GM fiat - an illustration

[FrogReaver]

Your response here is telling Boxers, Kickboxers, and Mauy Thai fighters that they're all playing the same game. It is just preposterous Frogreaver.

If that’s your conclusion then you understood nothing of what I just wrote. I mean the true conclusion is the exact opposite…

But you know what, after that totally unjustified verbal thrashing I think we actually are done.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Your response here is telling Boxers, Kickboxers, and Mauy Thai fighters that they're all playing the same game. It is just preposterous Frogreaver. You cannot possibly believe what you've put forth in this post. There is a reason why different combat sports are demarcated by the various weaponry that they are able to deploy. I'm sorry, I know your position desperately needs for what you're saying above to be true...but there isn't a single soul within the fight game or out of it except for Frogreaver of ENW within the terrible constraints of the argument you're trying to advance that would support this position you're taking.

Kickboxing and Boxing are separated by a very small array of weaponry difference...and these are rightly categorized as different games. What I've proposed is all three of (a) a significantly larger array of weaponry difference while (b) simultaneously folding in a Calvinball element of one combatant unilaterally changing the dynamics of play without the other combatant (i) having say in the matter and (ii) being aware of the significant shift in scope and stakes.

I really hope you walk back this claim and onboard the implications into your thinking. Because if you don't, we don't have anything further to discuss. If we cannot agree on this most trivial matter, it is beyond worthless to waste the time doing this.

Finally, your Poker analog doesn't even come close to holding here. Hole Cards in various Poker games are subsets of "known unknowns." Within the space of Poker, they are not just gameable elements, but highly gameable ones (actually THE most consequentially gameable ones) which the best players in the world not only take advantage of understanding the attendant permutations of prospective hands given possible subsets of Hole Cards and Face Cards showing (theirs and their respective opponents), but they know how to "lean on" their opponents with strategic betting based on all four of (i) their position in the hand, (ii) their stack in contrast with their opponents' stacks, (iii) leveraging (secretly manipulating or hewing to) historical norms in terms of betting patterns, as well as (iv) those Hole Card + Face Card permutations above. Insofar as we can generate an analog to the fight game, Hole Cards + Position + Face Cards are more representative of your opponent’s presently unknown (but knowable) regime of future attacks in a fight, and your gameable space of detecting/intuiting that regime and then either proactively neutralizing it or setting up traps to reactively counter it.

This Hole Cards dynamic isn't even close to what I'm depicting in my exercise above. That is because what Hole Cards are not are a distorted information set that is both (i) unknowable and (ii) outside of the scope of established norms of engaging within the space to be gamed.

---

Unrelated, if I get time in the coming days (not likely), I'm going to break down:

* Position: Effect setting (which is embarassingly trivial...if you've run 5e, handling Adv/Disadv for Position should be intuitive and "adding Factors" in the BW family of games is how Effect is handled).

* Info Gathering procedures, concept space, and how this transparently builds out a Score (along with each Faction's motivations, territory, roster of personnel & assets).

* Procedurally how a Score is operationalized from these priors as well as "the DNA of the Score" from Apocalypse World's Working Gigs (which is literally the primordial ooze of Blade's Scores) through DW's Wizard Ritual and Paladin Quest (which share kindred process).

Not wasting that effort on this thread though. I'll probably do it here as that thread seems like a repository for accumulated knowledge in understanding and operationalizing the concepts and procedures that underwrite a successful game of Blades in the Dark...vs...whatever is happening here.

I am having so much trouble following you guys conversation on this point. To me it sounds like @FrogReaver is talking about one player agreeing to modify their an approach to a given rule set and you are talking about players operating under completely different rule sets. The rules for boxing and Muay Thai are completely different (this goes beyond ‘weapons’ and into all kinds of things), so if frogreaver is saying those aren’t different sports, yes he is wrong. On the other hand if he is saying you have a Muay Thai fight where one competitor agrees or decides to not use his knees for some reason, they are still effectively operating within the bounds of Muay Thai (there is no requirement you must use your knees) but one side is choosing to give up a potential advantage. You see this all the time at boxing and Muay Thai gyms. A good example is a coach telling students who are sparring to use 50 percent power. Obviously in a regulation match, you will be using as much of your power as you think wise and will help you win. But students training at 50 percent power are still doing Muay Thai (in Thailand for instance light sparring between matches is the norm)

 

[FrogReaver]

I am having so much trouble following you guys conversation on this point. To me it sounds like @FrogReaver is talking about one player agreeing to modify their an approach to a given rule set and you are talking about players operating under completely different rule sets. The rules for boxing and Muay Thai are completely different (this goes beyond ‘weapons’ and into all kinds of things), so if frogreaver is saying those aren’t different sports, yes he is wrong. On the other hand if he is saying you have a Muay Thai fight where one competitor agrees or decides to not use his knees for some reason, they are still effectively operating within the bounds of Muay Thai (there is no requirement you must use your knees) but one side is choosing to give up a potential advantage. You see this all the time at boxing and Muay Thai gyms. A good example is a coach telling students who are sparring to use 50 percent power. Obviously in a regulation match, you will be using as much of your power as you think wise and will help you win. But students training at 50 percent power are still doing Muay Thai (in Thailand for instance light sparring between matches is the norm)

Right, his last post after mine was the first time in this tangent that different fighting styles were even introduced.

What I did do was make 2 points.

1. The first being that if a game requires 2 participants that no matter what asymmetry is involved, that if they are playing then they are playing the one singular game. That is there’s not 2 different games going on. (Example: You can see this in chess, where white goes first and has a distinct advantage over black).

2. The second being that the three scenarios were all different games (2 fighters no oaths preventing certain moves, 2 fighters 1 with an oath known to all, 2 fighters 1 with a hidden oath).

Based on this it should be apparent that it doesn’t take very much for me to call something a different game.

 

[thefutilist]

I honestly still don't get it. If you're into challenge based play I can see the need for a 'win/goal' state to make the process functional.

In Narrativism there's nothing to 'win' and so the whole game paradigm seems as if it leads to confusion.

EDIT: What is it people are trying to win?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I honestly still don't get it. If you're into challenge based play I can see the need for a 'win/goal' state to make the process functional.

In Narrativism there's nothing to 'win' and so the whole game paradigm seems as if it leads to confusion.

EDIT: What is it people are trying to win?

Survival, success of character goals etc. I get what you're saying, and I too think narrativism probably works better if you are not trying to "win" and instead just want to see what happens. But I think it is pretty common for people to internalise the character's goals, and thus achieving them is "winning." Like in Blades in the Dark it seems pretty obvious that there are "win conditions," and there is even score we keep with stash, crew tier etc. I have tried to care less about that, and just go with the flow instead of "playing optimally" and I think the game is more fun that way, but it also is mentally rather difficult thing to do.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is why I don't like teh whole "GMs notes" thing. Because in trad play all kinds of twists arise as well (and also from a combination of things like dice, inspiration, etc). This is why I often use terms like chemistry and living world. The Gm may be planning background info, setting information, and characters. But he isn't planning what is going to happen in advance

I think this is kind of flattening a range of different play. It's not hard to characterize playing, say, White Plume Mountain with reading from notes. Sure, the party sometimes has a few choices. They're all of a "go left or right" kind of nature. The storyline is not fixed, but it will consist of specific elements, the goal is set before play begins, and doesn't relate to the characters at all, etc. Sure, there may be outcomes of some situations that nobody planned, but the situations are either authored or the elements of them are. I think it is fair to characterize that as @pemerton does.

Maybe he's a little militant in his stance, but don't you think that the people who are on the other side of the argument are being just a tad bit extreme?

 

[Pedantic]

I honestly still don't get it. If you're into challenge based play I can see the need for a 'win/goal' state to make the process functional.

In Narrativism there's nothing to 'win' and so the whole game paradigm seems as if it leads to confusion.

EDIT: What is it people are trying to win?

That's what the role-playing is for, that's the whole reason you set up genre constraints and build characters within a milieu and all that. The whole point of characters is to want things, either intrinsically (I want revenge on my brother's killer) or extrinsically (this dragon will pay me a large sum of money to rescue their eggs). GMing is about either facilitating the former (and spotting when new motivations pop up that can be engaged with) or presenting opportunities for the latter (the infamous hook).

The unique appeal of the medium is that it lets players set their own goals, and continue play after evaluating whether they've met them or not.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Survival, success of character goals etc. I get what you're saying, and I too think narrativism probably works better if you are not trying to "win" and instead just want to see what happens. But I think it is pretty common for people to internalise the character's goals, and thus achieving them is "winning." Like in Blades in the Dark it seems pretty obvious that there are "win conditions," and there is even score we keep with stash, crew tier etc. I have tried to care less about that, and just go with the flow instead of "playing optimally" and I think the game is more fun that way, but it also is mentally rather difficult thing to do.

I don't think the two are entirely at odds. Let's say in 1000 Arrows, my character could be played in some kind of turtley defensive way, doing nothing that risks defeat and basically just accumulating XP by doing minor stuff, or moves like equipment upgrades, etc. Honestly our GM would almost ensure, given the particulars of that game, that stuff would come down on me. Still, what I choose is to actually RP the character and play it to the hilt, as the game intends. Nevertheless my character takes actions that she perceives to be in her interests. Narrativist play only works if the players take on the part, including the goals, of the characters. THEN you may look at each other across the table and decide that that 6- should play out as "things are bad". It is nothing like some kind of group story telling exercise, its true Role Play, and there's a definite game aspect (1KA honestly is about the least gamist PbtA I've played, but it still has a game aspect).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I honestly still don't get it. If you're into challenge based play I can see the need for a 'win/goal' state to make the process functional.

In Narrativism there's nothing to 'win' and so the whole game paradigm seems as if it leads to confusion.

EDIT: What is it people are trying to win?

Really? Hino absolutely wants to see Oda Nobunaga fail, so that the Iga Sokoku Ikki and its people can remain free from tyranny. Also because of personal reasons. What more goal do I need? This is 1000x more 'real' than 99% of trad play ever offers. Hino wants to win, will, perhaps, do anything to win. Let's play to find out! I bet you this is as good as the peak play you can get by your methods, but every game we play is like this. Narrativist play is a crucible, you will be melted, cast, and reforged every time. Well, if not, then it's falling short of its potential.

 

[Campbell]

So, I think there's a difference between a constraint and a commitment. I think you can commit to your prep, as like a self-discipline thing, but you are never really constrained by it because you are not accountable for it. At the end of the day the GM Judgements you make in a game like Blades are different because the players know what a judgement is and what it is not. Everything is player facing and the GM is accountable to the players for every decision. For right or wrong more traditional designs are black boxes, even a fair share of the rules are hidden behind a curtain. This is a difference, it's not a problem, but it's an important difference.