GM fiat - an illustration

[EzekielRaiden]

But you are painting my position as an extreme here. You know I wouldnt' actually argue that real physics are going on in the game. But I would argue the king dispatching his men would be a reasonable approximation of cause and effect in a game, or that cause and effect can be modeled for game purposes. That a GM might redirect the cause and effect for ulterior purposes is to me besides the point. That two GMs might reach different conclusions about the cause and effect is totally fine (I mean in the real world, both the outcomes you described are conceivable: to me what matters is if the GM is genuinely considering cause and effect). But I am also not some kind of simulationist extremist. In these conversations I am sometimes forced to defend positions that are extreme ends of my own playtstyle but not my actual playtsyle. For example, I am want cause and effect to be a consideration in my campaigns, but I am also okay with with other considerations also being factors like drama, engagement, fun and excitement. There are people on the more extreme end of the cause and effect thing, but that isn't where I reside.

While it may be beside your point, it is a really really important concern to highlight: this, this right here, is exactly what I was referring to by things being unspoken and thus impossible to do anything about. If everything is under the table, out of sight, shielded from investigation, hidden inside the black box, how can you possibly DO anything about it? I posit you can't, other than, as noted, the three all-super-not-great options:
Bear the problem in silence, suffering the problems without being able to articulate what exactly is wrong, why it's wrong, or what could be done to fix it;
Kick up a fuss, which will, almost 100% guaranteed, be painted as "getting mad about nothing" or the like because you can't point to any specific problem--I haven't faced this in TTRPG-spaces, but I have absolutely faced it in a variety of other comparable social interactions where the rules and expectations were black-boxed like this;
Or depart the table.

First, that's not at all what he means by nuances.

Second, the bolded is provably false. In my game if something is bothering the players, they come and talk with me about it after the game. We come to a consensus about the issue, with me changing things sometimes and them accepting the ruling or whatever it is sometimes. I can only think of one time in the last 15 years where a majority of the players wanted something one way, and I put my foot down and did it the way I wanted. And I had a really good reason for doing it that way.

How can they come to you with an issue if the issue is hidden inside a black box they aren't allowed to know or see? How can they speak to you about a problem if the problem is actually ineffable, as Badrockgames has described?

And how do you explain the simple fact that, on this very forum, from folks like yourself (I can't recall if it included you specifically), when someone described a situation where the table collectively chose to walk because they weren't happy with the game a DM was offering, numerous people accused the players of being unfair and inappropriately leaving without giving the DM appropriate leeway to fix the issues, when so, so, so, SO many times you and others have insisted that if a player isn't happy with a game their clear recourse is always to just depart the table?

 

[Bedrockgames]

While it may be beside your point, it is a really really important concern to highlight: this, this right here, is exactly what I was referring to by things being unspoken and thus impossible to do anything about. If everything is under the table, out of sight, shielded from investigation, hidden inside the black box, how can you possibly DO anything about it? I posit you can't, other than, as noted, the three all-super-not-great options:
Bear the problem in silence, suffering the problems without being able to articulate what exactly is wrong, why it's wrong, or what could be done to fix it;
Kick up a fuss, which will, almost 100% guaranteed, be painted as "getting mad about nothing" or the like because you can't point to any specific problem--I haven't faced this in TTRPG-spaces, but I have absolutely faced it in a variety of other comparable social interactions where the rules and expectations were black-boxed like this;
Or depart the table.

You shouldn't play with a group you are unhappy with. So I am not telling you to bear the issue in silence. But the thing is, while this may be a problem for you, it isn't a problem for many people. My only issue in this kind of play is if a GM is playing games behind the screen. And that can happen. But I also have found doing so is mostly a young GM issue (most of the older guys I know have no interest in that, and you can work to build trust with players so they realize what it is you are doing in the background: I've even shown players my notes after a session to show difference one of their choices made)

 

[Bedrockgames]

And how do you explain the simple fact that, on this very forum, from folks like yourself (I can't recall if it included you specifically), when someone described a situation where the table collectively chose to walk because they weren't happy with the game a DM was offering, numerous people accused the players of being unfair and inappropriately leaving without giving the DM appropriate leeway to fix the issues, when so, so, so, SO many times you and others have insisted that if a player isn't happy with a game their clear recourse is always to just depart the table?

I am saying the process of play is ineffable. I always find breakdowns in rulebooks to fall short when they try to summarize what happens in an interaction in 'trad play'* (even 'trad play' RPGs) fall short for me. But problems at the table aren't ineffable. If someone is having a problem with how I am running a game they can speak with me. I may be able to accommodate them or I may say the campaign probably isn't a great fit for them. That really depends on the situation


I LOATHE this term but am using it for clarity

 

[Bedrockgames]

And how do you explain the simple fact that, on this very forum, from folks like yourself (I can't recall if it included you specifically), when someone described a situation where the table collectively chose to walk because they weren't happy with the game a DM was offering, numerous people accused the players of being unfair and inappropriately leaving without giving the DM appropriate leeway to fix the issues, when so, so, so, SO many times you and others have insisted that if a player isn't happy with a game their clear recourse is always to just depart the table?

I don't know what case you are talking about, but just given my memory of the kinds of conversations that have been had on this: I suspect this largely came down to how the situation was presented. I do think there is a genuine divide here over how upset this makes some posters and not others. I don't tend to get upset over these kinds of issues at a table (if I am not having fun, I am not going to rain on a groups parade, but I've left mid-game because I don't see the point in sticking around if I am not enjoying myself)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well...somehow I got 3/4 through responding to this and then it got completely deleted. I don't know how. It's quite frustrating. If things are less coherent than my usual, that's why; I may be thinking I said a thing that got deleted in the previous draft.

We have a fundamentally different way of viewing game design. I don't see it as technology that is always moving forward

If it is a design, how is it not a technology? That is what design is, the effort to construct something that achieves a specific desired end. Design absolutely includes artistic elements, and thus there may or may not be clean, simple comparisons between different designed things even in the same overall space. But design itself is a technology.

All sorts of things are like this. Cooking, brewing, printing. Consider music. It is foolish to say that (say) Tuvan-Mongolian throat singing is "better" than neoclassical composition or that rap music is "worse" than librettos. But within a particular instrument or expressive form, we can compare technique--and it is objectively true that we have a better understanding of the technique of orchestral composition today than Mozart did in his day. That doesn't mean Mozart was inferior, such a thing is chronological snobbery and should be actively avoided. Instead, it means we have gained a better understanding of what we are doing, and in many ways that better understanding actually deepens the beauty and profundity of the great masters of the past.

Same goes for cooking, or brewing. A thousand years ago, we had no idea how yeast worked. We just knew that if you allowed hot grain juice to sit out for a while, it would usually grow some stuff that tasted nasty....but then it would taste wonderful (for those who like beer, I'm afraid I don't) if you let it sit long enough and then decanted the good parts. Now? Now we quite precisely understand the science of zymurgy, and that helps us make better beer. Not "better" in the sense of "our beer is totally superior to the beer of a thousand years ago", but rather "if a brewer sets out to make a specific vision happen with his brew, it's significantly easier to do that now." My late father was an avid homebrewer and won many awards for his brewing, and he loved the fact that brewing was simultaneously an art and a science. Precise control over chemistry, hop varietals, grain varietals, roasting depth, secondary ingredients, mineral additives, yeast strain, etc., etc., etc., allow us to do all sorts of things that would have been absolutely impossible a thousand years ago.

Again, I think there is just a fundamentally different approach. It falls short, but I also think it is not really possible to thoroughly analyzing something like this. It is about human interaction and I think when you try breaking that down into parts in this way, you can certainly do it, but you end up missing elements that are intuitive and possibly taken for granted. It is like trying to hold a successful conversation with someone following a set of guidelines rather than your instinct. There is a human element that is very hard to pin down and when people do I think there is a pronounced tendency to be reductive

If we leave these things as purely and exclusively intuitive, as ineffable, as "taken for granted", we are setting up the next generation for failure. Because if we can't communicate it to them, how can they be expected to learn it? If we cannot describe it except in nonverbal sounds and vague gesticulations, how can we possibly help them achieve their understanding? This analysis isn't some horrible thing trying to rob the soul out of something you love. It's the request that you explain yourself, rather than relying on vagaries and "common knowledge" etc. that are all so, so easily lost, distorted, or (regrettably) abused.

You don't have to use it if you think it doesn't work. The reason I use it is this is exactly how I would talk to people playing, and 90 percent of the time, they would understand what I mean almost exactly. I think the way most gamers would arrive at the distinction in your post is using language like "actually solve the mystery". Also I have taken great pains I think to clarify the full meaning of what I am trying to say over the course of my posts

The problem is, this is fundamentally a "no true scotsman" argument. All you've done is say "well that thing isn't a REAL mystery", without actually adding anything further. That's not only not helpful, it actively presents your argument as unsound. That's a big part of why you perceived "hubris" in others: they're telling you the things you're saying not only aren't helpful, they're actively bad arguments. If someone throws a No True Scotsman fallacy at you, you're not going to find it very convincing and you're probably going to dismiss it for exactly that reason. That's what's going on here.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am saying the process of play is ineffable. I always find breakdowns in rulebooks to fall short when they try to summarize what happens in an interaction in 'trad play'* (even 'trad play' RPGs) fall short for me. But problems at the table aren't ineffable. If someone is having a problem with how I am running a game they can speak with me. I may be able to accommodate them or I may say the campaign probably isn't a great fit for them. That really depends on the situation


I LOATHE this term but am using it for clarity

Okay. What do you dislike about it? It seems to me a highly accurate description of the things you've spoken of. You are saying you literally cannot talk about it--that it isn't a matter of needing to lay out extensive background or the like, but that it is truly impossible to discuss it with us. Is that not what "ineffable" means? That is, "incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible"?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Okay. What do you dislike about it? It seems to me a highly accurate description of the things you've spoken of. You are saying you literally cannot talk about it--that it isn't a matter of needing to lay out extensive background or the like, but that it is truly impossible to discuss it with us. Is that not what "ineffable" means? That is, "incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible"?

I failed to include the asterisk footnote. I don't loathe ineffable (I love that word). I loathe the word trad in the context of RPG discussions. I just think the essay where that term comes from is very flawed

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I failed to include the asterisk footnote. I don't loathe ineffable (I love that word). I loathe the word trad in the context of RPG discussions. I just think the essay where that term comes from is very flawed

Ah, understandable. I find "trad" useful because I find that it captures a particular style and approach, one which differs both from Gygax's specific wargaming-inspired heist-like style and from various modern styles (some of which descend from "trad").

Moving on to the core point then: How do you propose to teach new people about these ineffable things? How can we further the development of good GMing skills, if it isn't even possible to talk about what good GMing skills are?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well...somehow I got 3/4 through responding to this and then it got completely deleted. I don't know how. It's quite frustrating. If things are less coherent than my usual, that's why; I may be thinking I said a thing that got deleted in the previous draft.

If it is a design, how is it not a technology? That is what design is, the effort to construct something that achieves a specific desired end. Design absolutely includes artistic elements, and thus there may or may not be clean, simple comparisons between different designed things even in the same overall space. But design itself is a technology.

Because it is a game. Games are not like cars or computers. There are trends. And you can build on ideas over time. But you can do that in literature and music too and I wouldn't call either of those technology (they do use technology, the invention of the piano is significant for example). But I wouldn't call a D minor scale technology. To me calling it technology creates the false impression that it like cars advancing. But people are still playing games happily that were invented in the 30s or 40s (and in the case of chess even older).

All sorts of things are like this. Cooking, brewing, printing. Consider music. It is foolish to say that (say) Tuvan-Mongolian throat singing is "better" than neoclassical composition or that rap music is "worse" than librettos. But within a particular instrument or expressive form, we can compare technique--and it is objectively true that we have a better understanding of the technique of orchestral composition today than Mozart did in his day. That doesn't mean Mozart was inferior, such a thing is chronological snobbery and should be actively avoided. Instead, it means we have gained a better understanding of what we are doing, and in many ways that better understanding actually deepens the beauty and profundity of the great masters of the past.

Sure but I also think music theory does a much better job of explaining music (though I have my quibbles about it for sure) than the explanations in this thread of how RPGs work. And I don't think that is for want of trying, but because RPG play is so much more fluid. I can write out inventions in D minor in notation and you can play it by looking at it. If I write out a D&D scenario 10 different GMs will play it differently. That makes evaluating technique a lot harder

I am not saying we can't evaluate technique. But systems of analysis can also be used to make things less understandable. Breaking down ideas in RPGs are not absent from my side of the net here. Where I think we differ it thinking the process can be broken down at the smallest scale. Also music theory functions the more expansive it is. The more music theory is used to appreciate how Mongolian Thoard singing works, rather than disprove that its music, the better it is. For many years for example, there were serious arguments advanced using music theory to say Rap music wasn't proper music. But obviously rap is music. Yet back when people were making these arguments, if you weren't versed in music theory, it was incredibly difficult to counter a position that was obviously untrue like that. If people were using music theory to argue that mongolian throat singers aren't really singing the way they think they are, or that people who like mongolian throat music are deluding themselves, you can bet there would be enormous push back (and rightfully so)

Same goes for cooking, or brewing. A thousand years ago, we had no idea how yeast worked. We just knew that if you allowed hot grain juice to sit out for a while, it would usually grow some stuff that tasted nasty....but then it would taste wonderful (for those who like beer, I'm afraid I don't) if you let it sit long enough and then decanted the good parts. Now? Now we quite precisely understand the science of zymurgy, and that helps us make better beer. Not "better" in the sense of "our beer is totally superior to the beer of a thousand years ago", but rather "if a brewer sets out to make a specific vision happen with his brew, it's significantly easier to do that now." My late father was an avid homebrewer and won many awards for his brewing, and he loved the fact that brewing was simultaneously an art and a science. Precise control over chemistry, hop varietals, grain varietals, roasting depth, secondary ingredients, mineral additives, yeast strain, etc., etc., etc., allow us to do all sorts of things that would have been absolutely impossible a thousand years ago.

Arts and crafts all make use of technology. And techniques can evolve and improve over time. But I don't think that makes the pursuit itself a form of technology. We have more complex harmonies in music now than we did before. Does that mean a three note chord is technology? I think it is a technique, but not technology

If we leave these things as purely and exclusively intuitive, as ineffable, as "taken for granted", we are setting up the next generation for failure. Because if we can't communicate it to them, how can they be expected to learn it? If we cannot describe it except in nonverbal sounds and vague gesticulations, how can we possibly help them achieve their understanding? This analysis isn't some horrible thing trying to rob the soul out of something you love. It's the request that you explain yourself, rather than relying on vagaries and "common knowledge" etc. that are all so, so easily lost, distorted, or (regrettably) abused.

but I can communicate them. Just not to your liking. The language you find vague works 90 percent of the time for me. I am not saying dont try explain. But I think doing so as if you have found 'the answer' is a problem. And I think saying there is only one wya to analyze and discuss RPGs is a problem

The problem is, this is fundamentally a "no true scotsman" argument. All you've done is say "well that thing isn't a REAL mystery", without actually adding anything further. That's not only not helpful, it actively presents your argument as unsound. That's a big part of why you perceived "hubris" in others: they're telling you the things you're saying not only aren't helpful, they're actively bad arguments. If someone throws a No True Scotsman fallacy at you, you're not going to find it very convincing and you're probably going to dismiss it for exactly that reason. That's what's going on here.

Except I did explain why the other case wasn't a real mystery (and if I remember you agreed with the distinction I was making even if you didn't agree fully with my use of language)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Moving on to the core point then: How do you propose to teach new people about these ineffable things? How can we further the development of good GMing skills, if it isn't even possible to talk about what good GMing skills are?

I think the kind of language I use is actually helpful for most people. But you also have to explain things through examples. So vague language is fine, provided you are also willing to say "now let me show you what I mean". I do not think jargon is helpful though. I have said many times, I often have trouble following people on this thread (even after looking up the concepts they are using) and I think people are overestimating how easily this kind of language can be used to convey ideas in a hobby (I am sure it is useful for some people but I think the biggest hurdle to the ideas in this thread spreading is the language around them).