GM fiat - an illustration

[AbdulAlhazred]

I understand what you are getting at. To clarify, while the procedure and tools I outlined are methodical, the process is not meant to produce an objective result. It meant to create something consistent and reflect the referee's creative vision, an inherently subjective process.

For me, the process's value is that it keeps decisions grounded in the setting's internal logic. It’s not about prediction or objectivity, just consistency. That’s what gives players the sense that the world reacts to their actions in a believable way.

Sure! I think it is effective too.

Obviously I don't have any experience with your games, so pacing and focus are things I can't comment on except in a general sense. I grew tired of the results this tended to produce IME. Long tedious slogs of play, dollhouse type play, and excessively gritty games. Realism is boring and tedious! Endlessly trying to guestimate whether the Alarm spell adequately covers all the angles the GM brewed up somewhere behind the screen got OLD. AD&D promises action adventure, but delivers one hit kills and sniffing at doors while counting torches. It was fun back in '75, magical even, but 50 years later? Just logic me some Spielbergesque action or an actual dramatic moment most every session and keep the plausibility/logic! I never ever wish again to be, for years of play, some low level munchkin that counts iron rats.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, not quite because I already know the difference between the two spells (well, my knowledge of the TB spell is based on how it's described here, as I don't actually own that game). But if the idea is "the intruders can wait 8 hours and 5 minute" as in D&D or games that have alarm-type spells that work similarly, there's a lot of other things to take into consideration. Including the intruders having no idea that there's an alarm there at all, or deciding to attack from range.

The point is, and this undergirds the POV of people like myself, there are no 'intruders' to know or not know things! There's only a GM who is empowered to say something. D&D has always been rather poor at describing what the thought process here should be (there is no established game process). @Robert Conley, @Bedrockgames, et al have adequately described what I would consider a pretty mainstream position on this, @bloodtide expounded a different one, etc. As a player I don't actually know what the risk is of some clever enemies getting around the Alarm. I have to assess THE STATE OF THE GM'S MIND for that. Is he BRG, or Bloodtide? Probably somewhere closer to BRG, but my focus is not on the fiction.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I responded to your earlier post before you added the language example, so I wanted to follow up.

The use of language in a campaign is ultimately a creative choice, part of the setting’s internal logic. In one setting, the referee might treat languages as essential and strictly enforced. In another, they may be more flexible or hand-waved. Either way, the process I outlined for World in Motion works in both cases. What matters is consistency with how the setting logic is defined.

When language is part of that setting logic, with World in Motion it is treated it like any other character element meant to be roleplayed. How heavily it factors into play will depend on the context and style of the campaign. As you pointed out, there are a variety of approaches, all with different strengths and weaknesses. And yes, it’s something that’s been debated in depth for decades.

Agreed, it's not at all valueless in an RP sense. What became an issue was when it started requiring character gen resources to specify. 3e is really the poster child for this, proficiency slots are golden, so RP is now set against actual character effectiveness in mechanical terms.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The point is, and this undergirds the POV of people like myself, there are no 'intruders' to know or not know things! There's only a GM who is empowered to say something.

Except "what would this person know" is part of the framework via which the GM decides what they say.

As a player I don't actually know what the risk is of some clever enemies getting around the Alarm. I have to assess THE STATE OF THE GM'S MIND for that. Is he BRG, or Bloodtide? Probably somewhere closer to BRG, but my focus is not on the fiction.

I rather feel that as a player my focus is far more on what GM thinks of things in a game like Blades in the Dark where the GM is literally making up most of the stuff on the spot, and a part of the gameplay is selling the GM your BS to affect their decisions.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Except "what would this person know" is part of the framework via which the GM decides what they say.

Except we get back to the dense forest of possibilities and interactions which exists within the realm of plausible outcomes of GM reasoning. The results may well be consistently plausible at some level, but they form almost no constraint at all on what the GM can say.

I rather feel that as a player my focus is far more on what GM thinks of things in a game like Blades in the Dark where the GM is literally making up most of the stuff on the spot, and a part of the gameplay is selling the GM your BS to affect their decisions.

Yeah, I don't. I know that there are fairly tight parameters. There may be endless fictional possibilities, but they're all challenges situated within the structure of play. A mechanical trap could be on the safe, or a magical one, or possibly none at all (new questions arise there). Maybe we open it and don't find anything, or maybe we find some secret so terrible that we wish we'd never done this score! All of those are cool, and I don't need to think about the GM's mind at all.

You're trapped in a bit of an overly tad mindset here. Your focus is on needing to perform certain actions for certain outcomes, but you're playing an intent resolution system. You should focus on developing your personal fiction towards good mechanical play so you get what you want and not the poop stick. The mindset is, to a degree, a bit more like D&D combat.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Except we get back to the dense forest of possibilities and interactions which exists within the realm of plausible outcomes of GM reasoning. The results may well be consistently plausible at some level, but they form almost no constraint at all on what the GM can say.

I just do not think this is true, especially with several of the things having been decided beforehand instead of as reactions to what the players say. It is real but still somewhat vague limitation to the GM's decisions, just like principles in narrative games.

Yeah, I don't.

What you mean you don't? Wasn't one of the supposed strengths of this approach that the players could impact things via negotiations with the GM? This makes what's in GM's mind rather central!

I know that there are fairly tight parameters. There may be endless fictional possibilities, but they're all challenges situated within the structure of play. A mechanical trap could be on the safe, or a magical one, or possibly none at all (new questions arise there). Maybe we open it and don't find anything, or maybe we find some secret so terrible that we wish we'd never done this score! All of those are cool, and I don't need to think about the GM's mind at all.

That is true to all RPGs.

You're trapped in a bit of an overly tad mindset here. Your focus is on needing to perform certain actions for certain outcomes, but you're playing an intent resolution system. You should focus on developing your personal fiction towards good mechanical play so you get what you want and not the poop stick.

I don't understand what you mean. Good mechanical play in Blades is to roll your best trait and avoid unnecessary rolls that might cause consequences. So the skill is inventing ways you can sell the GM getting what you want via the skills you have most dots in.

The mindset is, to a degree, a bit more like D&D combat.

I don't see it as similar, which probably is a good thing as that is the least interesting part of D&D. (Though still fun, but only as brief interlude. I wouldn't want the whole game to work like that,)

 

[Faolyn]

The point is, and this undergirds the POV of people like myself, there are no 'intruders' to know or not know things! There's only a GM who is empowered to say something. D&D has always been rather poor at describing what the thought process here should be (there is no established game process). @Robert Conley, @Bedrockgames, et al have adequately described what I would consider a pretty mainstream position on this, @bloodtide expounded a different one, etc. As a player I don't actually know what the risk is of some clever enemies getting around the Alarm. I have to assess THE STATE OF THE GM'S MIND for that. Is he BRG, or Bloodtide? Probably somewhere closer to BRG, but my focus is not on the fiction.

Unless you're playing with someone for the first time, there's a good chance you would already know the state of the GM's mind. You likely know if the GM is the type who would try to counter a player action (casting alarm) via metagame knowledge (saying the intruders know you cast the spell and are trying to wait until its over, without having first done Perception checks to see if the PCs suspect that there is an intruder).

I agree that D&D doesn't really spell things out directly in the sense that there is no single checklist telling GMs that they should (by RAW) be making a bunch of rolls to see if the intruders (a) know you cast a spell, (b) know what spell it is, when you cast it, and what the duration is, (c) manage to not be detected by anyone in the camp who is awake, aware, or otherwise capable of detecting intruders, and (d) chooses to bypass the spell in order to attack in melee range. Maybe D&D's devs didn't think of it; maybe they thought it was clear by reading the text.

And as I said, I don't know from Torchbearer. I don't know what's involved in a camping roll or what it means to have +1d to avert disaster. I don't even know what it means that the bell in Aetherial Premonition rings in "the event of trouble."

It almost sounds like a roundabout way of rolling for random encounters. Instead of saying "roll three times during the night, there's an encounter if you roll 15 or above" like you may find in a D&D game, it's more like "there's an encounter if the players fail a camping roll." If that's the case, then it sounds like they're the same thing, it just shuffles the responsibility of determining the likelihood of an encounter occurring to the player.

I honestly don't know which one is better, mechanically. For D&D, it assumes you're rolling for random encounters. Not everyone uses them, which means a nighttime encounter is either planned or a spur-of-the-moment decision based on hopefully logical events. But for Torchbearer, if a failed camping roll means disaster, then there might be less of an impact because the players know something is coming, because they're using metagame knowledge to know that a bad roll = encounter. (If that's actually what happens with a bad roll.)

 

[zakael19]

I just do not think this is true, especially with several of the things having been decided beforehand instead of as reactions to what the players say. It is real but still somewhat vague limitation to the GM's decisions, just like principles in narrative games.




What you mean you don't? Wasn't one of the supposed strengths of this approach that the players could impact things via negotiations with the GM? This makes what's in GM's mind rather central!



That is true to all RPGs.



I don't understand what you mean. Good mechanical play in Blades is to roll your best trait and avoid unnecessary rolls that might cause consequences. So the skill is inventing ways you can sell the GM getting what you want via the skills you have most dots in.




I don't see it as similar, which probably is a good thing as that is the least interesting part of D&D. (Though still fun, but only as brief interlude. I wouldn't want the whole game to work like that,)

The negotiation is largely mechanical, not mind reading! And the game has explicit procedures for how to consider both Position and Effect! If you trade position for effect, you get better effect. When the GM sets position and effect to start, it's open and transparent and they should explain why you're at Zero/Limited (maybe you're a T0 slide with a basic blade skirmishing with an obviously telegraphed Red Sash swordmaster). When you have an open starting point, you can now leverage everything the system gives you to change your outcomes, up to and including going "oh wow, yeah, ok - lets flash back to having the Hound having got in a sniper position before this confrontation?" and stuff! It's like the total opposite of what you're saying! Plus the GM guidance and the "avoid these bad habits:"

• Dont call for a specific roll
• Dont make the PCs look incompetent
• Dont overcomplicate things
• Dont hold back on what their earn
• Dont say no (this is where it proposes Zero effect for most cases where it would be fictionally possible for something to succeed)
• Dont roll twice for the same thing

It's like, the total opposite of the classic D&D I've played/run where knowledge is hidden and the decision making is a black box (what does it mean to roll persuasion here? What am I going to get? what's my risk on failure? hell what is my goal in this conversation anyway?).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Is the clock player-facing.
For instance, do the players know type of situation the countdown will reflect?
i.e. do they know what goal is achieved by the Billhooks at 8?

In my current game, which is culminating towards the big finish, there is an actual time frame (clock) that was communicated to the PCs which would reach its zenith within 3 months / roughly 100 days.
I have told the players the EVENT happens at 90+2d10 days.
That is as much as I have told them (for now).

I'm considering telling them more though from a gamist perspective.
If the PCs are early to the event the BBEG encounter is treated as Deadly
If the PCs are late to the event, the BBEG encounter difficulty is increased by x by the number of days they are late.
So, I will only roll the 2d10 when they arrive for the encounter.

There are incentives for coming late (risking it) though to
Gain allies
Gain items
Weaken opposing forces
Adjusting the 2d10
Earn XP for achieving or progressing character goals

I have enough twists (secret backstories) in the bag that I could communicate all the above. So I'm good!
In any event the 2d10 result will be a surprise to everyone at the table.

I personally make all clocks player facing. I usually share them in some form of in world information… so they may hear about the Billhooks via rumor or in the newspapers, or what have you. I let the players know what the consequences will be if the clock fills up, and how that will affect play going forward. In this case, the Billhooks would likely bump up to a Tier 3 gang… which would definitely impact any dealings the PC crew has with them.

I think you are right, but I would not discount the appeal of these techniques found in non-D&D games that push the gamist agenda. Strangely enough, GMs for D&D are humans too and we can certainly enjoy and encourage a little entropy in our novellas.

Oh I have no problems with any methods anyone may use. I have my preferences, which vary a bit from game to game, but I don’t begrudge anyone else having their own preferences.

 

[hawkeyefan]

@hawkeyefan @zakael19

So what I found interesting that you both just went with the trap existing, and it's existence being a GM decision.

So you wouldn't run "quantum traps" where the existence of trap is in superposition, and it will collapse into existence as a consequence of some roll?

How would the knowledge of the trap affect the roll for opening the safe? There was mention it affecting the position (so desperate if the PC is not aware of the trap, presumably risky if they are?) This makes sense to me, but only if information gathering itself is risk free. Otherwise the overall risk is probably greater with two rolls.

It really depends on a lot of factors. And as you can see, @zakael19 and I each described different ways to handle it, though there were similarities.

My reason for going with it is that it was an area of interest for the players. And it seems to fit with what’s been established and with the goal of the Score. But I just as easily could have decided there was no trap there.

Does that leave the existence of the trap in a state of superposition? I don’t know… it’s pretend.

Relying on Information Gathering in that kind of situation may be risk free… but it also may not. Again, I think it all depends on what’s been established. Are the intruders totally unnoticed at this point? Is there a Clock in play for their detection? I could see a GM saying that spending any amount of time searching for a trap is risky because it takes time and there are active patrols, and certainly an area with wealth worth stealing may be a regular stop for guards. But obviously, it all depends on what’s been established or not, and what makes sense for the scenario.

So in one case, you could allow Gather Info move and have the player make a Fortune roll with success indicating an increase in position. Alternatively, you could instead have them make a Set Up Move. This is an Action roll that has risk, but would increase the Position or Effect of a following move.

Whichever I went with, I’d probably bump Position up to Controlled. Again, this depends on circumstances and what’s been established… but starting out at Risky is pretty common, so an increase would bump it to Controlled.