GM fiat - an illustration

[AbdulAlhazred]

Seems perfectly analogous to me. There’s a map of meaning between what ttrpg players do in the real world and what takes place in the imaginary world. Everything else I said flows from the concept of map of meaning and that concept isn’t specific to the digital medium.

There's nothing much in common between a video game player twitching a joystick and several people around a table engaging in the structured dialogue involved in playing a TTRPG. There may be slightly more in common if we analyze Descent at the level of logical game actions, but the two are still extremely different. I cannot infer anything useful about one from the other via this analogy. It's like claiming that I can ride a horse because it is kinda like a bicycle. Only worse...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

AW has been brought up a few times, what does it do to involve or confront anything bearing on the fundamentals of character or some overarching theme/question.

Like I’m not super familiar with that game so I’m not saying it isn’t there, but the vibes I’ve been getting in discussion is that it’s more of an open ended/broad question like what will these characters make of the world? But a question like that seems fitting for any kind of more open d&d game as well.

Every move the GM makes needs to address and bear on some character concern. Most of them will put pressure on the PCs. The entire structure of the game is focused like a laser on the PCs.

I'd get more specific, but I am at the office, so I don't have easy access to the text. We can definitely examine this in detail!

 

[zakael19]

Every move the GM makes needs to address and bear on some character concern. Most of them will put pressure on the PCs. The entire structure of the game is focused like a laser on the PCs.

I'd get more specific, but I am at the office, so I don't have easy access to the text. We can definitely examine this in detail!

Two good examples, first what AW2e tells the MC(GM) to do for session 1:

• MC the game. Bring it.
• Describe. Barf forth apocalyptica.
• Springboard off character creation.
• Ask every question you think of.
• Leave yourself things to wonder about.
• Look for where they’re not in control.
• Push there.
• Nudge the players to have their characters make moves.
• Give every character good screen time
with other characters.
• Leap forward with named, human NPCs.
• Hell, have a fight.
• Start creating your threat map.


And 2e’s list of GM moves:

• Separate them.
• Capture someone.
• Put someone in a spot.
• Trade harm for harm (as established).
• Announce off-screen badness.
• Announce future badness.
• Iflict harm (as established).
• Take away their stuff.
• Make them buy.
• Activate their stuff’s downside.
• Tell them the possible consequences and ask.
• Offer an opportunity, with or without a cost.
• Turn their move back on them.
• Make a threat move (from one of your threats).
• After every move: “what do you do?”

 

[thefutilist]

I don't understand how this rapprochement or alignment can ever exist. The World of the Apocalypse is an f'd up broken, brutal world where when you wake up in the morning you gotta decide between eating your dog for breakfast or stealing it at gunpoint from the people down the road. It's all conflict, or maybe sometimes a little socializing to muster support or gain protection.

If the GM is not spinning threats at you and everyone is a big happy community, you're not playing AW.

I think we use the text very differently. The way I MC, you can absolutely end up with a big happy family.

Most of the threats aren't 'necessarily' threats to you although you do start off with all the NPC's not being loyal to you. In the sense that there isn't an authentic human connection but connections of mutual benefit. The only way to get actual human connection is through free roleplay or spending a point if you're the battle-babe (although the advanced moves allow it, the advanced moves are terrible imo)

Whether any given thing an NPC does, bears down on a character concern, is totally up in the air. As MC I don't know until it happens.

Anyway I'm probably repeating myself because I've explained my approach to most games earlier, I just play AW in much the same way. Well not exactly the same because especially in session one/two I'll be building out the situation in a full on no-myth way. I'll just stop as early as I can.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

See that's a bit odd. I hear mainstream, and I think of what is currently the most popular mode of play, which is adventure path style books.

Small discrete adventure modules are not really mainstream anymore. But I'm glad you offered your take. I asked @Bedrockgames because to me, these terms are pretty fuzzy. Not that most such categorizations aren't... but I would think of some of them as almost interchangeable. So I'm interested in hearing ideas on them.

I may be the wrong person to speak much on what is current. The APs I'm familiar with are basically modules writ large, though I think they're often blending into the other types of play. One might involve some different locations, travel, maybe exploration, etc. They generally have an overall plot arc and sequence though. So I think they play a lot like modules.

So, this definition of sandbox play where a lot is predetermined is kind of an odd one to me. Having a setting that scaffolds play is one thing... having multiple adventure sites and hooks and the like is a step further. I look at some of the games I've run over the past few years as absolutely being sandbox style... but they run against some of what you say here, and I know there are others who would vociferously disagree.

I'm thinking of games like Blades in the Dark, or Spire, or iterations of PbtA.

Classic sandbox play, which was mainstream in the 1e era, is pretty much exactly what I described. BitD is not sandbox. It lacks the focus on specific pregenerated locations and the exploration element. Most true sandboxes eschew meta plot and build situation purely from party actions. Take over the abandoned fort and drive out the monsters around it, you're now a freeholder! Maybe in later stages the sandbox will evolve towards situational play.

I don't really see a distinct style here, I don't think. It seems very much in line with what GMs of other games would do.

Well, no trad type of play will be purely this. It will leverage off of exploration and location focused play of some sort.

But does that lack define them? If you include such matters of character or premise, does that mean the game is no longer a sandbox or mainstream or what have you?

Vanilla Narrativist play is a thing of course. @pemerton has described his RM games like that, and our late '90s 2e game had some of this character to it. Like, Summer Twilight the Druidess player expressed opinions about the male dominated leaders of their faith, so sure enough that became a focus of play, and she got deep into changing that. Turns out there were actually reasons, not just patriarchy! Are you willing to unleash forces of chaos to change it?

But games like AW or BitD build this stuff in. I guess I could say that vanilla Narrativist play might have a potentially more varied focus? Still, DW could do all of what I did in 2e...

 

[FrogReaver]

There's nothing much in common between a video game player twitching a joystick and several people around a table engaging in the structured dialogue involved in playing a TTRPG. There may be slightly more in common if we analyze Descent at the level of logical game actions, but the two are still extremely different. I cannot infer anything useful about one from the other via this analogy. It's like claiming that I can ride a horse because it is kinda like a bicycle. Only worse...

The useful thing they both have in common is the map of meaning…

I’ll say it again. Everything important I built up wasn’t by way of analogy, it was by that singular concept of map of meaning, a general concept that applies to both computer RPGs and ttrpgs (and many other things). No important work in my thought process was done by way of analogy, it was all done via the map of meaning concept.

 

[pemerton]

that is not a good analogy

Why not?

I mean, you are saying that 90% of people - ie mainstream RPGers, who play the RPGs that @Campbell is complaining you are centring and privileging via your descriptions - find your descriptions easy to follow. Of course they do - very few people are perturbed or confused by descriptions of things that centre their assumptions and practices.

But that is not evidence that you are not centring their assumptions and practices - quite the contrary!

what is alienating isn’t that you want to focus on what is said, what the incremental exchanges between players are. It is your assurance in your answers, and your insistence that you know what other people are doing.

Your posts have always given me a fairly clear impression of your typical approach to play. Having watched a couple of videos of @robertsconley's RPGing, with you playing in at least one of them (I can't recall if you were in the other) didn't change that impression.

I would add: if you think that my (or anyone else's) impression is mistaken, then you could try and correct that via patient explanation of what you are actually doing. Invocation of metaphor doesn't really help, though.

As for obscurantism, people will use words like explore then describe what that entails. Exploration play has a robust dialogue around how to run effective exploration adventures and there is an arsenal of tools that have been developed. But we try to use plain language when possible, evocative language that helps paint a picture of the idea (you can reject living world as magical language but it gets the point across)

People are free to speak and post as they wish (within the bonds of polite discourse and forum rules).

But it's not true that people "use words like 'explore' and then describe what that entails". Actually getting people to describe what "exploration" in their RPGing entails is nearly impossible! And the use of the metaphor also makes it very hard to draw meaningful contrasts like (eg) that between (i) the GM being bound by their prep, and (ii) the GM just making up stuff in response to prompts from the players. (The contrast between (i) and (ii), for instance, is central to Lewis Pulsipher's analyses of play in the late 70s and early 80s - any interested can read a bit more about those here: DMing philosophy, from Lewis Pulsipher)

"Living world" also doesn't get the point across, in my view. When I read posts from "living world" advocates, the impression that I get is that their targets are groups playing more-or-less self-consciously pawn-stance "dungeon of the week* D&D. (Or perhaps mystery-of-the-week CoC; or something similar.) But as soon as one tries to talk about anything beyond that contrast, in my experience it becomes very hard to work out what is going on.

And one reason for that is that "living world" describes a player experience, or a "vibe"; not a technique or set of techniques.

It is also the aggression of your arguments. I think these threads could actually bring more people to the style you are advocating for if you took a slightly different approach

<snip>

I came into this thread mentioning an interest in the style of play you are advocating (I seven said I was thinking of running an adventure that played out like a Shaw brothers movie where the characters advanced in level during the adventure and was looking for ways to handle the dramatic twists). This would have been a good opportunity to sell me on one of the games or tools within a game you are so passionate about.

I just reviewed the first few pages of the thread: you seem to come in with posts 99, 103 and 119, which are all about GM impartiality.

But if you are interested in RPGing that uses different techniques from (say) classic CoC, there are many threads around. You've participated in several of them. Here's an early one, that has good discussion of some central techniques: D&D 4E - Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Unfortunately it has been a long day so I may not get to every post (I see I have a number of notifications)



This is a long topic and who you ask will likely answer in different ways (as describing things as situational adventures is on the niche side). But I see situational GMing as an approach that developed parallel to sandbox and then kind of merged with it a bit (to the point that few people make this distinction anymore). But importantly a sandbox is a premise where you have a pretty sizable area where the conceit is the players can explore wherever they want. You are also generally expected to prep a lot prior to start of play (i would call sandboxes heavy prep before the campaign but generally light once the campaign gets going). Situational GMing is much lighter on prep. You prep what you need and if you notice in the blog the implication is you prep a scenario, not a bunch of scenarios to pick from. You can take this and port it into sandbox and many do, so I think the distinction is not really that strong these days. But what clash is talking about there is much closer in my view to living adventures, which are more about the GM responding to the energy of the players and doing things through NPCs and groups (again if you look at clash's post there is a strong emphasis on NPCs and group dynamics). Also like Clash says, this isn't meant to be some genius or new notion, it is how a lot of people have run games.

The way I would describe a situation adventure is you prep a scenario with a lot of potential energy and drop the players in and see what happens (you don't have any real plan beyond lets see where this goes once the players enter in and start interacting with people). And there is a mindset of the GM really trying to run NPCs and groups as authentically as he can (really focusing on what this particular NPC wants, not where the adventure ought to go).

But as you can see there is a lot of cross-over with sandbox (especially as discussions about sandbox refined more and more over the course of the OSR). But the real point is a lot of us who came into sandbox, were really coming in from a slightly different perspective grounded in the things Clash talks about in that post.

I am having a little trouble today putting this into words so I will happily answer any questions if things are unclear (also I haven't talked about situational adventures in a while so I am finding myself having to summon up some old memories here)




I don't know that there is one. I first encountered the term situational adventures/situational GMing with that clash post (and I think around the same time or soon after I saw the alexandrian post) and I started talking with Clash online, because I felt what he wrote was how I ran games. And how I ran games was just what I called a living adventure. Again this comes from the Feast of Goblyns module where there is a section on something called wandering major encounters. It talks about treating NPCs as active forces in the adventures (something that comes from the original Ravenloft module really). But he put it better here in my opinion and gave you a bunch of NPCs to do this with. The basic idea was whatever antagonizing forces are operating, those are live pieces on the board, and the GM should run them according to their goals, their abilities, etc. And in response to what the players do. The designer, Blake Mobley, ended this section with a kind of dramatic "They live!" flourish. Now none of this is anything super unusual. GMs do this. He just kind of put it in a language that made sense to me, and this was the first time modules actually started coming alive. The adventure itself has a kind of planned out structure, but once I started fiddling with this 'live' concept, I realized my adventures were much more dynamic and organic.

To answer this again, I am not sure there is a big difference, just that living adventure is a term I used, and situational adventure is a term Clash Bowley used (I don't know that he invented it or anything, this is just where I first encountered that language). So any difference is probably more a reflection of what I would do, or he would do. I'd have to really sit down and assess his style versus mine (and it has been a while since I have chatted with him on these so I don't want to assume anything here: wouldn't want to put words in his mouth).

This gets muddled because as you probably know, living world was something that was being used to describe sandbox play to (and I would say that definitely includes things like NPCs being free to move around, it also includes things like having the world in motion, where events occur as they might in a real world----so it is a slightly different concept). When I did the adventure Landlord's Daughter for example for Colonial Gothic, I called that a Living Adventure. It is definitely not a sandbox. It is more of a mystery horror scenario with a countdown threat.

Also I am sure other people use "living adventure" as a term and maybe even use it in slightly different ways, so it probably even more muddled.





I guess what I really meant here was a non-sandbox adventure



very easily. You can simply have a bunch of ongoing situations in a sandbox. And living adventure ties in very smoothly with the living world concept. Like I said you aren't reinventing the wheel here, you are really more emphasizing certain aspects of GMing. If I want to do a living adventure in a sandbox, I could easily have a location that is a haunted house even a question adventure, so long as the NPCs involved have the flexibility to respond to things the players do and take the adventure in different directions as a result. With a living adventure the focus is really about bringing the NPCs and the groups operating in the world to life. So it isn't anything you couldn't already do in an existing RPG. Mobely was just placing the emphasis on this and also telling the GM, you don't have to be a slave for example to the encounter table, you can have an NPC take initiative and send a hit squad after them or try to arrange a meeting with the party and work out an agreement (and if they are untrustworthy they might be trying to stage an ambush). You can also have NPCs seek out other people in the setting to try to help them (that the sort of thing Mobley seemed to have in mind, was not just you running NPCs as individuals but realizing they fit into a broader social fabric)

Great explanation. Just as a sort of map of where things went from the situation play, which we called social sandbox, to vanilla Narrativist play might be interesting. I found that all this trying to extrapolate "what would people do" was way too hand wavey and ran on way too little info. So I imagined a thorough living world campaign where certain historical events, persons, situations, etc. are all spelled out, along with how they relate, and thus what changes when the PCs do things. If they convince the Count to muster for the Battle of Haud Ladd, then what happens?

So of course I realized nobody could anticipate every possibility, but I wrote up very extensive notes, tables, diagrams, etc.

It is all completely unworkable! IMHO you can't invent, to any credible extent, such a web of causality in any way that isn't totally gamist. Beyond that, trying to run it bit rocks in Hell. So the actual game just dissolved into doing what focused on the PCs and made them dance. All the other stuff was OK, but by repurposing it to focus on the characters it was a lot more interesting and fun!

 

[pemerton]

My contrast of passivity was solely in relation to player goals. I thought the context of my post was clear in that regard, maybe not? Anyways, the examples I keep seeing brought up in that respect are about character drama caused by conflicting internal priorities. It's even been said by some (not sure if you agree) that if there's not some mechanic that informs which priority wins out that it's not playing to find out. That's where the passivity I am talking about comes in. The player isn't actively picking and working toward some player goal in these examples, instead he's not taking a side (in regards to that internal conflict) and just 'playing to find out' (that's the passivity i talk about).

Perhaps a more palatable framing would be that the players goal is to 'play to find out which priority the character will choose'. In any event, I think what I'm contrasting should be clear now.

This seems to have been prompted by @AbdulAlhazred's posts, not far upthread, about 1000 Arrows.

I don't know that system, and so I don't know how it handles honour, shame, commitment, etc. There are multiple possible models I can think. One is Emotional Attributes in Burning Wheel (these don't generally constrain action declarations, but they advance based on things the PC does and experiences, and as they advance that can have consequences for the PC, including having to leave the game). Another is Resistance to temptation in The Dying Earth (Robin Laws's version) - which is also found in one Burning Wheel Emotional Attribute, namely, Dwarven Greed - which cause the player to lose (full) control of their PC in certain circumstances where a check is failed.

Prince Valiant also permits this sort of thing, and I believe I posted an example upthread:

I asked Sir Morgath's player to roll his Fellowship + Presence (7D) against an obstacle of 3 (I think it was), and he succeeded. I told him that he noticed that Sir Satyrion seemed rather sour. Morgath first spoke to Sir Andreas, and (with successful Courtesie) confirmed his suspicion that it was Satyrion who had suggested that they sally forth. (The conjecture was the players, and it certainly fitted with the scenario backstory.)

He then consulted with the other PCs, and decided to speak to Sir Satyrion, to try and learn his motives (eg power-hunger; loyalty to the Arab rather than the Greek cause; etc). This was Glamourie, and the player was rolling 8 dice (Presence 4, Glamourie 2, +2D for greater fame and his prestigious accoutrements). So he was quite successful. First, he learned that Satyrion was jealous of Andreas, and mocked him. When I asked Morgath's player if he likewise mocked Justin and Gerren, he replied "Not Sir Gerren". I asked Sir Justin's player to make a Presence check to see if he overheard the mockery; he did. Justin's player had Justin declare that he was finished dining, with the intention that he would go to the infirmary and tend to the injured; I called for another Presence check to see if he could really hold his pride in check despite Sir Morgath's word. This succeeded too, and he then rolled very well on his healing, further cementing his order's reputation in Cyprus.

A Presence check to resist fear, or goading, is how Prince Valiant incorporates "knightly" responses to social situations, a variant on Pendragon's well known Traits and Passions.

Apocalypse World doesn't have any mechanic that removes player control of their PC- in fact, avoiding that sort of thing is a deliberate design feature that is discussed in the "Advanced ____ery" chapter. But it does have mechanics that allow a player's choice one way rather than another to incur a penalty to a roll: in other words it uses carrots and sticks, rather than outright command.

Marvel Heroic RPG combines both sorts of approach I've discussed above: complications and stress can penalise certain actions (the stick), and if they grow too large than the PC is out of action altogether, and (if the complication is of the right sort) the GM gets to take control of the character (eg a character who has been fully dominated by a telepath).

As for internal conflicts - there are a lot of ways to drive these that don't require mechanics. For instance, it can be done via the way the GM frames a scene and sets the stakes. Or the way the GM narrates consequences. Here are some examples from my own Burning Wheel play:

One of Aedhros's Beliefs was that Only because Alicia seems poor and broken can I endure her company.

<snip>

We discussed how we would get through the first door, and my friend - reviewing Alicia's spells - noticed that she has Chameleon. So he decided she would turn invisible.

Chameleon is 8 actions to cast, but we were in no great hurry and so he decided to cast as carefully as possible - x8 = 64 actions to get +4D (the maximum bonus, equal to the spell's Ob 4).

With Alicia's B5 Sorcerery reduced to B4 by the lingering effects of the bad pie, this was 8 Sorcery dice. Alicia's Will of B4 was reduced to B3 by the Light wound. And she had 1D of Forte (B4 reduced to B3 by the wound, and 2 tax remaining). That was 12 dice in total, to allocate to two test against Ob 4 (casting and tax; casting patiently allows allocating Sorcery, but not Will, dice to the tax check). I think a Persona may have been put into one of the pools, but in any event both failed: she took 1 tax (and so once again fell unconscious) and the casting failure was garbled transmission. This is the first time we've ever had that result in our BW play, and we rolled diligently on the Wheel of Magic. Instead of a Control Heaven, Personal Origin, Sustained duration effect on the Caster, Alicia had created a Transmute Water, Presence Origin, Instantaneous duration Natural Effect.

We discussed a bit what this might mean. After one false start (my initial idea that she had transmute some water in the harbour went nowhere) I suggested that her eagerness for money meant that she had transformed the rain in her Presence into coins! My friend suggested low-value coins - copper pieces - and we agreed it was a 1D fund.

He then wanted Alicia to make a roll to master the new spell. We got out the Magic Burner and applied the Abstraction and Distillation rules to get an Obstacle for it - after applying the rule that includes a modification for powerful effects, it was Ob 5 and 66 actions of casting, to turn rain in the Presence of the caster into a 1D fund of copper coins. The fainting Alicia (fainting due to her tax) attempt the Ob 5 Sorcerer test to try and learn this new spell - her player got three successes, and so it is an Ob 7 spell for her.

Alicia was now lying, unconscious, in a pile of copper coins that had "rained" down on her. We agreed that Grellin, who is unused to such sorcery, was struck with awe by the Ob 7 Steel test for witnessing pronounced sorcery. Aedhros, on the other hand, could only see yet more evidence of the ill fortune and ineptitude that brings all things to ironic ruin. At least, until . . .

My friend was urging me - mightn't Aedhros have at least a hint of pity left in his heart, and be moved by Alicia's plight? Aedhros's relevant instinct, here, was Never use Song of Soothing unless compelled to - Song of Soothing being the Elven equivalent of herbalism. There was also his Belief about why he can stand Alicia's company - would that remain unshifted even seeing her so broken even as her poverty was slightly lifted?

I told my friend I would make the Song of Soothing test, and see where that led me. The obstacle for a Light wound is Ob 2, doubled for no tools. The skill is open-ended (natural Elven magic), and so despite being B3 plus 1D from my Rhyme of Rules FoRK, I was able to get my four successes and restore Alicia to consciousness. We then played out an exchange in which we both went for Mouldbreaker - Aedhros's Belief is now Only because Alicia is not entirely without capability can I endure her company. Alicia's Belief that The strong do what they may - I will do what I must to survive was changed by the fact that Aedhros had had her utterly under his power, and with coin all about her to be taken, and yet had healed her instead: now she Believes that I will be compassionate to the poor.

I narrated (again, wearing my GM hat) that the raining coins had attracted the attention of the ragged poor who huddle about the docks even when it is raining. Alicia's player decided to give them money - and having earned a Persona point from Mouldbreaker spent it to amplify her 1D fund so as not to lose her fund from tax. But both his dice were failures, and so the fund was spent being compassionate to the poor!

Alicia and Aedhros escaped the guards, but Alicia then returned to fight them so that Grellin would not be captured. Alicia defeated the guards near single-handedly with her martial art; Aedhros helped a little at the end, and was then going to kill one of them with his black-metal long knife Heart-seeker. Due to a failed test of some sort (Intimidate, I think) it had been established that Thurandril, Aedhros's father-in-law, whom Aedhros blames for the death of his spouse (the event that sent him onto the Path of Spite) was watching things unfold (having come to the docks on some or other business). Alicia tried to use Persuasion (analogous to D&D's Suggestion spell) to stop Aedhros, but she failed both her casting of the spell, and her roll to endure the tax of casting.

The mis-cast created a fire effect nearby, which caused the Golden Sow - the vessel on which the two PCs had arrived in Hardby, and still docked in the harbour - to catch fire. The failed tax roll caused overtax equivalent to a mortal wound, and so Alicia was dying. Her player - my friend - spent the Persona to establish that she had the will to live. Aedhros, determined not to have another person in his charge die in front of Thurandril, tried to staunch her bleeding with his Song of Soothing, but failed. So then he did the only thing he could think of - as someone whose Circles include the Path of Spite, and who has a reputation as ill-favoured for himself and others, he looked to see if a bloodletting or surgical necromancer or similar ill-omened type might be nearby the scene!

But the Circles check failed: and so no friendly bloodletter appeared, but rather the Death Artist Thoth, who - for reasons not yet clear, but certainly not wholesome - carries a lock of the hair of Aedhros's dead spouse (even though that death occurred when the now-41 year old Thoth was only two years old). Thoth took Alicia into his workroom, through the secret entrance that leads onto the docks; and Aedhros had no choice but to go with him.

We spent the rest of that session burning up Thoth - Born Noble, Arcane Devotee, Court Sorcerer, Rogue Wizard, Death Artist. Cometh the corpse, cometh Thoth.

Today's session began with the Surgery attempt to treat Alicia's mortal wound. It failed badly (we have the notes somewhere, but from memory the Ob was 14 (7 doubled for no tools) and 1 success was achieved), and so her Health check to avoid acquiring the Mortally Wounded in the Head trait will be against Ob 19. A roll of the dice determined that it will take her 8 months to regain full consciousness, at which point she will then have to recover from a Traumatic Wound.

The session then focused predominantly upon Thoth. His Beliefs are I will give the dead new life; Aedhros is a failure, so I will bind him to my will; Cometh the corpse, cometh Thoth! And the player leaned heavily into these.

<snip>

Aedhros's Beliefs are I will avenge the death of my spouse!, Thurandril will admit that I am right! and I will free Alicia and myself from the curse of Thoth!

There is some resemblance between the sort of approach I'm describing in these posts, and what @thefutilist has posted upthread about sincere/artistic play of the character. Aedhros has to make choices about how to respond to Alicia's suffering - some driven by purely internal concerns (his contempt towards her) and some by external factors as well (his shame in front of Thurandril). And then he finds himself with no choice but to go with Thoth, and work for him, even though he hates him.

What distinguishes this approach to RPGing from (say) typical D&D, is the absence of adventure as a component of play, and the resolute focus, at every moment of play, on putting these characters under pressure that speaks to their particular concerns.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Great explanation.

Thank you, I appreciate that

Just as a sort of map of where things went from the situation play, which we called social sandbox, to vanilla Narrativist play might be interesting. I found that all this trying to extrapolate "what would people do" was way too hand wavey and ran on way too little info. So I imagined a thorough living world campaign where certain historical events, persons, situations, etc. are all spelled out, along with how they relate, and thus what changes when the PCs do things. If they convince the Count to muster for the Battle of Haud Ladd, then what happens?

I do think one trait you do need as a GM in this style is an ability to get clear ideas of characters in your head fast. I don't necessarily need everything on a page for me, I just need pointers that will help me clarify in my head. But getting a very crystal clear image of a character is pretty important. I think trying to understand them like they are real people is helpful. I am not talking about fully characterized NPCs who come out of a literary fiction novel or something. I mean stark, clear.

There is a bigger break down of how things would play out in terms of tools and techniques for handling things like what happens if the players talk the Count into mustering for the Battle of Haud Ladd. But that will vary by GM and system. I can get into that but I think it would be a detour. I do get a bit into some of it in my wuxia sandbox posts I think