A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[pemerton]

The bigger headache, no matter what the rules are, is if you're declaring you're a noble now that means you've in fact been a noble all along; which in turn means the question of your entourage (what it consists of, its general level of loyalty, its capabilities, and [most important to play!] whether any of it would have come with you into the field) should have been dealt with before you first entered play.

But it's possible to resolve all this stuff during the course of play. And possible resolutions aren't hard to think of - anything from the PC has been travelling incognito to the PC has been banished because on the losing side of a power struggle to the PC's family is impoverished and hence the PC went out to try and make his/her fortune.

It's an even bigger issue if you're like me and have nobility actually mean nobility, and not just as some empty title and a PC who wears nice clothes, and is stuck up. If a player is nobility in my game, they have access to tremendous resources and influence compared to other social classes. That sort of advantage is not something that I will just let a player pick at the drop of a hat.

Again we see three things:

(1) A strong assumption of GM authorship/gating;

(2) Assumptions about the fiction;

(3) Assumptions about system.​

It's actually quite easy to have fiction that involves a noble who lacks the sorts of resources and influence you refer to: I mentioned some possibilities earlier in this post, and examples from fiction/legendary history abound: Aragorn; Richard the Lionheart (at various points in his endeavours); some versions of Robin Hood; and the film Hari-Kiri: Death of a Samurai are the ones I think of straight away. There are also strictly historical examples such as White Russians in exile, Free Imperial Knights in the last days of the Holy Roman Empire, and the like.

As far as system is concerned, there are many ways to treat nobility. In Classic Traveller, every PC has a Social Standing score, and a 12+ indicates nobility. In my game, when the players (as their PCs) are debating what course of action to choose, I sometimes call for opposed checks to resolve the dispute, and allocate bonuses for nobility (as well as appropriate skills like Leadership).

In Burning Wheel, characrers who are Born Noble acquire the Mark of Privilege trait, which confers an advantage on Circles checks to meet members of the nobility, but also imposes a penalty on Inconspicuous checks to move among the common folk. Whether a PC who is born noble has many resources, or few, will depend on the choices made by the player during PC building (BW uses a fairly complex lifepath system) - obviously being wealthy has its advantages, but so does being a mage who knows lots of spells, and the PC build system makes it hard to have both.

In Cortex+ Heroic, being a wealth noble could be expressed as a Distinction, or could be the fictional logic behind an appropriate skill - but the dice added to the pool for such abilities are no bigger or greener than the dice other players get to add for their PCs' abilities. HeroQuest revised would treat nobility in a similar way. In other words, it is possible for wealthy noble to be a defining trait of a character without that character therefore dominating play - because in mechanical terms there is no need for that trait to be more significant than any other PCs' defining trait.

Obviousy some systems treat nobility as an aspect of colour/flavour, rather than a discrete system element. Rolemaster is an example: in one RM campaign I ran two of the PCs were nobles (samurai), and this fictional positioniong obviously conferred certain benefits in some social contexts; but the other PCs also had interesting backstories (eg one was formerly an animal lord, who had been banished from Heaven and stripped of powers and memory as retribution for wrongdoing).

The last time I played in an AD&D campaign, my character was a noble (from memory, I had taken the Cavalier kit from some rulebook or other). It had relatively little impact on play. My backstory explained why I didn't have an entourage.

The idea that having PCs be nobles will break the game in some way, and thus needs super-special GM policing, isn't something that I've seen in my play experience.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], why don't you post some examples of how GM-driven RPGing produced moments of dramatic choice for the players?

 

[Lanefan]

But it's possible to resolve all this stuff during the course of play. And possible resolutions aren't hard to think of - anything from the PC has been travelling incognito to the PC has been banished because on the losing side of a power struggle to the PC's family is impoverished and hence the PC went out to try and make his/her fortune.

Any and all of which would have been really nice to know before the character started play in order that I and-or the player could have incorporated this aspect of the character into play.

For example if the PC has been banished I'd like to know from where, and why, and then determine if anyone happens to recognize him during his travels. Character's gained the advantage of never being recognized or challenged or whatever if none of us (incuding the player) know he's a noble until the player decides so one day.

Again we see three things:

(1) A strong assumption of GM authorship/gating;

(2) Assumptions about the fiction;

(3) Assumptions about system.​

It's actually quite easy to have fiction that involves a noble who lacks the sorts of resources and influence you refer to: I mentioned some possibilities earlier in this post, and examples from fiction/legendary history abound: Aragorn; Richard the Lionheart (at various points in his endeavours); some versions of Robin Hood; and the film Hari-Kiri: Death of a Samurai are the ones I think of straight away. There are also strictly historical examples such as White Russians in exile, Free Imperial Knights in the last days of the Holy Roman Empire, and the like.

Don't get me wrong - I've had noble PCs in my game over the years (two queens, two crown princes, and a duke or three to start with) - and I've no problem with it provided that either a) the noble background/profession came up as a part of char-gen and thus has been known (at least to that player and the DM) all along, or b) the title was acquired as a part of the run-of-play fiction via marriage or quest or bequeathal or reward or whatever...or by drawing the right/wrong card from a Deck! (nearly every PC I've seen gain a title from a Deck has soon had to retire from adventuring in order to deal with all that being a noble entails)

What I have a problem with is that the player can on a whim declare a PC to be a noble during the run of play at just the right moment where it would be most advantageous to do so.

Of the various nobles I've had in my game:

- one crown prince had a small entourage adventuring with him as bodyguards; they died, the prince survived (just!) but was forced into retirement by his family after a few adventures because of the dangers involved
- one crown prince had no entourage, survived his adventuring career but then had to come to the defense of his realm which was being invaded; the entire royal family was wiped out, along with the country, by the invaders
- one queen had no entourage, wasn't very well-liked by her people due to her constant absence while adventuring, ended up marrying another PC (and making him King, more or less); after this they juggled adventuring and ruling reasonably well until the game (and world!) ended
- one queen came by her title through the run of play (via AD&D modules C4 and C5) and on acquiring the throne pretty much had to immediately retire to deal with all the headaches; she would have considered an entourage an insult to her own not-inconsiderable ability as a warrior

I also played a crown prince as my very first character. He was from a very foreign land (different world, in fact) to where we were adventuring, but he still acted as if his word was the law because that's how he had been bred and raised and how dare these peasants tell him what to do! He didn't last long; and deservedly died at the hands of his own party.

As far as system is concerned, there are many ways to treat nobility. In Classic Traveller, every PC has a Social Standing score, and a 12+ indicates nobility. In my game, when the players (as their PCs) are debating what course of action to choose, I sometimes call for opposed checks to resolve the dispute, and allocate bonuses for nobility (as well as appropriate skills like Leadership).

In Burning Wheel, characrers who are Born Noble acquire the Mark of Privilege trait, which confers an advantage on Circles checks to meet members of the nobility, but also imposes a penalty on Inconspicuous checks to move among the common folk. Whether a PC who is born noble has many resources, or few, will depend on the choices made by the player during PC building (BW uses a fairly complex lifepath system) - obviously being wealthy has its advantages, but so does being a mage who knows lots of spells, and the PC build system makes it hard to have both.

In Cortex+ Heroic, being a wealth noble could be expressed as a Distinction, or could be the fictional logic behind an appropriate skill - but the dice added to the pool for such abilities are no bigger or greener than the dice other players get to add for their PCs' abilities. HeroQuest revised would treat nobility in a similar way. In other words, it is possible for wealthy noble to be a defining trait of a character without that character therefore dominating play - because in mechanical terms there is no need for that trait to be more significant than any other PCs' defining trait.

That these systems build such things right into their mechanics indicates a baked-in expectation that the nobility-to-commoner ratio among PCs is going to be much higher than among the overall population. Fair enough, if unrealistic.

The last time I played in an AD&D campaign, my character was a noble (from memory, I had taken the Cavalier kit from some rulebook or other). It had relatively little impact on play. My backstory explained why I didn't have an entourage.

Can Cavaliers as written even have followers, other than a squire, before reaching high-ish level? (long time since I looked at RAW Cavaliers!)

Either way, all these examples have the noble status being determined during char-gen; and that's A-OK.

The idea that having PCs be nobles will break the game in some way, and thus needs super-special GM policing, isn't something that I've seen in my play experience.

It doesn't break the game at all if it's a known thing all along, but if the nobility only comes to light partway through the campaign it very much risks rendering invalid some or even all of the play that has gone before, under the heading "What would or should have happened differently in the fiction had this aspect of this PC been known to the player and-or DM right from square one?".

 

[S'mon]

I said that in context, yes. Imagine the players saying "Hey, we don't want to play Cursre of Strahd" and the DM looks at them blankly for a moment. Then he raises his copy of Curst of Strahd and says "Guess what we're playing?"

A GM of any game that so blatantly ignores what the players are telling him may indeed be a jerk.

That sounds like the GM made a mistake not telling the players in advance that this was going to be a Curse of Strahd campaign. That doesn't make him a jerk, just foolish. If a player said "No, run Waterdeep Dragon Heist!" I think that would be jerkier. What should actually happen is that the group cancels the session until/unless they're on the same page. But GMs should always run the game they want to run and feel enthusiastic for, while players should play if interested, or not play if they don't fancy it. If the GM can't get players for his Strahd game, maybe someone else will run Dragon Heist.

 

[S'mon]

I don't actually have an issue with 'this is unbeatable', in that case it isn't a monster, it is just some sort of obstacle you aren't prepared to beat. Of course most such obstacles don't kill you! Walls don't kill you, but you can't go through them (at least without special stuff).

Plenty of obstacles do kill. Pits & chasms are an obvious example. PCs can get themselves
killed trying to leap the chasm, or can try climbing down it - hopefully with rope - or go look for another path. Slow but deadly monsters are very similar in game effect.

 

[S'mon]

The idea that having PCs be nobles will break the game in some way, and thus needs super-special GM policing, isn't something that I've seen in my play experience.

I think it's more that 'No Myth' (that's the phrase right?) where the player can inject significant world elements, such as his PC is a powerful noble of this town, without GM veto, can mess with the challenge of Gamist play - such as the intended challenge of negotiating safety with this town.

I think it's uncontroversial that different play agendas can clash. In 4e the GM may have a "Negotiate with Town" Skill Challenge set up, which could be messed with by a player (who's read Robin
Laws in the 4e DMG2) just declaring it was his home town.

 

[Maxperson]

It's actually quite easy to have fiction that involves a noble who lacks the sorts of resources and influence you refer to: I mentioned some possibilities earlier in this post, and examples from fiction/legendary history abound: Aragorn; Richard the Lionheart (at various points in his endeavours); some versions of Robin Hood; and the film Hari-Kiri: Death of a Samurai are the ones I think of straight away. There are also strictly historical examples such as White Russians in exile, Free Imperial Knights in the last days of the Holy Roman Empire, and the like.

This is treating nobility as, "...some empty title and a PC who wears nice clothes, and is stuck up."

As far as system is concerned, there are many ways to treat nobility. In Classic Traveller, every PC has a Social Standing score, and a 12+ indicates nobility.[/quote]

This doesn't really say anything about nobles being treated as nobles, and not just an empty title.

In Burning Wheel, characrers who are Born Noble acquire the Mark of Privilege trait, which confers an advantage on Circles checks to meet members of the nobility, but also imposes a penalty on Inconspicuous checks to move among the common folk. Whether a PC who is born noble has many resources, or few, will depend on the choices made by the player during PC building (BW uses a fairly complex lifepath system) - obviously being wealthy has its advantages, but so does being a mage who knows lots of spells, and the PC build system makes it hard to have both.

This is artificially limiting. Why should mage nobles be less common than say fighter nobles?

In Cortex+ Heroic, being a wealth noble could be expressed as a Distinction, or could be the fictional logic behind an appropriate skill - but the dice added to the pool for such abilities are no bigger or greener than the dice other players get to add for their PCs' abilities. HeroQuest revised would treat nobility in a similar way. In other words, it is possible for wealthy noble to be a defining trait of a character without that character therefore dominating play - because in mechanical terms there is no need for that trait to be more significant than any other PCs' defining trait.

Obviousy some systems treat nobility as an aspect of colour/flavour, rather than a discrete system element. Rolemaster is an example: in one RM campaign I ran two of the PCs were nobles (samurai), and this fictional positioniong obviously conferred certain benefits in some social contexts; but the other PCs also had interesting backstories (eg one was formerly an animal lord, who had been banished from Heaven and stripped of powers and memory as retribution for wrongdoing).

The last time I played in an AD&D campaign, my character was a noble (from memory, I had taken the Cavalier kit from some rulebook or other). It had relatively little impact on play. My backstory explained why I didn't have an entourage.

And now we're back to empty title.

The idea that having PCs be nobles will break the game in some way, and thus needs super-special GM policing, isn't something that I've seen in my play experience.

Having the odd noble here and there with an empty title is okay. It does happen. The great majority of the time, however, it's not going to be an empty title, so treating every PC noble title as empty doesn't jive with me.

 

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], why don't you post some examples of how GM-driven RPGing produced moments of dramatic choice for the players?

Sure.

I'll give one example from when I was a player and one from when I was a DM.

Example 1.

There was a game that I was playing in where we had to find a powerful witch in order to stop a powerful group of NPCs from having their way with our homeland. While I was out alone shopping for some stuff my character would need before we left to find the witch, some of those NPCs found me and took me to their leader. The leader told me that he had my wife and kids captured and that when we found the witch, I was to call them via a magical device so that they could come and get her. I was told that if I said anything to anyone else, my wife and kids would be killed.

We adventured for a while trying to find this witch, and one of the things that happened was that we saved an 8 year old girl from some marauders that had killed the rest of her family before we arrived. we decided to take her to the next town and turn her over to the authorities. As we were traveling through a swamp on the way to that town, we came across a hut in the swamp with an old woman who was an herbalist. I had the great idea of using the device to call the NPCs on this woman, who I knew wasn't the witch we were looking for, but who could easily be mistaken for a witch. That way I could alert my companions as to what was going on via an "honest mistake."

The NPCs arrived to collect the "witch" and when they did, they took one look at the girl we had rescued and thanked me for calling them to get the witch. Apparently the girl was who we were looking for and nobody in the party had any idea. The rest of the group took up positions to defend the girl. My PC however was now in the position of turning the girl over to the NPCs and allowing them to retain control over the land, or stand against the NPCs and let my wife and kids be killed. It was a very hard choice, but I made it and stood with the NPCs telling the rest of the group that they had my family and I would kill anyone who tried to stop them from taking the witch. Now the rest of the group was in the position of letting her go and allowing the NPCs to retain control, or attack and possibly kill the friend they grew up with and adventuring companion. They eventually relented and the girl was taken by the NPCs.

Plenty of drama to go around in this DM facing game. That's not the only example, but it is the biggest that happened in that game.


Example 2.

A low level group was in a town that was attacked by orc raiders in the night. They killed some orcs, but there were too many for them to stop entirely. The raiders grabbed a bunch of children as the kids were easy to carry quickly, and they set off to their village. In the aftermath the following morning, the PCs learned that about 20 children had been taken.

The PCs being heroes, decided that they would go off and rescue the kids. The orcs, though, had a sizable lead. Nevertheless, the PCs set out and started tracking the orcs hoping to catch up with them and save the kids. Towards the evening of the first day they came across a place where the orcs had made their camp. They found an area with a fire pit and while investigating the fire pit and the area around it, they found some child sized bones.

Everyone at the table got really quiet as they realized that the orcs were using the kids as food. Suddenly the rescue got really serious as they realized that they were now in a time crunch to rescue the kids that remained before more were killed and eaten. The decided to forgo resting and push through to gain ground on the orcs and hope that they would come upon them in time, even though that meant taking penalties for lack of rest.

Plenty of drama to go around in DM facing games.

 

[pemerton]

I think it's more that 'No Myth' (that's the phrase right?) where the player can inject significant world elements, such as his PC is a powerful noble of this town, without GM veto, can mess with the challenge of Gamist play - such as the intended challenge of negotiating safety with this town.

I think it's uncontroversial that different play agendas can clash. In 4e the GM may have a "Negotiate with Town" Skill Challenge set up, which could be messed with by a player (who's read Robin Laws ijn the 4e DMG2) just declaring it was his home town.

Yes and no! If it's really "no myth", then new challenges can be narrated! Or, in your "negotiate with the town" example, the GM can frame a situation (and associated check) that puts the PC's nobility to the test.

This also takes me back to the alternatives to fiat (player or GM). Roll more dice!

 

[Imaculata]

Seems legit and perfectly reasonable. But let's take nothing for granted: How do you know for sure the God of Death will not take offense?

More: that moment of uncertainty from the Player couldn't foresee an important instance of play, I dunno: a dilemma for religious priests in the setting? (Or at least for the Pc?) that even a responsible Gm takes for granted, because see the OP?

To me these are excellent moments for the DM to share some lore on the setting, and intrigue the players. I explained to the cleric-player that to the God of Death the unnatural life of a Lich would be seen as a great disruption of the natural balance of life and death. It is a defilement of how life and death are supposed to work; a profane magical loophole. Laying their souls to rest, would return them to face judgement before the God of Death, which he would approve of very much.

The players were intrigued by this logic, and I feel this allows me as a DM to really make the world come alive.