GM fiat - an illustration

[pemerton]

Yea. Besides, what does directing play even mean? Is it choosing what fictional obstacles the PCs face? Is it choosing setting details about the world the PCs inhabit? Is it creating interesting NPCs they can interact with? Because most RPGs either have the DM do the lions share of these things, or have these explicit details in the rule book itself.

I think it's fairly clear what @hawkeyefan meant: by "directing play" he means establishing the scope of feasible moves for the players to make, determining the stakes of those moves and determining the consequences of those moves.

And here's an example of a poster explaining, in a bit of detail, how that might look:

You can tell them that Eagle Fang Karate has a sect headquarters there. But if they go and talk to sensei Lawrence and discuss forming an alliance to defeat Miyagi-Do, the players are moving things in a direction the Gm wasn’t planning. And the GMs choices do matter here. The GM needs to decide what Johnny Lawrence says in response but I would personally base that reaction on things like what the players offer, what impression they make and what Johnny currently wants. That is very different from the Gm just directing play in my opinion because so much of what he is doing is reacting and taking seriously the actions the players propose (and he is taking the goals of factions and NPCs seriously, not simply deciding based on where he wants things to go)

So whereas this was presented as a refutation of what @hawkeyefan said, given my understanding of what @hawkeyefan intended I would see it as a confirmation.

 

[FrogReaver]

This seems true. There is a difference, for instance, between rules of the game and things the GM might have regard to in deciding what to say next.

Sure. But they also both serve as constraints on what he says next, so there's some similarities too. It depends on the context of the particular discussion for whether the similarities or the differences should be the focus.

I assume you are talking here about 5e D&D. I don't think what you say here is at all true of classic D&D, or 4e D&D.

I think it was an unspoken rule/practice in every version except maybe 4e. Probably not written down until 5e though.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think it's fairly clear what @hawkeyefan meant: by "directing play" he means establishing the scope of feasible moves for the players to make, determining the stakes of those moves and determining the consequences of those moves.

And here's an example of a poster explaining, in a bit of detail, how that might look:

So whereas this was presented as a refutation of what @hawkeyefan said, given my understanding of what @hawkeyefan intended I would see it as a confirmation.

Then I would say directing play isn’t a good term to describe that

 

[FrogReaver]

I think it's fairly clear what @hawkeyefan meant: by "directing play" he means establishing the scope of feasible moves for the players to make, determining the stakes of those moves and determining the consequences of those moves.

And here's an example of a poster explaining, in a bit of detail, how that might look:

So whereas this was presented as a refutation of what @hawkeyefan said, given my understanding of what @hawkeyefan intended I would see it as a confirmation.

Sorry, I'm not discussing hawkeyefan. I wasn't even aware he had said a thing. I had quoted Bedrockgames. If you want to make a similar point without the risk of it seeming like I am bypassing the ignore list then I'll gladly reply.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sorry, I'm not discussing hawkeyefan. I wasn't even aware he had said a thing. I had quoted Bedrockgames. If you want to make a similar point without the risk of it seeming like I am bypassing the ignore list then I'll gladly reply.

Yeah some of this is there are five conversations occurring and streams get crossed

 

[pemerton]

I think it was an unspoken rule/practice in every version except maybe 4e. Probably not written down until 5e though.

This is from Gygax in his DMG (pp 9, 110):

For example, the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game by interfering with an orderly expedition You have set up an area full of clever tricks and traps, populated it with well-thought-out creature complexes, given clues about it to pique players' interest, and the group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need to face and overcome the imagined perils. They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favorite game, with the expectation of going to a new, strange area and doing their best to triumph. They are willing to accept the hazards of the dice, be it loss of items, wounding, insanity, disease, death, as long as the process is exciting. But lo!, everytime you throw the ”monster die” a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party’s strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don’t allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game. Wandering monsters, however, are included for two reasons, as is explained in the section about them. If a party deserves to have these beasties inflicted upon them, that is another matter, but in the example above it is assumed that they are doing everything possible to travel quickly and quietly to their planned destination. If your work as a DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance. The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play.

Know the game systems, and you will know how and when to take upon yourself the ultimate power. . . .

Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for-player character when they have played well. When they have done something stupid or have not taken precautions, then let the dice fall where they may!​

Nothing here implies - for instance - that the core combat mechanics are an option for the GM to apply or disregard at will. Quite to the contrary! And the ethos is crystal clear: skilled play should be rewarded (including by potentially ignoring wandering monster dice - in effect, declining to roll them - and by treating zero hp as something other than death), but unskilled play merits the visiting of full consequence (wandering monsters, PC death and the like) upon those players.

Other core mechanics are evasion and pursuit; morale (for those monsters whose description does not specify that they will fight to the death); and various PC build elements such as character spells and thieves' abilities.

Obviously AD&D contains many peripheral, and hence optional, systems - eg the rules for naval warfare and aerial combat; the rules for conducting sieges; the rules for planar travel - but the core rules for establishing challenges and consequences in dungeon exploration are not presented as optional. Ignoring them, as Gygax says, would be contrary to the major precepts of the game.

 

[FrogReaver]

I have dozens and dozens of actual play posts. I've linked to some of them in this thread. You can read them if you like.

I've watched some of @Bedrockgames and @robertsconley's actual play videos. In this thread, I've seen the latter post notes for a "world in motion" campaign which seem to me, and which he has agreed, are basically the same (technique-wise) as the ones that I posted from my campaign of 30 to 35 years ago.

I don't recall ever having any trouble making sense of your accounts of how you play RPGs.

I don't think I post anything mysterious. It's not hard to understand, for instance, how to play Burning Wheel. I have had posters seem incredulous in the face of the instruction to a GM that everything they do should be done keeping in mind player-established priorities for the players' PCs. But incredulity of that sort is not my problem.

I do read posts in which various posters - including, it seems to me, you from time to time - want to assert simultaneously that a GM can exercise far more control over the content, theme, stakes etc of play than Burning Wheel directs them too and yet be a game in which the GM is exercising no more control than a Burning Wheel GM. To me that seems contradictory, and I've never seen an account of actual play that illustrates it happening.

I also see posts which seem to assert that there is a fundamental difference between (say) rolling on a wandering monster table and learning that (for instance) 5 Orcs turn up, and rolling on a Camp Events table and learning (for instance) that one Dire Wolf turns up. But what the difference is, is not spelled out. After all, both involve introducing a new element into the fiction. Both are sensitive to the usual sort of in-fiction stuff: where the PCs are, what sort of effort they are making to conceal/protect their camp, etc.

When a "world in motion" GM rolls up 5 Orcs, that GM thinks about the stuff they have authored and imagined about Orcs and the stuff they have authored and imagined about this location and, from all that stuff, comes up with a story about what 5 Orcs are doing here.

When I rolled up a Dire Wolf, I thought about what is the established fiction - which included the Moathouse in the distance - and how can I build on what the players are trying to have their PCs do - which included trying to get to the Moathouse. I also had in mind the description of Dire Wolves (Scholar's Guide, p 182):

These massive, rangy wolves are possessed of a savage lupine intellect - some can even speak the languages of goblins or humans.​

​

In the wild, they run in packs and are fiercely territorial; they will not hesitate to attack if threatened or if their cubs are in danger. They tend to be shy creatures but will descend upon isolated settlements if hungry enough. Hobgoblins and orcs frequently capture and enslave dire wolves, training them as brutal mounts.​

I knew that the Moathouse was inhabited by human bandits, Gnolls and Bugbears; and was led by the Half-Elf Lareth the Beautiful, who "has been sent into this area to rebuild a force of human and Trollish fighter so as to gather loot and restore the Temple to its former glory, joining the Eye of Fire with the Black Void". (In TB2e, "troll" has the same meaning, more-or-less, as does "humanoid" or "giant class" in classic D&D.)

So it did not seem unlikely that there would be a Dire Wolf working with the Moathouse forces, and acting as a scout. And so I deemed it thus!

Some people would not see any difference between what I have described myself as doing, and what the "world in motion" GM does. If there is a difference, it is rather slight, and is the same as what I have frequently posted - the fundamental difference between player-driven RPGing, and GM-driven RPGing, is the basis on which or, if you prefer, the principles whereby the GM makes decisions about the fiction they introduce.

In this particular example, it was the decision to give the Dire Wolf a motivation and origin story, within the fiction, that bound the PCs (and thereby the players) more tightly to their Moathouse goal. As a GM, I take cues from the players.

If things take their normal course, than what I now expect, in response to this post, is to be told how (i) "world in motion" GMs also take cues from their players, but (ii) how they also create genuine "living" worlds rather than cardboard cut-outs, stage scenery etc because they draw upon content that has been authored without having the players in mind. It will also be emphasised that (iii) coming to know that non-player-driven content is key to the game experience, although (iv) it's reductive to mention that key to the game experience is the players coming to know that content.

The more the actual mechanics of torchbearer 2e have been revealed and not just your analysis of them, the more i agree that it is very similar. I've not came to a firm conclusion there yet, but I am leaning toward agreement.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is from Gygax in his DMG (pp 9, 110):

For example, the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game by interfering with an orderly expedition You have set up an area full of clever tricks and traps, populated it with well-thought-out creature complexes, given clues about it to pique players' interest, and the group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need to face and overcome the imagined perils. They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favorite game, with the expectation of going to a new, strange area and doing their best to triumph. They are willing to accept the hazards of the dice, be it loss of items, wounding, insanity, disease, death, as long as the process is exciting. But lo!, everytime you throw the ”monster die” a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party’s strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don’t allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game. Wandering monsters, however, are included for two reasons, as is explained in the section about them. If a party deserves to have these beasties inflicted upon them, that is another matter, but in the example above it is assumed that they are doing everything possible to travel quickly and quietly to their planned destination. If your work as a DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance. The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play.​

​

Know the game systems, and you will know how and when to take upon yourself the ultimate power. . . .​

​

Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for-player character when they have played well. When they have done something stupid or have not taken precautions, then let the dice fall where they may!​

Nothing here implies - for instance - that the core combat mechanics are an option for the GM to apply or disregard at will. Quite to the contrary! And the ethos is crystal clear: skilled play should be rewarded (including by potentially ignoring wandering monster dice - in effect, declining to roll them - and by treating zero hp as something other than death), but unskilled play merits the visiting of full consequence (wandering monsters, PC death and the like) upon those players.

Other core mechanics are evasion and pursuit; morale (for those monsters whose description does not specify that they will fight to the death); and various PC build elements such as character spells and thieves' abilities.

Obviously AD&D contains many peripheral, and hence optional, systems - eg the rules for naval warfare and aerial combat; the rules for conducting sieges; the rules for planar travel - but the core rules for establishing challenges and consequences in dungeon exploration are not presented as optional. Ignoring them, as Gygax says, would be contrary to the major precepts of the game.

Citing me written text has no bearing on whether there was an unspoken rule/practice (my posts actual claim that you had quoted)...

 

[Manbearcat]

Like I said last time you mentioned this, I don't think this is quite true, unless you mean "gameable space" only in very mechanistic sense. In a game of fiction, the gameable space is the fiction, not just the rules. What is required is that fiction to be coherent and consistent enough, that players can make meaningful decisions based on it. Now rules might be one way to achieve this, but certainly not the only, or even necessary, one. And indeed the GM ability to sidestep the rules in case where their output quite doesn't make sense given the fiction, does not lessen the coherence of this gameable fiction space, it increases it!

Tagging you here @FrogReaver .

It feels like this is the point where @hawkeyefan 's actual play anecdote of his deployment of Folk Hero's Trait of Rustic Hospitality becomes salient. In fact, it is the perfect analogue for the Alarm spell. Just like with the Alarm spell, the point of the implementation of Rustic Hospitality was to generate safe haven from danger.

Rustic Hospitality​

Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

* @hawkeyefan was both relying upon the synthesis of "reliable currency and resolution scheme generating gameable space" as well as "fiction as gameable space." He got hard vetoed by the GM.

* Various GMs might rule similarly (hard veto) for myriad, black-box reasons.

One GM might determine that the game theory deployed by the peasant class vs law enforcement or the military class (LEoMC) would be to renege on promised cover to the Folk Hero should they be pressed by the LEoMC because of the "not risk their lives for you" clause and then they would black-box in the LEoMC pressing itself via some black-box decision-making/scheme); extrapolation.

Another GM might determine that the LEoMC would either have already bribed the peasant class to turn in the Folk Hero or will do so now (deploying the GM's infinite reservoir of black-box currency to facilitate this); extrapolation.

Another GM might determine that adventurers are inherently dangerous, thereby initiating the "shown yourself to be a danger to them" clause, thus unknowingly to the player crippling the Rustic Hospitality Trait at the PC build stage before play even begins (!); extrapolation.

Another GM might decide this is the perfect opportunity to mainline an encounter onto play where some essential, GM Storyteller plot node with the LEoMC is made manifest; GM Storyteller.

5 x other GMs might decide that it doesn't work by player fiat, but rather to devise varying in-situ, black-box fortune resolution mechanics to randomize the results with a spread from 20/33/50/67/85 % chance to resolve in @hawkeyefan 's favor; behind-the-screen randomization with GM-decided upon odds in which neither PC build nor currency muster interacts with.

5 x other GMs might decide that it doesn't work by player fiat, but rather the PC in question has to make a Cha (Persuasion) roll with widely varying DCs; actual action resolution, but who knows what DC is being set + who knows if this player has invested any PC build resources into Cha or Persuasion to facilitate this + how is the player to know that they should save an Advantage for such black box action resolution which is almost surely on the tail-end of other action resolution to get to the farmer's barn in the first place (some form of chase or traversal/exploration challenge).

This can go on...and any number of these GMs (as we saw in that thread and we see everywhere else on ENW, on the internet-at-large, and in meatspace) might feel that their particular methodology and/or decision has yielded "the good stuff." Meanwhile, the player (in this case @hawkeyefan ) is left thinking..."WTF is even happening here?" This is where the descriptors of erratic and volatile sufficiently describe what is happening to for the player as their hypothetical gameable space (playing the fiction, playing the mechanics, mustering currency they thought would be reliable, playing the PC build game) shrinks or outright vanishes for all intents and purposes.

* Circling back a hair, again this sequence at the farmer's house/barn would be on the tail-end of a decision to make a runner for that farm in the first place. If the goal is "achieve safe haven from danger" and the initial action declaration is "let's make a run across town for the farmlands...the peasants there will shield us from the law searching for us (it says it right there in the fine print!)." But between that decision to make that runner is however many other stages of action resolution/"playing the fiction" (who knows how many?). Maybe players spend currency (Advantages, Spells) or gain attrition in the form of Hit Point loss and gained Exhaustion Levels...all for a plan that was either (a) a dead-end in the first place before they even set out or (b) an unknown/unknowable low % or remote possibility in the first place? If they had actually not been working under the dynamics of a black-box, they would have made an entirely different strategic decision (!); "hey, forget the runner across town to the farmers...they'll might/most likely/definitely will give us up to the law...let's just either (i) pick a defensible position and rain hell on the LEoMC or (ii) make a runner to the forest and attempt to disappear under its dark/haunted boughs (and yet again...who knows if the GM will have them pursue into the dark/haunted forest and how that black box will resolve)."

---

The crux of the point is the anti-black box dynamics of the game engine (which includes structure, always-on and always- stable resolution procedures, transparency, overt principles, robust currencies that are always reliable, as well as "playing the fiction") of Torchbearer fundamentally shuts down the paradigm presented above. It has never happened (and by god have I GMed a metric eff-ton of TB) because it fundamentally_cannot_happen. The gameable space is always robust and always stable, sequence-in sequence-out.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No, you aren’t directing play. The players still have a say in what they do. You might tell them what is in the town when they arrive. But your description of the town will grow around their questions and all this does anyways is establish what is there. The players still act and push on things. You can tell them that Eagle Fang Karate has a sect headquarters there. But if they go and talk to sensei Lawrence and discuss forming an alliance to defeat Miyagi-Do, the players are moving things in a direction the Gm wasn’t planning. And the GMs choices do matter here. The GM needs to decide what Johnny Lawrence says in response but I would personally base that reaction on things like what the players offer, what impression they make and what Johnny currently wants. That is very different from the Gm just directing play in my opinion because so much of what he is doing is reacting and taking seriously the actions the players propose (and he is taking the goals of factions and NPCs seriously, not simply deciding based on where he wants things to go)

I don’t see how this isn’t directing play. And to be clear, directing play is something that GMs in every game do. I think it’s just a matter of how the game grants that authority… when does the GM get to make decisions that direct play and why.

I use dice all the time for unknowns. But I don’t think you solve much by giving GMs orders on when this has to be. Obviously some mechanics will prompt dice rolls. But when you are GMing things like the actions of a faction, I think allowing for flexibility is very important. The dice are a tool. So how I might use them in this example is I might give Johnny an empathy and it detect roll (especially if they are being deceptive but I am unclear how good a job they did at it) to size up the players before he makes his decision if I feel he’d be on the fence. And if Johnny agreed but was suspicious, I might have him send a spy, which would mean players get regular detect against the guy’s stealth and he probably has to make survival rolls to keep up with and follow the party. If I decide Johnny wants to learn more about the players after they leave, I am probably going to assign him an information network dice pool (in this case let’s say 2d10) and roll that against a target number (and would base what I for he gets on whether the roll fails, succeeds or gets a 10 result).

I think having clear rules and principles for this type of stuff is vital (if you want player choice to be meaningful and not be overridden by GM fiat). It’s introducing chance… some element that’s not entirely decided by the GM… because so much of what you’re describing is up to the GM.