in AW work in a very similar way. Once you've prepped, you're giving yourself permission to make those big (or small! some are close to home, that one guy and his gang that hate your guts and what they'll do to act on that; or a slow growing starvation; or whatever) moves to make the world real & the character's lives not boring.

The key is that once you've written in down, you're saying "absent intervening actions, this is going to get worse." And then playing the world with integrity is following through on the badness you've telegraphed.

Note that nowhere in there is straight up Fiat, really. The game itself gives guidelines in its core procedures on how to make Threats/Fronts/etc, sets of ideas, principles to run them, directions on how to give the characters the warning of what's coming; or how to make that hard move up front to kick the game off - but always with the option of the players not dealing with it and then things getting worse.

But what about history? What if the bad thing happened before the game even started, but the PCs don't know about it yet? Like certainly the world can have some sort of past?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I found that the use of maps and minis is a better representation of a character's situational awareness than theater of the mind based on my experience in live action roleplaying, and outdoor activities like caving and hiking. The point of this

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Isn't that the characters have magical sight that allows them to see through walls. The purpose of the map is to illustrate what they recall. Something I found players do far more poorly with is theater of the mind. And this doesn't stem just from live action and the outdoors, I have been training novices on complex metal cutting and metal forming machines for forty years. I have long understood that this training is more effective when you combine the visual with the verbal.

Because the use of maps and minis is there as a memory aide, the players would not see a creature or NPC approaching them through the room with the pond in the lower middle part of the graphic. They might hear them splashing through the water, but I would not take the token on the map until it was within line of sight. Specific to Roll20, when using fog of war and an already exposed area, is there a GM layer that the players can't see? So I place the token there and move it accordingly, then move it to the token layer when they are spotted.

Because the map is there as an aide, it will be a graphical reminder when the NPC steps from that south corridor into their line of sight of the room with the pool of water.

In addition, by adding a visual description to my verbal description, I found that for most players, it heightens the tension or urgency of the moment when they see a token or miniature of a creature like a giant centipede emerge from around a corner, compared to a verbal description alone. Adding the visual component makes the experience more vivid which for most players enhances their emotional experience while playing my campaign.



Here is the transcript of what occurs around the 1 hour 40 minute mark





I will leave that for the readers to judge, as I have posted the transcript for them to read to provide context for the statement I made.


It is an accurate description of the sound the giant centipede made after it was injured. I was inspired by a nature documentary that talked briefly about how some species of centipedes make a hissing sound called stridulation. While normal centipedes don't sound like steam kettles even when the sound is amplified, that's how the giant centipedes in my world sound.

As for the anachronistic use of steam kettles, I am running a session in a medieval fantasy setting for 21st century players for fun. I had three hours in which to run this session, and knew the players in question. All three factors were sufficient for me to conclude that accurately describing the sound as that of a steam kettle was an economical and understandable way of describing what the centipede sounded like to this group.

Throughout the decades, I have found that for most players, my campaigns and sessions run smoother and are more enjoyable when I use relatable analogies as part of my descriptions of what the players see or sense. And note that to be effective, I have to understand what is relatable to the particular group that I am running a campaign for. It's not about what I find relatable.

Two years ago I ran my Deceits of the Russet Lord adventure at Shirecon, and I was lucky in that half of the group were big fans, like myself, of the Harn setting and all things medieval. And for the rest of the group, like me, those players were self-aware that not everybody is a medieval geek and were able to help pull everybody else into their enthusiasm for the medieval side of how I run things. Because of that, I was able to tailor my descriptions to be more period-accurate than I usually am with a group of random 21st-century players.

The end goal here is to paint a clear picture of the circumstances within the time we have, using our limited verbal bandwidth as effectively as possible. The point isn't to tell the players what the answers to a mystery are, but to get them to feel that they are within a mystery that could be investigated and solved. Because if they don't get that, then it will make for a poor tabletop roleplaying experience.

Out of the points all that I made in my reply to @Bedrockgames, I am not sure why criticizing my use of maps and minis, as well as the use of a steam kettle analogy, reinforces the points you have been making. Frankly it comes off that you personally dislike my choices. Which is valid, but no more a basis for discussion than saying you like cars with blue paint and criticizing that I like cars with red paint.

Yeah I don't see a big deal with miniatures or steam kettles (especially the later where you are talking to the player, not the character and the player needs to understand what images you are invoking). I am also not overly rigid about this. A lot of my campaigns are more 'first person' but I am not strictly policing it. The biggest walls would be around things like out of character knowledge. I use a lot of anachronistic language when I run games. That sort of thing doesn't worry me at all.

It is also worth pointing out, this is a preference issue. Some GMs find miniatures help, some don't. Me and Rob run games differently in this respect, I do strict theater of the mind with no miniatures. But they each have their advantages and disadvantages. Miniatures and maps make things clear, I am more okay than some GMs with things being more open to interpretation (though I do try to be as clear and precise as I can). And I will occasionally do things like sketch out an outline of what players see so they understand things like the terrain. One thing I do often do though is I will track player and NPC movement on paper so things aren't shifting around.

Just as a personal comment, Rob's sandbox games and his mysteries are very good (I also had a chance to run Scourge of the Demon Wolf a few years back and it is right up my alley). But I also played in one of his middle earth sessions (which was a little different in style and that was great too). Rob's great at getting into character too (I on the other hand am rather dry in my delivery, and not much of an enthusiastic actor).

On mysteries in general a lot of this is really going to pivot on the system too. Just as an example if you are using a game like Gumshoe, that can still do the objective mystery, but it is also more structured around scenes. I ran a fun investigation using the early version of that system, ecoterrorist and it was a blast. That system will be different than the system I normally use to run mysteries but it still does what I am talking about. So this is one of the reasons I think getting into the details of play isn't as important as objective backstory simply existing

 

[hawkeyefan]

I didn't say prep wasn't important. In fact I said planning out the details of the central mystery was essential for creating the foundation for players to investigate and actually solve it. I felt Pemerton's characterization here reduces it too much to the metaphor of the notes.

No… the notes aren’t the metaphor. That’s what is actually happening. This is what we’ve been trying to explain to you. The game is players sitting about a table and talking (or online and talking, whatever). The goal of this scenario is to “solve the mystery”, which the players do by learning what the GM decided has happened.

That’s not a metaphor for play… that’s the actual description of play.

Especially where he talked about the players prompting the GM to reveal them. I think it is a much more vibrant and organic process, and I think there are lots of things going on not involving the notes themselves and not tethered to the notes.

Okay… what are those things? “Vibrant” and “organic” here are metaphors. For what?

Acting in character? What else?

But also I am just strictly talking about mystery adventures. I am not talking about sandbox or living world or any of that. But I think because of our history having debates over those styles, some of the talk drifted into applying the GM note metaphor to those as well

The only one who has mentioned sandboxes or living worlds so far is you.

No because if you are modeling it after the fact the players aren't solving an objective mystery. I think this is very obvious.

Yeah, because you are mistaking the illusion of cause and effect for actual cause and effect. Deciding weeks before play you're totally unbound by cause and effect. The mystery is constructed however you want and you are shaping all the “facts”.

You create the facts of the case, and then make them fit into some sense of cause and effect. Same as I may do during play.

Also to be clear I am not saying this is better. I am just saying the players are actually solving something. But if you are determining cause and effect after the fact, how was there anything for them to solve?

The same as when you “solved” the mystery by creating it. There’s a mystery in the fictional world of the game… and it’s “solved” by determining the culprit.

Possibly. But that was not the action declaration. It was to go to Krumptown to meet Sludge, not go to pile of ash to find that Sludge is dead.

So I can declare “I go to Mordor and cast the ring into Mount Doom” and that’s all it takes, huh? What game works like this?

Yeah, that makes sense. But then "prep negated an action declaration," a thing Pemerton insists cannot happen.

Because your idea of an action declaration is silly.

But what about history? What if the bad thing happened before the game even started, but the PCs don't know about it yet? Like certainly the world can have some sort of past?

So a lot of starting lore of the game is going to come from what the players offer during the first session of play. The GM is going to walk them through a typical day and ask them tons of questions to flesh out their hold. That’ll form the basis of his prep. He may offer ideas of his own, too, in the course of this first session.

Then, after the first session, he takes all that info and he comes up with some possible threats. Generally speaking, the GM isn’t going to take an idea introduced by a player… that there’s an NPC named Sludge who lives in Krumptown… and say they’re destroyed before play begins. Why do that?

It’d make far more sense to set up a threat and perhaps before the threat comes to their hold, it hits Krumptown first. So this would seem to be something that would happen as a GM move advancing a threat clock.

 

[zakael19]

But what about history? What if the bad thing happened before the game even started, but the PCs don't know about it yet? Like certainly the world can have some sort of past?

In AW, the entire world is a bad thing that happened, the themes of which you define together to a degree during session 0.

Otherwise, if a "bad thing" happened that won't impact play - who cares? If it impacts play, it's probably encompassed in the existing mechanics - it shows up as a Landscape/terrain threat, or a NPC threat, or the core fact that there's not enough food to eat, or whatever.

Edit: Stonetop has a lot of like, "bad things that happened in the world's past" but it's 100% in service of "and here's why that might show up today to mess with the PCs; and if they want to Know Things or find out more, here's some ideas."

 

[Bedrockgames]

No… the notes aren’t the metaphor. That’s what is actually happening. This is what we’ve been trying to explain to you. The game is players sitting about a table and talking (or online and talking, whatever). The goal of this scenario is to “solve the mystery”, which the players do by learning what the GM decided has happened.

That’s not a metaphor for play… that’s the actual description of play.

It wasn't literally notes. The GM notes a stand in for any GM prep was my understanding. But if it is literally about the GM's notes then I think the explanation is worse than I originally thought

 

[Bedrockgames]

The same as when you “solved” the mystery by creating it. There’s a mystery in the fictional world of the game… and it’s “solved” by determining the culprit.

But in that case you are not actually solving it. you are creating the solution

 

[hawkeyefan]

It wasn't literally notes. The GM notes a stand in for any GM prep was my understanding. But if it is literally about the GM's notes then I think the explanation is worse than I originally thought

Notes in the sense of physically writing down or mentally knowing them. The predetermined facts.

Play is about learning what those are.

But in that case you are not actually solving it. you are creating the solution

Right. Which isn’t how mysteries actually work. And which is no different than a play process that creates the solution.

 

[zakael19]

It wasn't literally notes. The GM notes a stand in for any GM prep was my understanding. But if it is literally about the GM's notes then I think the explanation is worse than I originally thought

What is GM prep for you if not notes?

@hawkeyefan ok that's two times in a row you've ninja'd me lol

 

[thefutilist]

But what about history? What if the bad thing happened before the game even started, but the PCs don't know about it yet? Like certainly the world can have some sort of past?

In AW specifically there just isn't much room for revelation. The characters are mostly going to places they already know, or kind of know, or know of. Same with mystery, there just isn't much room for it given the nature of the fictional circumstances.


There is some hidden backstory and mystery (or can be), especially around the psychic maelstrom. It just not the sort of fictional situation where that's stuff prominent.


A month in the life of midnight:


She's got a whole death wish thing going on because she's fundamentally morally compromised because she's the assassin for the Doubleshots, a slaver gang. Her girlfriend the skinner has just broken up with her because of the whole assassin thing going too far.

She goes to Kumpftown to see sludge and get high. It's been burnt to the ground by the pyrocult. She goes and finds the pyrocult and the leader assures her that this is a cleansing fire that will wipe away the old and all sin. She likes that idea and joins the cult. (the pyro ideology is in my prep as part of the leaders backstory)

They go and burn another village and watching the flames she decides that actually the world is just screwed. she massacres the pyro cult and wonders the anti-wastes to die. (in my prep there is a ten foot high mutant people eater there)

she gets captured and hung up by the brain eater, he's ready to eat her and he says 'make you scream first. block out bad things in world for moment.' he speaks like the hulk or something.

Midnight is all 'yeah I know that feeling.' which surprises the brain eater and he feels a human connection so he cuts her down.

Midnight has made a friend and so she goes back to the holding, with brain eater in tow, to try and persuade her ex to give her another chance.


There's just fundamentally not a lot of room for backstory revelations.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What is GM prep for you if not notes?

@hawkeyefan ok that's two times in a row you've ninja'd me lol