D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AbdulAlhazred]

Rules in a game keep it from devolving into the way kids play:

Kid 1: Hah! I shot you with my laser eyes!

Kid 2: No you didn't, you missed!

Kid 1: No I didn't, I hit you!

Kid 2: No you didn't, you missed.

And so on.

I'm pretty sure these are the types of rules @Micah Sweet was talking about.

They're also what people like Baker are talking about.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I disagree. It's not that we sat down to tell a story, and then decided it would be more fun with rules. We sat down to play a game, and decided it would be more fun with some roleplaying.

It was the ability to have open-ended play, which was enabled by GM (the term at the time was Referee) authority over resolution. Rules were only used to allow the ref to disclaim decisions by using dice, or to inject randomness. They also allowed a type of tension in play. But critically only the ref had the authority to decide to deploy them and decide what they were. In fact there was an entire school of GMing in which the GM kept all the mechanics of play to themselves. Sometimes even going so far as to roll all dice themselves in secret and just narrate the resulting fiction. Yes, I have played this way!

 

[pemerton]

But here's a thesis:

The major innovation of the narrative systems like BW is not giving the players agency. It is about removing agency from the GM and placing it in the hands of the system.

This is not entirely correct, in my view - apart from anything else, a rules system isn't the sort of thing that can have agency.

Here is something in the neighbourhood which I think is true: the principles, methods, heuristics, procedures etc that will make play player-driven all pertain to the GM. By way of elaobration:

At the heart of "story now" RPGing is the players bring the protagonism. The players decide what it is that their PCs care about, what their motivations are, what their projects will be. I'll bundle all these up as the players' concerns for their PCs.

This gives the GM three important, and related, jobs during play: to facilitate; to respond; to oppose. A fourth job happens outside play: to prep.

<snip>

the reason for presenting the jobs in this way is to orient your thinking, as a "story now" GM, towards the players' concerns for their PCs. Or in other words, to orient your GMing towards player protagonism. That's the heart of "story now" RPGing.

Here's the thing - most posters on ENworld are not very interested in the sort of play that Edwards was describing using the terms "narrativism" and "story now".

And in attempting to talk about it, they tend to focus on player-side mechanics (eg meta-currency, or the ability to stipulate fiction without having to declare and resolve a PC's action) when the key to the sort of RPGing Edwards was describing all sits on the GM side.

the canvassed system features - allowing players to directly establish elements of the fiction without having to declare actions for their PCs (whether via free narration, or by expending currency) - have no particular connection to thematically-oriented player protagonism. They may be a component of that or may not be, but that depends entirely on other features of a system. For instance, BW players are allowed to introduce NPCs - Relationships - into the fiction as part of the process of PC build; but these feed into thematically-oriented player protagonism because of obligations that fall onto the GM in relation to the incorporation of those NPCs into framing and consequence. And the OP of this thread says basically nothing about the GM's role at all.

If you want the players to shape the fiction in play, the key is always to start with GMing. How is the GM establishing scenes? And establishing consequences? To get player-driven RPGing, you ned to work on those things.

 

[pemerton]

That doesn't address the issue, though.

The "issue", as I understand it, is abusive GMs abusing their players via the Duel of Wits mechanic.

I have no idea how this is any different from the billion other issues that have been discussed under the rubric of "abusive GMs".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is a person who objects to role playing - in a role playing game!

It would be funny, except you are talking about a person with an extremely high set of standards for his role play, and who really does it with excellence. I strongly doubt many people here could hold a candle to @Manbearcat there. Great RP!

 

[TwoSix]

But it can also remove player agency, because what they previously achieve via smart decisions now requires interacting with the system. If the GM decides and they make the right choice, they aren't subjecting themselves to the system; they can shield themselves from it. If the system decides, they must roll.

But let’s never forget that “achieve via smart decisions” means “convincing the DM that was a smart decision.”

 

[pemerton]

I disagree. It's not that we sat down to tell a story, and then decided it would be more fun with rules. We sat down to play a game, and decided it would be more fun with some roleplaying.

Is your use of "we" meaning that you were playing D&D in the mid-70s?

I wasn't, and my knowledge is derived from accounts of those who were. On these boards, that's mostly been @AbdulAlhazred.

I'm not sure where "telling a story" comes into it - I don't think I used that phrase, and Vincent Baker doesn't use it in the blog that I linked to and quoted.

But my understanding of the Braunstein, and the dungeon version of it, is that it is all about the fiction - drawing on the established fiction to make new fiction that advances one's position - with mechanical elements (eg that door might be stuck - roll a die to see if you can force it) being secondary. The non-mechanical rules, as I understand it, were basically carried over from free narration resolution in wargaming.

 

[The Firebird]

This is not entirely correct, in my view - apart from anything else, a rules system isn't the sort of thing that can have agency.

Fair, maybe it is better to say: "the main innovation is not about player agency. It's about moving adjudication from the GM to the system".

Moving adjudication can both increase and decrease agency. When the players can make meaningful actions just by interacting with the DM, it decreases it. When they can't, it increases it.

 

[pemerton]

Trust until proven untrustworthy.

OK. So are all GMs of Burning Wheel deemed unworthy from the outset? If not, then what's going on with this "abusive GM" stuff?

 

[pemerton]

But it can also remove player agency, because what they previously achieve via smart decisions now requires interacting with the system. If the GM decides and they make the right choice, they aren't subjecting themselves to the system; they can shield themselves from it. If the system decides, they must roll.

Upthread you seemed hostile to "playing the GM". Here you seem to be advocating it!

I'm not suggesting that you're hypocritical. But there is clearly some distinction that is salient to you that I haven't picked up on.