GM fiat - an illustration

[zakael19]

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.

I'll be honest bud, I have no idea what this is asking or referring to, sorry.

 

[thefutilist]

I'll be honest bud, I have no idea what this is asking or referring to, sorry.

So you have a character perform an action. Say they set a trap or whatever. The GM can use fiat to make it go whichever way the GM chooses, the trap works or it doesn't.

The way you framed it. The player has a hoped for outcome. The player wants the trap to work and the GM is using fiat to thwart the players (not the characters, the players) plans. Is that correct?

If it is then I'm questioning why the player 'has' an outcome they hope for instead of just playing to find out. In this case being open to seeing what choice the GM makes.

 

[pemerton]

My take is that there is still plenty of non-transparent GM decision making in whatever style one plays in. Narrativism does a good job of nailing down when the GM should introduce a consequence (traditional play is a bit more free form there), but just like traditional it doesn’t nail down what any particular consequence should be. It may constrain the consequences more explicitly and transparently, but they can still be any number of things within the given constraints.

Which RPGs are you talking about here? Just to pick two examples, Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP are pretty different in their rules for consequences.

My understanding from all our previous discussions is that narrativist games typically mandate consequences for most player actions when the players don't get a full success on their die roll (or whatever other resolution method they are using).

In Burning Wheel, if a player succeeds at a test, intent and task are both realised. All the GM can do is embellish the success.

If a player fails, then the GM narrates a consequence. This is either implicit in the fiction (analogous to "make a move that follows) or else has been expressly flagged in advance. And it must negate the intent of the test.

Because the test will be in the context of a scene that has been framed in accordance with the rules that I already stated above, it will put at stake something that pertains to or bears upon player-authored priorities for their PC. And so the intent will likewise bear upon or manifest those priorities in some fashion. Hence, the consequence - in negating the intent - will also bear upon or speak to those priorities. So it's not only make a move that follows the fictional play but make a move that follows the thematic play.

So the GM's decision-making is very focused. This is what makes Burning Wheel more "intense" and personal than more conventional, adventure-oriented FRPGing.

In MHRP, actions are always opposed - either by an opposing character, or by the Doom Pool - and failure can mean "no effect" or may involve the GM spending a Doom Pool die to impose an effect on the character whose player failed. If a scene has stakes beyond defeating the opponents in it, these will be manifested as a Scene Distinction (eg Vulnerable Bystanders), and if the Scene Distinction is still there at the end of the scene, the GM gets to bring home whatever would follow (eg the heroes failed to protect the vulnerable bystanders).

Because all consequences are mechanically defined (as Scene Distinctions, or as dice-rated Effects), they are rather more stylised than in Burning Wheel. I would say that, overall, the GM has less scope to put truly hard choices and situations in front of the PCs. In my experience this makes the game less intense, on the whole: not every roll feels like it might be the end of a character's hopes and dreams. Whereas Burning Wheel leans more in that direction.

I personally don't recognise these games in some of the descriptions, in this thread, of "narrativist" vs "trad" RPGs. In particular, my experience is that in trad-sim-immersionist RPGing, what is at stake is often quite opaque to the players. The GM might be constrained by pre-decision (prep/notes/map/kehy/etc) but the players frequently don't know what the content of these constraints is.

The upshot in play, at least in my experience and also what I observe/hear, is that players often try to make low stakes action declarations to try and learn more about the situation, before they fully commit. In dungeon-crawl play, this is exploring, listening, mapping etc without opening doors; in mystery-solving play it the collation of documents, rumours etc before confronting suspects/cultists etc.

Another manifestation of this start with low stakes idea is that play should begin at the "edge" of the real action (eg the entrance to the dungeon; the city gate; the edge of the wilderness). When I've posted about the first Burning Wheel session that I GMed, in which I began the action in a bazaar with a peddler offering an angel feather for sale (which spoke directly to one of the PC's Beliefs), more than one poster has said that I "should" have started play at the entrance to the city, so the player could make his own choices about how (as his PC) to find his way to the bazaar. This is about starting with very low stakes ("Do I successfully enter the city?" Almost certainly, yes), and having the player engage in low-stakes action declarations (looking around, talking to bystanders) before the high-stakes opportunity to acquire the angel feather is established.

Speaking purely for myself, I have come to prefer RPGs where the stakes are reasonably clear, and players are not engaging in low-stakes action declarations just to work out what is going on and find a way for their PCs to get to the higher-stakes action.

 

[zakael19]

So you have a character perform an action. Say they set a trap or whatever. The GM can use fiat to make it go whichever way the GM chooses, the trap works or it doesn't.

The way you framed it. The player has a hoped for outcome. The player wants the trap to work and the GM is using fiat to thwart the players (not the characters, the players) plans. Is that correct?

If it is then I'm questioning why the player 'has' an outcome they hope for instead of just playing to find out. In this case being open to seeing what choice the GM makes.

Players in blades don't hope for actions, they hope for outcomes to achieve their Goals (eg: the target of a score so that their larger scale objectives continue). "I want to cross blades with the Bluecoat so that we can get through," "I want to climb up onto the warehouse roof so that I can see our best way in." Sometimes the consequences are obvious (ok, if you roll a Miss skirmishing in blade to blade fighting ya gonna get clubbed or something); sometimes you need to think about the situation (ok...theyre're scoping out the Billhook's grounds, whose Resources per their faction sheet are XYZ - ok, they've got lookouts here who might hear the climbing around).

So again, I'm not sure what you're asking here.

 

[zakael19]

In Burning Wheel, if a player succeeds at a test, intent and task are both realised. All the GM can do is embellish the success.

If a player fails, then the GM narrates a consequence. This is either implicit in the fiction (analogous to "make a move that follows) or else has been expressly flagged in advance. And it must negate the intent of the test.

Because the test will be in the context of a scene that has been framed in accordance with the rules that I already stated above, it will put at stake something that pertains to or bears upon player-authored priorities for their PC. And so the intent will likewise bear upon or manifest those priorities in some fashion. Hence, the consequence - in negating the intent - will also bear upon or speak to those priorities. So it's not only make a move that follows the fictional play but make a move that follows the thematic play.

So the GM's decision-making is very focused. This is what makes Burning Wheel more "intense" and personal than more conventional, adventure-oriented FRPGing.

In MHRP, actions are always opposed - either by an opposing character, or by the Doom Pool - and failure can mean "no effect" or may involve the GM spending a Doom Pool die to impose an effect on the character whose player failed. If a scene has stakes beyond defeating the opponents in it, these will be manifested as a Scene Distinction (eg Vulnerable Bystanders), and if the Scene Distinction is still there at the end of the scene, the GM gets to bring home whatever would follow (eg the heroes failed to protect the vulnerable bystanders).

Because all consequences are mechanically defined (as Scene Distinctions, or as dice-rated Effects), they are rather more stylised than in Burning Wheel. I would say that, overall, the GM has less scope to put truly hard choices and situations in front of the PCs. In my experience this makes the game less intense, on the whole: not every roll feels like it might be the end of a character's hopes and dreams. Whereas Burning Wheel leans more in that direction.

I personally don't recognise these games in some of the descriptions, in this thread, of "narrativist" vs "trad" RPGs. In particular, my experience is that in trad-sim-immersionist RPGing, what is at stake is often quite opaque to the players. The GM might be constrained by pre-decision (prep/notes/map/kehy/etc) but the players frequently don't know what the content of these constraints is.

The upshot in play, at least in my experience and also what I observe/hear, is that players often try to make low stakes action declarations to try and learn more about the situation, before they fully commit. In dungeon-crawl play, this is exploring, listening, mapping etc without opening doors; in mystery-solving play it the collation of documents, rumours etc before confronting suspects/cultists etc.

Another manifestation of this start with low stakes idea is that play should begin at the "edge" of the real action (eg the entrance to the dungeon; the city gate; the edge of the wilderness). When I've posted about the first Burning Wheel session that I GMed, in which I began the action in a bazaar with a peddler offering an angel feather for sale (which spoke directly to one of the PC's Beliefs), more than one poster has said that I "should" have started play at the entrance to the city, so the player could make his own choices about how (as his PC) to find his way to the bazaar. This is about starting with very low stakes ("Do I successfully enter the city?" Almost certainly, yes), and having the player engage in low-stakes action declarations (looking around, talking to bystanders) before the high-stakes opportunity to acquire the angel feather is established.

Speaking purely for myself, I have come to prefer RPGs where the stakes are reasonably clear, and players are not engaging in low-stakes action declarations just to work out what is going on and find a way for their PCs to get to the higher-stakes action.

To go along with your latter, when we started my current Blades campaign off - the players have narrowed down to their Reputation (Brutal), Crew Goals (make a bunch of trouble to try and kickstart some sort of revolution), individual playbooks etc. We talked through some options for a first score, and landed on "robbing and firebombing a mansion of one of the lead industrialists funding strikebreaking actions." Plan (uh, one of the direct ones I forget teh proper name) + Detail (appropriate a furniture delivery to get in past the house staff) + engagement roll (6 - full success/controlled position) = "Cool, you're in past the outer guard post who took your delivery papers without issue. Your wheels clatter on the cobblestones as you pull up to the side entrance - what do you do?"

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Though most of those examples were convoluted edge cases that are unlikely to come up in good faith play and those which weren't are obviously apparent to the players so they are just part of the fictional positioning they can prepare for.

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.

You also control the position and effect of each roll so you can tilt the scales into the direction of your choosing. And you get to frame the whole situation in which the roll happens in the first place. And you get to decide how many obstacles and such there are to overcome before the score is completed. And you want to "drag them towards your cool story" in Blades, you totally can. Like super easily. You get to constantly introduce new fiction via framing and consequences. Now perhaps you don't want to do that, but why you assume the D&D GM would want to do that either.

 

[zakael19]

Though most of those examples were convoluted edge cases that are unlikely to come up in good faith play and those which weren't are obviously apparent to the players so they are just part of the fictional positioning they can prepare for.



You also control the position and effect of each roll so you can tilt the scales into the direction of your choosing. And you get to frame the whole situation in which the roll happens in the first place. And you get to decide how many obstacles and such there are to overcome before the score is completed. And you want to "drag them towards your cool story" in Blades, you totally can. Like super easily. You get to constantly introduce new fiction via framing and consequences. Now perhaps you don't want to do that, but why you assume the D&D GM would want to do that either.

To do any of those things would be violating the GM agenda and guidance; the player can always rescind the action choice and have a conversation about P&E (maybe they misunderstood the possibility space; maybe the GM did); concrete levers like flashbacks and Gather Info exist to allow the players to proactively shape the play space, etc.

Was the OP’s example contrived? I don’t think so - I see dialogue about bypassing player abilities / builds / choices all the time across the internet.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

To do any of those things would be violating the GM agenda and guidance; the player can always rescind the action choice and have a conversation about P&E (maybe they misunderstood the possibility space; maybe the GM did); concrete levers like flashbacks and Gather Info exist to allow the players to proactively shape the play space, etc.

What would be a violation? Is it not the GM's job to decide position and effect? Is it not their job to frame situations and complications? It is not their job to decide how many obstacles there are in the score?

Yes, using this power to railroad towards specific outcome might be bad faith play, but you happily assume similar bad faith on part of the trad GM. They too can make their judgements without intention to railroad, and if they do, the problem does not exist, just like in the Blades.

Fact is that in both approaches the GM have to make decisions that impact the direction of the play. To assume bad faith in part of one approach but not the other is not a fair comparison and shows your biases.

 

[Pedantic]

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.

This is something I've tried to get at before, which is linguistically tricky and fairly sensitive; I would not describe the second activity here as a game in the sense I'd use the word to talk about tabletop. I would argue the state you describe in chess above is a necessary component for a thing to be a game, you must have a goal to put forward choices in support of for the interesting gameful state to emerge.

Obviously it does qualify more in the way people talk about games in other fields like improv, and my view is not universal (Amabel Holland has some interesting points about board games as artistic/polemic explorations of systems in her video essays that are worth considering for example). There's obviously nothing wrong with doing activities that don't produce that state, and it's obvious that the TTRPG is a bigger tent than the board game, wherein a more expansion use of the term "game" is normative.

Personally (and I suppose I must claim this as the "gamist" position though I fundamentally disagree with the usual framing of that agenda), I think the RPG as a medium has unique things to offer to the creation of that interesting gameful state, if that's put forth as a priority. Not in the weak "skilled play" sense, but in a unique ability to offer unusual and unexpected board states that present interesting decisions. My issue with the gamist position is that it's an outsider's description of the means without understanding the ends. Focusing on the "display of skill" and/or the competitive aspect is to completely miss the point. Those are simply conditions and tools one uses to make that interesing state to be in that is playing a game. Games perform a kind of magic through the limitation of choices and rapid feedback that allows an elevate delight in making choices. Finding a correct path through an unknown maze, and then evaluating how well you've done, how you might do better, converting that knowledge into heuristic, breaking that heuristic when it doesn't serve, understanding how making the maze different produces different choices, admiring the connections between those choices....games are good, and I like them.

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.

This is the thing where I think we're leaving the overlapping parts of the TTRPG Venn diagram; we could not swap the activities we are both calling a TTRPG and claim to satisfyingly be having the same experience. I do not want to exist without the gameful state. The thing the medium offers me is a unique ability to go back and pick more and more different goals. The whole reason to roleplay is to figure out what character wants, so that want can be made a goal, and that goal can then be pursued and evaluated, spinning up an engine that allows for more game to emerge. It's the reason it's useful for the GM to both be bound by rules, so that the players can use those rules to pursue those goals, and the reason it's useful for the GM to be lightly bound in content, so that players will continue to be presented with more and more different board states to use those rules on.

 

[zakael19]

What would be a violation? Is it not the GM's job to decide position and effect? Is it not their job to frame situations and complications? It is not their job to decide how many obstacles there are in the score?

Yes, using this power to railroad towards specific outcome might be bad faith play, but you happily assume similar bad faith on part of the trad GM. They too can make their judgements without intention to railroad, and if they do, the problem does not exist, just like in the Blades.

Fact is that in both approaches the GM have to make decisions that impact the direction of the play. To assume bad faith in part of one approach but not the other is not a fair comparison and shows your biases.

It would be a violation of the GM constraints as laid out in the game to do them in bad faith like your pointed examples. Where is the similar constraints that D&D or other conventional games lay out? Where is a defined "Be a Fan of the Characters" and what that means to play? (5.2024 finally takes a bit of steps towards this)

If you are making P&E decisions that are arbitrary, you're violating principles. If you draw on a score after they've done cool stuff and hit their aim/target because you "think it's too short" then you're Robbing them of what they've earned, etc. Plus the game has mechanisms to be transparent: clocks & etc.

Edit: this is why I told @FrogReaver that the most common answer to general "how do I handle this in play" questions wind up being "have you read teh GM guidance" because most of the problem play comes from violating it. Do lots of people run BITD in a very conventional game fashion with some player-input? probably!