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

[pemerton]

Someone just mentioned a 'steering wheel' and my natural reaction is "no steering at all!" That's where really interesting story emerges, where play 'in the zone' is. Nobody is steering, nobody knows where anything can go. Now, VB I believe, said to "drive it like a stolen car" but that may imply some control, though certainly players have some directional control.

I think that was John Harper, not Baker.

But anyway, I agree. Play doesn't need to be steered. But it helps if there are clear procedures for what gets to say what next.

The last time I played a RPG where there weren't such clear procedures was Rolemaster. Gradually over time I worked out procedures, in the context of playing RM for years with a stable group. But the lack of procedures caused significant problems, as I've posted in this thread and elsewhere.

My perception of the term scene-framing are snapshots of a scene presented by the GM followed by a roleplaying resolution.

GM: Scene-frames
Table: Resolves
GM moves the story forward Scene-frames the next scene
Table: Resolves
...and so on
At least that is how I envision it when someone says they scene-frame.

The way I run a dungeon I would not describe it as scene-framing. There would be constant dialogue between GM and players as the PCs progressed through the dungeon building organically on the shared imagination with many of the elements within the fiction traditionally built on by the GM.

When I GM Burning Wheel, 4e D&D, Torchbearer and Prince Valiant there is constant dialogue between the GM and the players. But only in Torchbearer - which uses map-and-key resolution for parts of play - would the GM side of this conversation be guided by reference to a prepared map key.

 

[AlViking]

Other posters - @Maxperson and @Faolyn - are saying that this has nothing to do with prep.

An encounter may be prepped, it may not be. Some encounters are ad-hoc, others are things I've listed as things that would be logically encountered.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. But I am more thinking of the sort of structured exposition of aboutness and roles that something like Apocalypse World provides. I, and I think many other players of more modern RPGs, find the lack of such to be a fairly obvious deficiency given how frequently issues seem to stem from confusion in this area.

I see that lack as a strength. It doesn't force a style of play on the participants, but rather ideally suggests ideas for how to enjoy the system, and perhaps what the designers had in mind, without pushing a hard agenda.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Perhaps you can't? I mean, maybe much of my life is miserable, oppressed, low in agency, etc. There are people in the world who suffer under such conditions: They are bullied by others. Others make the choices that shape their lives. Natural disasters ruin their homes, their livelihoods, etc.

But in this thread we're talking about the play of a game. If you are saying that you prefer a game where player-side participants are not able to shape the play of the game because they are subject to the decision-making of another (ie the GM) well OK. But it seems hardly surprising that others want something different out of a game.

I am saying that I prefer a game where I don't have any more power as a player than my character does in the fiction. I have always said that. Other people want power beyond that, and that's fine for them.

That's pretty much it. Everything else seems to be people's judgement of the various ways folks make the game give them the power they want.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Other posters - @Maxperson and @Faolyn - are saying that this has nothing to do with prep.

It doesn't have to, but it absolutely can.

 

[AlViking]

OK.

If we are describing play by reference to the GM's imagination - I imagined/anticipated the players doing X, but they did Y - to me that suggests a type of GM primacy, at least in perspective on play and possibly on how play actually unfolds.


Ditto.

And? If you want to look at it that way, it's your choice.

 

[Faolyn]

In the latter case, there is no "it" that is bypassed.

To elaborate: two of my BW games occur in and about Hardby. Presumably there are villages all around Hardby, given that it is a pseudo-mediaeval city. When playing, we have never talked about the PCs visiting those villages. Perhaps some of the PCs, in their travels between Hardby and the Abor-Alz, have visited some of them, but we didn't talk about it.

Just as there are villages in the imaginary setting that no real-life game participant has ever turned their mind to, so there are people, shops, streets and street corners and the like that also none of us has ever thought about or imagined.

The players are not "bypassing" all those things that are not described, and that have no salience to our play.

And if the creator of the tracks is never talked about in play, then there is nothing that has been bypassed, anymore than those other things have been bypassed.

Because you didn’t discuss those events, there were no encounters to be bypassed.

Tell me: do you really think we don’t know that these are imaginary worlds? Do you not suspend your disbelief and pretend the world exists while you play, or do you say, “my character, who doesn’t actually exist, goes to the store, which also doesn’t exist”? Somehow I doubt the latter is true.

The creator of the tracks can be discovered through play. That’s what the encounter is. If the players choose to bypass the encounter, they won’t discover who or what made them.

 

[Faolyn]

Other posters - @Maxperson and @Faolyn - are saying that this has nothing to do with prep.

I have repeatedly said that it doesn’t have to.

 

[Faolyn]

OK.

If we are describing play by reference to the GM's imagination - I imagined/anticipated the players doing X, but they did Y - to me that suggests a type of GM primacy, at least in perspective on play and possibly on how play actually unfolds.

Wrong.

I set up an encounter. The players may or may not choose to engage. I can make assumptions based on my past experiences with that group as to how they will react, but I fail to see how that would affect how the players act now.

 

[Maxperson]

No, it's others who are quoting dictionaries etc. I'm trying to understand a process of play.

I'm asking - where, in play, do those other people "exist"? The answer seems to be in the GM's notes or in the GM's imagination. Is that right?

Where did those encounters exist? What have they avoided?

They are in the shared imagined space. They come from notes, or are improvised by the DM, or random encounters, or... There several ways encounters can show up.

I'm not unsure about Gygax;s process of play. He's clear about it:

* The GM maps and keys a dungeon. Some of what's in the key is architecture and furniture. Some of it is creatures, tricks, traps. Those creatures, and maybe some of the tricks and traps (he's a bit loose in respect of those) are "set encounters".​

​

* As the players declare actions to move their PCs through the dungeon, open doors, look at things, etc, the GM keeps track of (i) time and (ii) noise, and on that basis rolls wandering monster dice. Some of those rolls will result in encounters too.​

​

* Gygax advised players who wish to have successful adventures in dungeons to (i) minimise noise and time-wasting so as to minimise wandering monster rolls, and (ii) to avoid wandering monsters that they encounter, and (iii) to avoid opening doors or otherwise enlivening "set" encounters which do not pertain to the particular goal that they have set for their particular foray into the dungeon.​

There is a clear account, in Gygax, of how and what the GM needs to prep, of how that is used in play, of what the goal of play is from the players' side, and of how the GM decides whether or not the PCs encounter something (ie wandering monster roll, or enlivened/activated "set" encounter).

But @AlViking didn't seem to be talking about Gygax-style play. @Faolyn has expressly averred talking about such play. I'm expressing curiosity about what process of play they are using.

His process of play also includes, according to the 1e PHB, bypassing encounters. It's under Avoid Unnecessary Encounters.

TOK, so the GM has told the players about the barricade. It is already part of the established situation. And now the players are deciding how their PCs will deal with the narrated obstacle.

By bypassing it, yes.