GM fiat - an illustration

[AbdulAlhazred]

@Campbell in that style of game with characters having possibly conflicting goals, do the players decide how and why they are together and how their initial adventuring foray is somehow serving all their personal goals directly or indirectly?
Because I'm imagining quite a player turn-based initial session if that is not the case.

Are they 'together?', this is not your Pappy's D&D... BitD positions the PCs as a crew, as simply a fact. Beyond that the milieu and genre assumptions, etc all work within that context. However, nothing really forces the crew members to be all chummy friends, skullduggery is common in Doskvol. Agon puts the heroes together on a voyage and assigns one as leader each session. The others can test against that leadership. Stonetop imagines all the PCs as inhabitants of a single village, though I guess they could work against each other, or simply do their own stuff.

1000 Arrows makes NO assumptions about the PCs even cooperating. It is equally likely they murder each other, and it would require some contrivance to assure they all wanted the same thing.

 

[Campbell]

@Campbell in that style of game with characters having possibly conflicting goals, do the players decide how and why they are together and how their initial adventuring foray is somehow serving all their personal goals directly or indirectly?
Because I'm imagining quite a player turn-based initial session if that is not the case.

Most of these games are not really adventuring and in some there is no group. In Apocalypse World you are all members of the same hard hold (community) but no guarantees you actually work together. It's like tabletop Deadwood. In Sorcerer your lives intersect from time to time, but you each of have your personal struggles. In Monsterhearts you are just monstrous teenagers attending the same high school.

Some are much more about shared goals with conflicts arising within. Apocalypse Keys casts as apocalyptic monsters working together to stop other apocalyptic monsters while fighting against your personal darkness. Dogs in the Vineyard makes the conflicts of interest between player characters more about their view of The Faith and how best to root out Sin in town.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Another serious question. If this is the case, how can you have the players solve an objective mystery if everything needs to relate to their subjective values, passions, etc? (and I am not saying those things are bad, I can see the value in play those would add, I just can't see how you have them functionally solving a real mystery)

I would say that you probably wouldn't play Cthulhu Dark in that case. Trail of Cthulhu might work better, since it's a variant of Gumshoe, which I understand is specifically designed to do mystery stories. However, my understanding of ToC/Gumshoe is that the requisite clues are presented to the players, while there's a solution to the mystery which the players don't know, the solution is not really in doubt at a basic level. However I am not overly knowledgeable about how the game plays, and I don't know that it is really a Narrativist type of system either.

The other possible approach might be to design a PbtA where the game assumes a hidden mystery and the move structure/playbooks and agenda are devised with that in mind. Such may exist, I don't know.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Nah. They shut it down.

These are the examples I offered:

He could say that there is a blurred image that shows the video was digitally tampered with after the fact. He could say that the perpetrator knew where the cameras were and avoided being caught on them in any significant way.

Neither of these "shut down" the cameras. Each gives clues about the perpetrator.

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

Max, I've been running games like this for over 30 years, and still do, though less frequently than I run other types of games. I have a good understanding of how they work.

Maybe you don't?

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.

And who answers all those questions?

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.

Because it's trivially easy to answer the question, even with an incomplete example. Others have done so. I can do so.

Why can't you?

 

[hawkeyefan]

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 think some people absolutely have been. If you don't feel they've done a good job, I would suggest you go ahead and ask @pemerton yourself.

I don't feel the need to do so because he's thorough and specific in his answers to the point where I have a very clear idea of how he GMs and the kinds of principles he applies and so on. Also the games he tends to play tend to be more specific about the role of the GM and how they should perform during play.

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.

But it's still made up. To me, I think that is a huge divide in this discussion.

Now, I understand how players may enjoy playing an RPG where they are playing characters who are solving a mystery with a predetermined answer. But that doesn't change the fact that the predetermined answer was still made up. The fact that it was made up days or weeks before play doesn't really make it any better, or any less subject to conflict or anything like that.

Nor does it make it more "true". Yes, it's been predetermined and it's set before hand... but it's still made up. It could be boring or nonsensical or anything else that something made up on the spot could be.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

1000 Arrows makes NO assumptions about the PCs even cooperating. It is equally likely they murder each other, and it would require some contrivance to assure they all wanted the same thing.

They may not even meet! I think Yoshimoto has been in person, interacting with Hino and Suetsuna for less than a half an hour of game time? This probably is directly contributing to Yoshimoto not having been murdered...

 

[dragoner]

Behold, the GM Fiat:

Actually doesn't look that bad to be honest.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think some people absolutely have been. If you don't feel they've done a good job, I would suggest you go ahead and ask @pemerton yourself.

He's already ignored my previous questions.

But it's still made up. To me, I think that is a huge divide in this discussion.

Yes, in a sense that you think it for some reason is insightful to point out that in make believe everything is made up whereas I think it is an utterly pointless observation.

Now, I understand how players may enjoy playing an RPG where they are playing characters who are solving a mystery with a predetermined answer. But that doesn't change the fact that the predetermined answer was still made up. The fact that it was made up days or weeks before play doesn't really make it any better, or any less subject to conflict or anything like that.

Nor does it make it more "true". Yes, it's been predetermined and it's set before hand... but it's still made up. It could be boring or nonsensical or anything else that something made up on the spot could be.

Dear Athe, give me strength! I'm sure you also think it is immaterial whether in Twenty Questions the answerer decided the word being guessed before or after the questions have been asked!

 

[thefutilist]

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.

Where I agree with you. In really broad terms it's incumbent on the GM to be open about their process because there are lots of ways to GM and lots of cultural assumptions about the GM role. Especially the GM as mysterious entertainer who stewards the game and provides a good time for the players.

In this very thread I've denigrated trad play and the attendant texts but I want to draw a distinction:

Vampire the Masquerade is as clear as Apocalypse World as to what the GM's role is. It's just that the role is, let's say naff. This goes for all the game texts influenced by 2E. The ones that call for illusionism are also flat out socially dysfunctional.

Then there are a load of texts where you just don't know. You're given this set of rules and no principled way in which to use them. So you have to use some kind of process of cultural osmosis. Futhermore. no one who plays with you knows what you're doing. You don't even necessarily know what you're doing if you haven't been introspective about it. Which often leads to play being fragile in exactly the ways you suggest.

Let's say we're kind of past all that though and in the 'more intimate social dynamics' stage. Then yeah, the group as a whole should be ruthlessly interrogating the failure points, or the process of play to put a more positive spin on it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would say that you probably wouldn't play Cthulhu Dark in that case. Trail of Cthulhu might work better, since it's a variant of Gumshoe, which I understand is specifically designed to do mystery stories. However, my understanding of ToC/Gumshoe is that the requisite clues are presented to the players, while there's a solution to the mystery which the players don't know, the solution is not really in doubt at a basic level. However I am not overly knowledgeable about how the game plays, and I don't know that it is really a Narrativist type of system either.

The other possible approach might be to design a PbtA where the game assumes a hidden mystery and the move structure/playbooks and agenda are devised with that in mind. Such may exist, I don't know.

To be clear here, I wasn't stating a lack of interest in playing other approaches to mysteries. The example I opened with was one where I was using Hillfolk to play a mystery (and my point was I liked it, but wouldn't use it if I wanted an objective mystery). I was simply drawing a distinction between mysteries the players solve (like you have in a typical CoC campaign) and ones where the players aren't actually solving them so much as exploring a mystery scenario.

Gumshow is more scene driven and more clue driven. It is basically just trying to get around the problem of players missing a clue and the mystery collapsing. So it leads with the idea that what is important is the players having fun putting the clues together. I think you can still technically miss clues in it. But the point is if you walk in a room and there is a clue, you generally get the clue. However I am more familiar with the game that preceded it, the Esoterrorists (which I recommend more highly than Gumshoe, which admittedly is probably not the norm: most people prefer Gumshoe). Esoterrorists is more for doing stuff like The Exorcist. I think it is beautifully designed and seems very inspired (absolutely love its approach to monster creation). Also forgive me if I misspelled it, The Esoterrorists always trips me up when I try to type it out