GM fiat - an illustration

[Bedrockgames]

Your question doesn't make any sense.

It's like asking, how much does the whiskey shape the taste, if the cook has decided to make pikelets?

I mean, I'm sure in the history of the world someone has made pikelets using whiskey, but on the face of it the question I've just stated is a non-sequitur.

To repeat, here is the core relevant rule of BW, from the GM's side:

[indent "The GM is responsible for challenging the players. . . . The GM presents the players with problems based on the players' priorities" (Gold Revised. pp 10-11)[/indent]

So when you ask a question that, to me, seems to be *Can the GM nevertheless ignore those priorities and just play a prep-driven game?" it makes no sense to me. What are you trying to find out?

And when you ask about the prep of concrete details ("would it be okay for the GM to have such a concrete detail") my answer, like @Campbell's, is: it depends. Tell me how those concrete details actually relate to what the GM is tasked to do by the game, and I will tell you whether or not it is appropriate prep.

Similarly, in this thread, @EzekielRaiden and I had a back-and-forth about what sort of prep fits with Dungeon World's principles of play.

I don't understand how my question doesn't make sense

 

[pemerton]

I just wanted a simple answer to the question

@Campbell and I have both stated the relevant principles - me for BW, Campbell more abstractly and so generalising across more games.

Whatever prep is consistent with those principles makes sense; other prep doesn't.

Your questions, and the prep you have set out, appear to assume play in the style of traditional CoC or D&D. Set out some imaginary prep in a way that actually links it to the games you're asking about, and then I'll tell you whether I think it makes sense (as per my discussion, upthread, with @EzekielRaiden).

Or you could read the example of play that I posted in reply to you. It's not very long.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So when you ask a question that, to me, seems to be *Can the GM nevertheless ignore those priorities and just play a prep-driven game?" it makes no sense to me. What are you trying to find out?

I am trying to find out how much prep can exist in the game because i have been unclear if the truths of the mystery prepped by the GM is an impossibility or not in this system. You keep saying an objective mystery is possible through other means so I am trying to understand how that is so in the game you keep describing (it just doesn't seem like you can really be solving anything here: I am not saying you can't be having fun, I just don't see how the players are actually solving an objective mystery if everything relates back to them)

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Campbell and I have both stated the relevant principles - me for BW, Campbell more abstractly and so generalising across more games.

Whatever prep is consistent with those principles makes sense; other prep doesn't.

Your questions, and the prep you have set out, appear to assume play in the style of traditional CoC or D&D. Set out some imaginary prep in a way that actually links it to the games you're asking about, and then I'll tell you whether I think it makes sense (as per my discussion, upthread, with @EzekielRaiden).

Or you could read the example of play that I posted in reply to you. It's not very long.

I understand not all games are prep based like trad. I am trying to understand if the prep one might do for a mystery adventure like the one we have been describing is possible in this game. I gave you examples of prep I had in mind. If it isn't possible, That is fair. I am just trying to establish what it is this game does in this respect (i.e. if objective facts like "Professor Plum kills Colonel Mustard with the Revolver in the Library) can be prepped material at all (including if it happens to connect to any of these principles you have laid out)

 

[pemerton]

I don't understand how my question doesn't make sense

Here is the central rule of the game, for the GM:

"The GM is responsible for challenging the players. . . . The GM presents the players with problems based on the players' priorities" (Gold Revised. pp 10-11)​

Here is your question:

My only question here is how much the priorities shape the results. For example if the GM has decided from teh start of the session that professor plum murdered Mrs. Peacock with the Knife, can the priority or anything else in this process alter that? (and would it be okay for the GM to have such a concrete detail in the session).​

Your question appears to assume that the GM is using prep to frame scenes in disregard of the rules, and then asks whether the rules matter. That's why it makes no sense to me.

 

[Maxperson]

I would say the major difference seems to be that I can describe what I do.

I've been describing what I do as well. I'm just not a slave to rules and processes like you are.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I'm not @Campbell (obviously), but if you look at the Cthulhu Dark session I've linked to several times, you'll see that the PCs were never part of a "team", and that their paths crossed only from time to time and generally in an oppositional sort of way: Cthulhu Dark - another session

You'll see that an important component of my GMing was to use my control over places, NPCs, the timing of events and the like to engineer encounters between the two characters, and to establish common elements to their distinct trajectories.

Okay that was helpful as @darkbard asks the question that my initial post touched on - turned-based play.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Or you could read the example of play that I posted in reply to you. It's not very long.

I did read it but I am not clear what aspects of it are demonstrating the players are or are not actually solving a mystery

 

[Bedrockgames]

Your question appears to assume that the GM is using prep to frame scenes in disregard of the rules, and then asks whether the rules matter. That's why it makes no sense to me.

I am asking you if the GM can have setting and adventure background prep. Like if the GM is permitted to have facts nailed down before play begins

 

[hawkeyefan]

I've been describing what I do as well. I'm just not a slave to rules and processes like you are.

What? There’s a process no matter what, Max. Whatever it is you do following a player prompt like “what about cameras” is part of that process.

Being aware of what the process is and being able to describe it isn’t “being a slave to process”… it’s understanding how the game functions.

As I said… it would seem to me that the process is largely “the GM decides” which is fine… but for some reason there’s reluctance or inability to discuss that.