GM fiat - an illustration

[Crimson Longinus]

You don't say it's lesser but you imply it's less real. And for those like me who value that feeling of being there in the moment and the emotional immersion in character and situations that's frankly worse.

I think there are other ways to analyze games, but the alternative analysis still needs to leave space for us to exist. Which it almost never does.

Could you stop conflating objectivity with authenticity? At this point of the thread it is not possible to be genuinely confused about what "real mystery" referred to.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You don't say it's lesser but you imply it's less real. And for those like me who value that feeling of being there in the moment and the emotional immersion in character and situations that's frankly worse.

I clarified what I meant by that endlessly though. And I never said better. I was using language over 90 percent of gamers instantly get when I talk to them: “a game where the player are really solving the mystery”. That was simply to contrast styles where player skill at the solving of an objective mystery wasn’t the way the mystery was being solved. And I even said that the thing that is cool I about Hillfolk is how deeply immersive it is

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In D&D, the DM has six recommended DCs 5, 10, 15 20, 25, and 30, with 5 being Very Easy and 30 being Nearly Impossible. However, there are also many other numbers within that range that can be used. I have seen DCs of 18 or 22 and so on. So a wider range of difficulties.

That's just the beginning! The GM decides the DC, but they also choose the skill and ability which applies, as well as whether or not there is advantage or disadvantage. The outcome is then much less bound by circumstances and principles than a BitD check. D&D is much looser, though I fully accept that many GMs may constrain themselves on the results side. Beyond that, I personally have never played in a D&D game where the players would not discuss DCs and such with the GM. Sure, some game may exist where nobody ever leaves character, but I am entirely sure such games are extremely rare.

 

[FrogReaver]

I clarified what I meant by that endlessly though. And I never said better. I was using language over 90 percent of gamers instantly get when I talk to them: “a game where the player are really solving the mystery”. That was simply to contrast styles where player skill at the solving of an objective mystery wasn’t the way the mystery was being solved. And I even said that the thing that is cool I about Hillfolk is how deeply immersive it is

I think part of the reason this keeps getting brought up is that there are many past examples of players of trad rpgs using the term 'real' to mean immersive. I don't think you did, and I think you were very clear you weren't, but I can get how someone might be a bit skeptical that the immersive usage wasn't somehow underpinning your usage.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I was taking more issue with the confusion of the analogy




But if you are militant in how you talk about these things, people are going to react with militancy. And you can think you are right, but if you are dismissive of other peoples ideas about games, they will get angry and defend their techniques, their style, etc, perhaps even with a degree of hostility

I've been dismissed out of hand 1000s of times, dozens in this very thread! Heck, within the last 5 pages people have flat out declared what I experience weekly in play doesn't exist or has an entirely different character. I question where militancy came from.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It is a real difference. But I don't accept that self-imposed constraints are not constants. They are.

Transparency will makes things different but I don't think "make GM accountable" really is an important difference. It matters only if you don't trust GM to run the game in principled way otherwise, and I would not want to play with such a GM in the first place.

And yet it ACTUALLY makes a huge difference. This is observation, not theory or opinion.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And yet it ACTUALLY makes a huge difference. This is observation, not theory or opinion.

How?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure, they are not always at odds. Now playing "optimally" might lead to boring gameplay, and that is one thing, but it goes beyond that. I think the sort of "the character tries to win, so the player tries to win" you describe works better in a game where the rules are simulationistic in a way that the character and player risk analysis and choices can be roughly analogous. In my experience more narrative games often have things that break such symmetry.

Well, I agree that players in Narrativist games are FIRST participants in the game, and bound by the rules, practices, principles, etc. of that role. But I don't agree that game play, in a gamist sense, can only arise from pure simulationist play. Players scope of play can be anything. What measures game play quality was already explicated in considerable detail by @Manbearcat several times in this thread.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I address this in my reply to Crimson. there's a difference between the player goal and the character goal.

I would parse it a bit differently. The rules of 1KA include, effectively, 'no turtling'. Beyond that the game structure is such that, assuming the GM is doing their job, turtling will not actually benefit the characters. Nobunaga is coming, war is coming, nobody will be able to sit it out. At best doing so will be as hard and dangerous as taking a side.

 

[FrogReaver]

Here is a section from the GM Best Practices chapter of Blades in the Dark.

Be aware of potential fiction vs. established fiction. Potential fiction is everything in your head that you haven’t put into play yet. It’s a “cloud” of possible things, organized according to the current situation. When the PCs infiltrate the manor house, you might have potential fiction elements in your head like this:

• Courtyard (wide open? filled with statuary?)
• Rooftop (loose tiles?)
• Underground Canal
• Sentries (professionals?)
• Guard Dogs (or other animals?)
• Electric Lights
• Fancy Locks

And then, when they say that they’re crossing the courtyard, you bring up a new cloud of potential in your head, by imagining that element in more detail, with its own features to establish, like deciding if the yard is open or filled with statuary.

As the players take action and face obstacles, you grab elements from the potential fiction cloud and establish them in the ongoing scene. Once established, they can be leveraged by the players. They’re a part of the game. Before that, they’re just notional—they don’t have a concrete “place” in the game yet. They can be freely incorporated as needed to address the results of rolls and to paint the picture of the ongoing operation as it hurtles toward its resolution.

@Crimson Longinus I think you may find this section particularly relevant to the ongoing Blades in the Dark discussions.