GM fiat - an illustration

[Maxperson]

The examples I gave were not bad faith GMing nor were they shutting things down. They each gave new information to varying degrees.

Nah. They shut it down.

This seems like a dodge.

It's not. You just clearly don't understand the playstyle.

Let's say the players want to follow up on the cameras immediately. What happens?

Who knows.

Is this a private property? A bank? Are the PCs police detectives? Private detectives? Not detectives at all? Is the owner an NPC who likes authority? Dislike authority? Do the PCs have prior good history with the owner? Bad history? And on and on and on.

You keep asking for things that just plain can't be answered without knowing the pre-authored details of the adventure, plus things established by prior game play.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So why are we interrogating in exact detail the GM needing to make up on spot some details in a scenario where most of the salient facts are predetermined, and not @pemerton apparently making up basically the whole scenario as he goes along? Whatever one thinks of GM fiat, the latter obviously relies on it way more.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But that's what's happening. Why not call it what it is? Why this fear of using certain words?

The players ask about the cameras, which the GM hadn't previously detailed or prepared. This prompts him to come up with something.

The whole game is a series of prompts. It's a conversation, with the GM prompting the players ("What do you do?") and then the players declaring actions that prompt a response.

It isn't a fear of words. You tend to couch in things in terms of intellectual bravery, like people are afraid to see what they are really doing, rather than just understanding people are seeing this stuff differently than you. To me this is just too binary. I think you could describe it as prompting, but I think that is also an incredibly limiting because a GM isn't a computer program and isn't a dog responding to a dinner bell. I see it more as a conversation. And conversations are much more organic than "players prompt the GM-GM decides what happens". I don't like this idea that we are reducing human interaction to 'prompts'. It just doesn't work or resonate with me at all. In any way.

So the GM decides:

• If there is a camera
• If it captured anything
• How useful that information may be

I wouldn't say that. I would say, very noncommittally, that the GM

-Decides how to resolve the question about the camera (this could be arrived at by simply deciding, but he could refer to a percentile roll or other mechanic, incorporate skill rolls from the NPCs involved (for instance if stealth and tech skills from either are in any way relevant he might use those or at the very least compare scores: obviously depends greatly on the system). He could even put it to a vote. Even if the goal is to be as objective as possible about, and it isn't always the goal, there are lots of ways it could be resolved that don't just include "the GM decides". I personally wouldn't object to a GM simply saying "yes there was a camera there)

-Again this would be the same as above. The GM might simply decide, but he could draw on any number of methods to make this determination

-Again, this would be the same as above.

And what guides him is:
- what has been prepared

Like I said, it is a gray area. And we are covering a broad range of styles and systems. So this isn't necessarily the case. Some groups may be fine, because 90 of material is objectively connected to prep, opening these 10 percent of cases to being more dramatic or exciting (they just wouldn't want to contradict prep). But I think most would be guided by the prep material and anything that logically flows from the prep material (the prep isn't static once the game starts and all the pieces are moving so it is really about what the prep is modeling)

One GM might say there was no camera. Another might say the killer is revealed. Other GMs may offer anything in between those two extremes.

Yes this is always a possibility. I think the results won't be totally random though. I imagine if you had 20 GMs handling the exact same situation, it would be more like 70% say Y, 20% say X, 10% say Z.

This part of the conversation came about when @Maxperson described the players as having the ability to add new clues in play. I asked how, and he came up with the example of the cameras.

If you put a gun to my head I would quibble with his description. I don;t think they are adding a clue, I do think they are discovering a clue that the GM didnt' think of but logically is one that might exist based on the objective details of the mystery (but this is pedantic phrasing and I think "players add a new clue" is just another way of expressing this

My point is that the players don't have the ability to add a new clue. They can ask about something (i.e. the cameras) and that will then prompt the GM to consider this possibility. But as you say, the GM can decide there was no camera, or that nothing was caught on it, or any other outcome that doesn't result in a clue.

I think you are minimizing how important the players choices are here though. Yes you need the GM to facilitate play. By the players being able to probe this territory and have the GM form a ruling to accommodate it is part of what makes RPGs so boundless. Now that said, we aren't arguing over whether this form of play is boundless, railroaded or fiat. We are just talking about whether an objective mystery is being solved. So I feel like we have stumbled into a classic debate about GM styles again

My point being... everything is up to the GM.

The GM is facilitating play with his rulings. When you say "everything is up to the GM" it sounds kind of arbitrary and like there isn't any give and take. But the players asking "was there a security camera" expands the world they are inhabiting because the GM is empowered to go beyond the rules and beyond the prep to formulate an answer

I think it is very helpful.

As I've said a couple of times now, and connecting this in a way back to the original point in the OP... there is so much GM authorship going on in this scenario that it can be easy to overlook it. This is why I think @Maxperson made the mistake of saying that the players can add new clues to the scenario. He's forgetting that the GM can simply deny that if it seems to make sense to do so.

I doubt @Maxperson meant they were literally materializing a clue. I think he fully understood the GM could say "No, no cameras". But his point is players can probe and the GM can go beyond both system and prepped material to accommodate that. So I think both extremes here are kind of not helpful (No the players don't make the clues, but also no the GM simply doesn't author everything"). The players have full control of their characters, and the players actions and their out of character questions are things that that will help expand what is going on in the scenario and in the setting. The players do have power here

Breaking it down and looking at the parts makes it easy to see how much the GM is deciding about what is happening in play, and that can be easy to miss when looking at the entirety of play.

I don't think any of us are in denial about how much the GM decides. In these conversations we have come down largely on teh side of giving the GM the power to make the kinds of rulings and decisions we are talking about. But I do think you tend to minimize how much power the players have in this arrangement (and how much power they gain when a GM is doing this well). Again, this was the first thing I noticed when I played an RPG, how your declared actions could just rip through the scenery and suddenly things come alive. I am not saying this is your experience or that you have to play this way, or that all RPGs should play this (as I said earlier, Hillfolk doesn't play this way but I really like that game). But one of the things that makes me so passionate about playing, running and designing games, is the dynamic I just mentioned (and I don't think reducing that to "The GM decides" captures what it is

 

[thefutilist]

It's not fiat because the motivations behind it are arbitrary. It's fiat because there is no accountability for it. There is no binding agreement about it. There is no saying "This is not meeting the shared expectations we have set". That's the difference in the enumerated principles and agenda of something like Apocalypse World - it sets grounds for discussion about what is expected and what the GM is accountable to the players for.

It depends on whether you think rules should create accountability. I don't but I'm also sympathetic to the idea that principles should be enumerated.

The issue with accountability is it creates a play culture where you can point to the rules and say 'I'm following the rules' and it leads to the idea that rules create agency.

For a whole load of social dynamics it's easier and faster to just to say the GM is king. For instance playing with strangers, or not wanting to stop play to discuss the use of a 'game breaking spell' or some such.

For more intimate social dynamics, the rules should only ever be seen as a strong suggestion. Working through discord has to happen at the creative/social level, you need to be on the same page. Or you don't have to be I guess, you can let the rules act as an authority but I don't like the creative dynamic it produces.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So why are we interrogating in exact detail the GM needing to make up on spot some details in a scenario where most of the salient facts are predetermined, and not @pemerton apparently making up basically the whole scenario as he goes along? Whatever one thinks of GM fiat, the latter obviously relies on it way more.

I do feel like we are on a side tangent for sure

 

[Campbell]

So why are we interrogating in exact detail the GM needing to make up on spot some details in a scenario where most of the salient facts are predetermined, and not @pemerton apparently making up basically the whole scenario as he goes along? Whatever one thinks of GM fiat, the latter obviously relies on it way more.

Because it's not just making up details on the spot. It's framing scenes that speak to the embedded premise / values of the characters. The expectations for what the GM is doing are clear and transparent.

 

[Campbell]

It depends on whether you think rules should create accountability. I don't but I'm also sympathetic to the idea that principles should be enumerated.

The issue with accountability is it creates a play culture where you can point to the rules and say 'I'm following the rules' and it leads to the idea that rules create agency.

For a whole load of social dynamics it's easier and faster to just to say the GM is king. For instance playing with strangers, or not wanting to stop play to discuss the use of a 'game breaking spell' or some such.

For more intimate social dynamics, the rules should only ever be seen as a strong suggestion. Working through discord has to happen at the creative/social level, you need to be on the same page. Or you don't have to be I guess, you can let the rules act as an authority but I don't like the creative dynamic it produces.

I don't think expectations need to come from rulebooks, but that shared and formalized expectations help to create a healthy creative dynamic that encourages to speak up when we're not getting what we desire from play. Granted, I only play with friends.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because it's not just making up details on the spot. It's framing scenes that speak to the embedded premise / values of the characters. The expectations for what the GM is doing are clear and transparent.

And there is insane amount of leeway within that. And of course in any game there are in practice limits on what the GM can make up, be they plausibility, fairness, themes etc. It is just that in a game where salient details are predetermined there is less need to make up things on the spot in the first place.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The GM is facilitating play with his rulings. When you say "everything is up to the GM" it sounds kind of arbitrary and like there isn't any give and take. But the players asking "was there a security camera" expands the world they are inhabiting because the GM is empowered to go beyond the rules and beyond the prep to formulate an answer

I like it when players provide vectors not planned for.
Because now that the player has expanded the world, and through either GM Decides or dice there is a sense of wonder where this will lead for the storyline for both the players and the GM.
Did the camera capture the actual crime or just passers by leading us to suspects?
Is the recording on the premises? Who has access to the recordings? How long before recordings overwrite themselves?
There is a lot of on-the-spot reasonable thinking, possibly even sharing of ideas or providing input.
The GMs mind is racing as they are listening to players' perceptions/ideas and having to sort out between prep and prompting him/her to expand on content.

 

[Manbearcat]

It depends on whether you think rules should create accountability. I don't but I'm also sympathetic to the idea that principles should be enumerated.

The issue with accountability is it creates a play culture where you can point to the rules and say 'I'm following the rules' and it leads to the idea that rules create agency.

For a whole load of social dynamics it's easier and faster to just to say the GM is king. For instance playing with strangers, or not wanting to stop play to discuss the use of a 'game breaking spell' or some such.

For more intimate social dynamics, the rules should only ever be seen as a strong suggestion. Working through discord has to happen at the creative/social level, you need to be on the same page. Or you don't have to be I guess, you can let the rules act as an authority but I don't like the creative dynamic it produces.

I'm a bit outside all of you guys here. My position on fiat is that both the lack of accountability and the arbitrariness are equally consequential. The decree component indicates unilateral authority. That bakes in lack of accountability (to system and process as binding architecture and to players as participants in a coalition). The arbitrariness component is because the decision the GM makes indexes neither table-facing structure/procedure nor overt, enumerated principles which constrain and inform that GM's decision-making. Neither of those mean the GM's decision-making process is baseless nor degenerate/dysfunctional. But it definitely means it lacks the features I'm pointing at above.

And, again, I don't think this is "bad" in terms of an agenda for play nor "bad" in terms of an output. But I hold 100 % true (from a long journey of first-hand experience, an abundance of second & third-hand experience via endless testimonials, and an absurd amount of consideration on the subject) that this approach is (a) not remotely as versatile as it purports to be and (b) that there are a huge number of failure-points embedded in the play model. Finally, (c) if you have a lot of failure-points embedded in your <whatever>, you better be willing to interrogate (and ruthlessly so) your discipline, piece-by-piece, or you're absolutely going to be more apt to fall prey to those failure points...and while you might not know it, the other participants of your <whatever> sure as hell will. I think that (c) is a big problem for this model of play because (as we see here and everywhere else) there is an absolute rejection of interrogation of play...and a refusal to post Actual Play or engage with hypotheticals.