GM fiat - an illustration

[zakael19]

The game book doesn't really cover when to transition from free play to a score. It doesn't give tips on if the players just want to stay in free play and do little things (mine wanted to send mail bombs, which didn't really seem to fit into the score layout).

The game book wasn't very clear on how active vs static the neighboring gangs should be toward each other, or at least if it was I didn't find that info easily.

*Also, your reddit example just sounds like people being aholes.

Naw, most of the time people coming from other more conventional systems haven't really on-boarded the GM and player guidance. People do absolutely provide lots of feedback/advice, but the "have you read the GM guidelines?" is pretty necessary since often the questions make it clear people either haven't or haven't quite grasped what the game wants with its explicit statements. IMO the organizational structure of the book is terrible, as we've all noted in this thread multiple times.

However, your first point is wrong; it absolutely does cover free play to score and that the GM should be pushing players towards that Target declaration that is a concrete transition to Plan/Detail + engagement roll. (see: pages 8 & 125).

Regarding active/static - that's the Faction Clocks you bring into play as they impinge upon the Players and their interests (and those the GM wants to have humming along), and the Situation/Enemies on each detailed faction list. Combined with the sample Starting Situations in the book, it should be relatively clear how to bring it all into play as you wish.

 

[FrogReaver]

Naw, most of the time people coming from other more conventional systems haven't really on-boarded the GM and player guidance. People do absolutely provide lots of feedback/advice, but the "have you read the GM guidelines?" is pretty necessary since often the questions make it clear people either haven't or haven't quite grasped what the game wants with its explicit statements. IMO the organizational structure of the book is terrible, as we've all noted in this thread multiple times.

It's more than just the organization. There's alot of needed details that just aren't clear.

However, your first point is wrong; it absolutely does cover free play to score and that the GM should be pushing players towards that Target declaration that is a concrete transition to Plan/Detail + engagement roll. (see: pages 8 & 125).

If that's your reasoning then you aren't understanding me.

It covers what to do when transitioning from free play to score, i agree. It doesn't cover (or doesn't cover well) how to decide if something should count as a score to trigger that transition. As an example - would the players sending a mailbomb to the police station to cause mayham be a score? And if not a score what rules in the book should be relied on to resolve this scenario? And if a score, why would they get a pay out for successfully completing this activity?

Regarding active/static - that's the Faction Clocks you bring into play as they impinge upon the Players and their interests (and those the GM wants to have humming along), and the Situation/Enemies on each detailed faction list. Combined with the sample Starting Situations in the book, it should be relatively clear how to bring it all into play as you wish.

Found the section (pg. 158) - this one is just badly organized. It's in the downtime section instead of at least being mentioned in the initial faction section.

 

[zakael19]

It's more than just the organization. There's alot of needed details that just aren't clear.

If that's your reasoning then you aren't understanding me.

It covers what to do when transitioning from free play to score, i agree. It doesn't cover (or doesn't cover well) how to decide if something should count as a score to trigger that transition. As an example - would the players sending a mailbomb to the police station to cause mayham be a score? And if not a score what rules in the book should be relied on to resolve this scenario? And if a score, why would they get a pay out for successfully completing this activity?


Found the section (pg. 158) - this one is just badly organized. It's in the downtime section instead of at least being mentioned in the initial faction section.

Two things: a) the Targets ideas are pretty solidly given, and b) the GM guidance helps shape your running of the game into the sort of score the system is made for and answers that question.

Like, you’d start by asking questions to understand the point of the mail bombs; how theyve made them/want to acquire them; how they are sending them; etc. From those answers, things should start to clear up - is this a Target? Is this a combination of Downtime Activities?

A simple “ok, what’s your goal here?” generally starts walking things towards what the system cares about.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What’s intentionally vague in DitV?

Physical details of the place, exact details of what's going on, a lot of things. We had a long discussion about this game in some other thread a while a go.

I have. Your examples of play seem to deviate from the book.

You do understand that the couple of examples (like the score failing) were especially examples that I recognised as improper play according to the principles of the game? They are not typical for how our game goes. And that I recognised them as such is because I actually understand the principles of the game. And what we were talking about here was not about those examples, it was about the very basic structures of the game.

The claims you make also don’t seem supported by the text or by actual play experience. You don’t back up your assertions with any kind of reasoning, like your statement above about DitV.

It is in the bloody rules of the game! I assume you have read them. The GM gets to fiat new complications ex nihilo on most rolls. There also is little constraint on them framing the obstacles in the first place. It is up to the GM how many obstacles (that effectively force the players to make rolls) there will be on a score and what those obstacles are. And unlike in a prepped trad game, the GM is just fiating these on the spot as well. What part of this is unclear to you?

 

[zakael19]

Physical details of the place, exact details of what's going on, a lot of things. We had a long discussion about this game in some other thread a while a go.


You do understand that the couple of examples (like the score failing) were especially examples that I recognised as improper play according to the principles of the game? They are not typical for how our game goes. And that I recognised them as such is because I actually understand the principles of the game. And what we were talking about here was not about those examples, it was about the very basic structures of the game.


It is in the bloody rules of the game! I assume you have read them. The GM gets to fiat new complications ex nihilo on most rolls. There also is little constraint on them framing the obstacles in the first place. It is up to the GM how many obstacles (that effectively force the players to make rolls) there will be on a score and what those obstacles are. And unlike in a prepped trad game, the GM is just fiating these on the spot as well. What part of this is unclear to you?

If, as folks have argued in this thread, fiat in the TTRPG context requires arbitrariness to be a "Valid use of the word;" then please tell us how looking at the players goals/abilities/drives/established fiction/shared world building, and creating appropriate obstacles or consequences that follow from what came before is arbitrary?

 

[FrogReaver]

If, as folks have argued in this thread, fiat in the TTRPG context requires arbitrariness to be a "Valid use of the word;" then please tell us how looking at the players goals/abilities/drives/established fiction/shared world building, and creating appropriate obstacles or consequences that follow from what came before is arbitrary?

I think the point was more, if whatever the d&d dm is doing gets called fiat then isn’t all that even more fiat. One can still make that point while maintaining what’s done in either game by their preferred definition is not fiat.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think the point was more, if whatever the d&d dm is doing gets called fiat then isn’t all that even more fiat. One can still make that point while maintaining what’s done in either game by their preferred definition is not fiat.

Yes, this.

 

[zakael19]

I think the point was more, if whatever the d&d dm is doing gets called fiat then isn’t all that even more fiat. One can still make that point while maintaining what’s done in either game by their preferred definition is not fiat.

Per the OP's situation, IMO the notion was that the DM has control over the world state in such a way that they can bypass player's plans/abilities/hoped for outcomes at will via fiat. I don't have that level of permission in Blades. Can I state a consequence? Sure! But it's in reaction to a player's Action Roll dictating so (and should've been somewhat clear before they even did the action). Can I control what they do via Action rating selection? No! That say is reserved to the player. Am I dragging them forward towards my own idea of a "cool story?" No! I'm giving them the opportunities or spit balling options that I see as the next immediate steps towards their espoused goals as a crew and character, and asking what they do about it.

 

[thefutilist]

That will mean different things for different games (sometimes very different). But let me be clear, I think (a) the idea that a GM's decision-making & the attendant processes they mediate can be consequentially principled while simultaneously being obscured is a rejection of the sort of the vigorously engaging, premise-addressing, gameful space I'm pointing at. The point of participant principles and constraining procedures/rules in a game is that they are shared to be mutually understood in order to give rise to the nailing down of the play meta (the premise and boundaries of play and what undergirds them) and the particular gameful space it entails. So...I'm sorry, but I do not agree that it is possible to have a functionally gameful space when participants do not have a rigorous understanding of how the gamestate moves and/or what the premise of play is from moment-to-moment. Whether it be BJJ sparring, or sport climbing, or playing Sherlock Holmes booklet mysteries, or playing basketball, or participating in a TTRPG, if any of (i) the refereeing paradigm (its constraints, its principles which inform each instance of mediation) or (ii) the structure of play or (iii) the point of play (how initial conditions provide a substrate for the throughline which provide momentum toward endstate) is veiled to me? Its curtains. I'm not playing a game in this scenario because there is no functionally (reliably able to be well-understood and aggressively acted upon to inflict my desires upon the gamestate at each and every moment of play) gameful space for me as a participant. I'm engaging in play for sure, but I'm 100 % locked-in on my position on what is necessary to rise to being even the floor of a gameful space...and not robustly knowing how the gamestate moves from here to there and/or not being able to index how premise injects play with meaning, momentum, and purpose at each and every moment of play...because either of them are veiled within some seminal participant's idea-space of which I don't have access to? No. An obscured play meta and/or obscured/shifting orientation to central phenomena or play handles is a killshot.

The issue I have with this framing is that I don't know how (or whether it's desirable) you manoeuvre toward an end state and so I don't know how applicable the general language of games is to rpg's.

In chess I want to get the opponent in check mate and so I use the moves I have available to me to do that.

If we put that into rpg terms, using my hitman example. Then my goal for the scene is to find out how the interaction goes. I don't have a specific goal to manoeuvre towards.

I find rpg's more analogous to say painting a picture together. If the rule is, when I lift my brush it's the other persons turn. Then I go, they go, I go and we mutually create. I don't have a vision for the picture (end state) in the way I do have an end state for chess.

Say In Dogs, you want to find out how and if the Dogs deal with the sins and also how that effects their relationship with their faith. You don't have the goal 'clean the town of sin' though or anything like that.

 

[thefutilist]

Per the OP's situation, IMO the notion was that the DM has control over the world state in such a way that they can bypass player's plans/abilities/hoped for outcomes at will via fiat.

See my previous post but you also hit the nail on the head. Why do you have a hoped for outcome? and why should I care?

EDIT: This comes off as too aggressive. My previous post was more moderated.