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

[S'mon]

If in doubt, I find 3 in 6 chance works really well - "hm, ok, 3 in 6 chance sect members at the tea house" - it's a nice compromise between cinematic reality and reality-reality.

 

[Maxperson]

Adventure fiction - heck, fiction in general - depends on coincidence: people turn up, or fail to turn up, at the appropriate moment; opportunities arise, or fail to arise, at just the time that will drive the protagonist to action; etc.

That's not to say that fiction must be "unrealistic" in the sense of wildly implausible. It is to say that, if you looked at 1,000 human lives, few or even none of them would exhibit the same degree of dramatic "neatness" and development as one finds in fiction. For the same reason, even the lives of people who lived exciting and dramatic lives generally need editing to be rendered dramatically apt (eg for biopic films or historical novels). The editing needed to make real human lives dramatic can be large or can be small, but editing is required.

It seems like you are back to the False Dichotomy that realism must be all or nothing.

In Classic Traveller, a PC or group of PCs spends a week looking for a patron to hire them to undertake some (typically exciting) mission, they have a 1 in 3 chance of finding such a person. Is that realistic? - We are marking off time on the campaign tracker, after all, and in Traveller that will cost you money for upkeep, berthing costs for your starship and ultimately ageing rolls for your PC. Or is it unrealistic? - I've got a skillset comparable to some of the characters the Traveller PC gen rules can yield, but I don't think if I spent a week hanging out in "bars, taverns, clubs . . . or any other likely places" (to quote from Book 3) that I would have a 1 in 18 chance of being approached by an Arsonist, Cutthroat, Assassin, Hijacker, Smuggler or Terrorist (to pluck the top line from the 6 lines of the random patron table).

Have you asked Liam Neeson? He may have a different experience with his skillset and being in bars.

In the Star Wars universe, how often are bar patrons maimed or killed in bar fights? We don't know - the inspiration for those scenes in the original movie is the western, not a bureau of statistics report on the incidence of drinking-hole violence. If I sit down to play a Star Wars game and there are none of those western-style tropes, then the game is going to suck.

In the universe of Classic Traveller, it's a given that dubious persons who hang out in "likely places" will be hired by somewhat shadowy, sometimes unlikely, patrons to undertake dubious, shadowy and unlikely tasks. That's what makes the game happen. (Or is at least one way the game happens. The other is to play a trading game. But that variant also rests on tropes that weren't conceived of via statistical analysis.)

None of that means that a different DM's game of Star Wars or Traveller can't be made to be more realistic, while still keeping those tropes and having a game that doesn't suck. Realism is not an all or nothing proposition.

If I was playing a game which features sect members and teahouses (or cultists and inns) then personally I would expect that from time to time a visit to the teahouse will result in a meeting with sect members. Different systems and different moods will affect how much we care about time spent waiting for sect members to show up, money spent bribing hospitality staff for tip-offs, etc - but that doesn't change the underlying expectation.

From time to time, sure. If the PCs go back daily and sit from opening until closing for a month or two or wait for a month or two for notification from a worker after a bribe, the odds of running into a sect member rise dramatically. That's moving the goal posts, though. The scenario was just walking down to the tea house and hoping to run into a sect member at a tea house. The odds of that happening are very slim. The odds are much more slim than the odds of methods used by games you like to determine if a sect member is there.

 

[Maxperson]

I love doing this as well. Or I'll ask my players to roll a D20 to determine what happens during their travels, and they know that a 20 means "YIKES!".
Telling the players the odds can create suspense, while also showing the players what rules you are using. I like to be as open as possible when it comes to my rulings as a DM.

I do both as well, though if I ask my players to roll, they don't want to see the dreaded 1 show up. I have a personal thing where I don't think a player rolling a 20 should result in something negative for them.

 

[pemerton]

It seems like you are back to the False Dichotomy that realism must be all or nothing.

I didn't say anything about whether "realism" is a matter of degree or a categorical thing. I said that real human lives don't have the same dramatic "neatness" and development as do those of characters in fiction. The truth of that claim doesn't turn on any view about whether "realism" is or is not a matter of degree.

None of that means that a different DM's game of Star Wars or Traveller can't be made to be more realistic, while still keeping those tropes and having a game that doesn't suck. Realism is not an all or nothing proposition.

I don't see how "more realistic" bears on this. How realistic is it to have a guy's arm cut off in an interstellar cantina? Or to have a guy shot? Jedi are supposedly extinct, and light sabers thus an ancient weapon, yet no one seems too shocked to see one pulled out - how realistic is that? The questions don't really make sense: the cantina scenes are not meant to be elements in an educational video, "A day in the life of an interstellar bar". They weren't authored on the basis of random sampling. They're deliberately-crafted scenes in a dramatic narrative.

If the PCs go back daily and sit from opening until closing for a month or two or wait for a month or two for notification from a worker after a bribe, the odds of running into a sect member rise dramatically. That's moving the goal posts, though. The scenario was just walking down to the tea house and hoping to run into a sect member at a tea house. The odds of that happening are very slim. The odds are much more slim than the odds of methods used by games you like to determine if a sect member is there.

There aren't any goal posts here - we're neither literally nor metaphorically playing a game of football (or hockey etc). But in any even, how long do you, or any other poster, supppose the PCs who head down to the teahouse spend there waiting for a sect member to turn up? As far as I recall I'm the first person to even raise it as a consideration, in the post you quoted - so what goal posts am I supposedly moving? I mean, if the system were Traveller then the basic unit of time would probably be a week. In 4e D&D it could easily be a day.

But in any event, the notion of the odds being "very slim" misses my point about fiction. The odds of any particular thing happening are slim. When I go to the teahouse and someone else is there, the odds that it should be just that very person who is there, rather than someone else who might have been there, are slim too. The thing about adventure fiction is that it tends to cash out these slim odds with the exciting rather than boring options. So instead of the extreme unlikelihood that person X is there, or person Y, we go with person Z who happens to be a dramatically interesting person in the context of the game.

And as I posted, how we gate this state of affairs - behind checks, behind ingame time and/or money spent as a resource, etc - is a matter of system and of mood. But it doesn't go to the fundamanental point that, in a satisfying adventure RPG, exciting things are going to happen in ways and at frequencies that are not consonant with most real human lives.

 

[Maxperson]

I didn't say anything about whether "realism" is a matter of degree or a categorical thing. I said that real human lives don't have the same dramatic "neatness" and development as do those of characters in fiction. The truth of that claim doesn't turn on any view about whether "realism" is or is not a matter of degree.

The truth of the claim is irrelevant to the discussion about realism, though. It was a Red Herring. Realism is a spectrum, so whether or not real human lives match up to NPCs lives doesn't matter.

I don't see how "more realistic" bears on this. How realistic is it to have a guy's arm cut off in an interstellar cantina? Or to have a guy shot?

With a focused laser sword as opposed to a sword made of cheese? It's much more realistic than a cheese sword.

Jedi are supposedly extinct, and light sabers thus an ancient weapon, yet no one seems too shocked to see one pulled out - how realistic is that?

The entire cantina freezes and goes silent. That's shock.

But in any even, how long do you, or any other poster, supppose the PCs who head down to the teahouse spend there waiting for a sect member to turn up? As far as I recall I'm the first person to even raise it as a consideration, in the post you quoted - so what goal posts am I supposedly moving? I mean, if the system were Traveller then the basic unit of time would probably be a week. In 4e D&D it could easily be a day.

Time is something you specify if it's going to be longer than going down to see if one is there. Nobody said they were going back day after day, so they weren't. Nobody said that they were bribing the staff and waiting however long it takes, so they weren't. It was just a short trip, because that's all anybody described. You moved the goalposts by changing the scenario to fit your needs, rather than working within the scenario as it has been presented and used.

So instead of the extreme unlikelihood that person X is there, or person Y, we go with person Z who happens to be a dramatically interesting person in the context of the game.

Which pushes the game further down towards the unrealistic end of the spectrum, as it happens quite a bit more often in your type of game than in mine. That's fine, but it's far more unrealistic that you will find just who you need, much, MUCH more often than someone should. You enjoy that sort of game and more power to you. I wouldn't want to change how you have fun. However, I enjoy a more realistic kind of game.

 

[Satyrn]

If in doubt, I find 3 in 6 chance works really well - "hm, ok, 3 in 6 chance sect members at the tea house" - it's a nice compromise between cinematic reality and reality-reality.

Coin flips work for me, too.

 

[innerdude]

If you have a trust problem with GMs, then that sounds like a you issue to me. It may be safe to say there are some GMs out there who might choose what happens based on what they want to happen - but I also know there are a lot of GMs out there who take the idea that they should be impartial seriously. Frankly, I'm a little more suspicious of the "Say Yes or Roll" mentality than the "Say Yes or No when appropriate for the situation" mentality because I don't feel the former gives the setting/mysteries/NPCs an even break with the PCs.

I realize the thread has moved on quite a bit from this post, but I'm feeling the need to "unpack" this a bit.

To restate---in your view, "Say 'yes' or roll the dice" principles meaningfully diminish some combination of desirable gameplay qualities, including but not limited to:

• Maintaining "The mystery of the unknown".
• Maintaining "causational realism" or "causational coherence".
• Ensuring the PCs don't inhabit an artificial "protagonist bubble" / keeping NPCs' within the same "realistic," "naturalistic," or "causational" boundaries as the PCs.

Can you elaborate how or why this diminishing effect happens?

Because in my view, the exact opposite is true. I would be deeply suspicious of any GM who loudly and continually proclaimed how "realistic" and "causationally consistent" their games were, because it would tell me that at the end of the day, (s)he is willing to set the "purity of fiction" above the fun of the players.

Does that mean that the GM is always and forever going to make that choice? Not necessarily, but it does tell me about the underlying motivation and gameplay principles the GM values. When push comes to shove, the players under this GM are going to be forced to subsume their wants and desires or end the relationship. (Sound familiar? "Don't like your GM? Leave the group, or just deal with it. Your choice!")

Do I think the listed items above have no merit, or that RPGs should be wholly devoid of "realism" and "causational consistency"? No. But beyond the point of establishing that purple worms won't randomly fall out of the sky and rocks don't randomly transmute into apple-pie-baking acrobats, what is the value of "causational consistency" anyway? Am I completely misreading the level of demand for games that insist upon strict, "living-breathing world" principles?

In my view GMs should be very, VERY judicious in swinging the Bludgeon of Fictional Purity, because it's indicative of an attitude that the GM's play agenda will ultimately and always be seen as more important than the players'.

"Purity of fiction" is too often a cop-out for GMs who don't want to cede control and are overly invested in their pre-scripted fiction. And the reason they're overly-invested in their "game world" is because they tie their own emotional state, wants, and needs to their ability to be seen as "clever" or "imaginative" or "cool" within the context of their game. For how could a GM ever be seen as "clever" if (s)he can't show off the amazing worldbuilding they've done?

Given the choice between "purity of fiction" and re-configuring vast swaths of the GM's "world" because it would be massively more fun, I'd guess an overwhelming majority of players would choose the fun.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That is an entirely reasonable expectation on your part. If you were in my group, I'd consider that kind of expectation when trying to figure out how to make the determination. The intent here isn't to clamp down on a gaming principle, even if it ruins everyone's fun. But that doesn't make it mother may I, if a GM reaches a decision by concluding based on what he or she thinks would be present at the Tea House. It makes it, a style of play Pemerton wouldn't particularly like. Which is entirely reasonable and it is even fair for you to expect the GM to not be a jerk about his style if other people want something different from what's being offered.

And like I said before, what is plausible might be one factor among many the GM is weighing. I have no issue with the GM thinking 'what is plausible AND what is genre appropriate' or 'what is plausible AND what is dramatically interesting'. That is all fine by me. I also have no problem with the GM saying 'I don't know so I am going to roll on this here chart'.

I guess my answer here in terms of the tea house and the sect is "OK, fine, its determined that the sect is NOT going to be found in the teahouse." Since the point of the game, IMHO is for interesting stuff to happen, then this particular teahouse, at least in the 'finding a sect' context is simply not going to even figure at all. So any decision I might make about it not having sect members, realistic or unrealistic, is going to have at most 2 seconds of table time, and probably none at all. I'm going to be going on to the place that DOES have the sect!

 

[pemerton]

The truth of the claim is irrelevant to the discussion about realism, though. It was a Red Herring. Realism is a spectrum, so whether or not real human lives match up to NPCs lives doesn't matter.

I didn't say anything about NPCs - I talked about characters in fiction. In the context of RPGing, the PCs are the most salient such characters.

And whether or not my claim is a Red Herring, it doesn't rely on any False Dichotomy about realism. Which is what you asserted. I take it that you now retract that assertion.

Time is something you specify if it's going to be longer than going down to see if one is there.

What system are you talking about? Maxperson's table's approach to D&D? Classic Traveller doesn't require time to be specified in such a way - I GMed a session on the weekend and as I went around the table to find out what the players were having their PCs do one said "I'm looking for a patron." Which takes a week.

In real life, if I tell someone that I'm going to a cafe and nothing more, I don't generate an implication that I won't be sitting there for a while. From that description of my action, who knows whether I'm going to the cafe for a minute (eg to pick up someone who is waiting for me there) or three hours or as long as I feel like?

In a RPG, if a player says, speaking for his/her PC, I'm going to the teahouse to look for sect members , how long are they hanging out there? If the system doesn't specify in the way that Traveller does, and I as GM think it matters, then I ask. But it may not. I've played games where an appropriate response would be OK, you hang out at the teahouse for a little while with not much happening until a group of people enters looking rather furtive and obviously carrying knives under their shirts. How long is a little while? Ten minutes? Three hours? In many RPG systems it doesn't matter.

Which pushes the game further down towards the unrealistic end of the spectrum, as it happens quite a bit more often in your type of game than in mine.

More often per unit of play time? Per unit of action declaration? Per unit of ingame time?

If per unit of play time, then that suggest my game is more exciting than yours (given that what we are talking about is the PCs encountering person Z who happens to be a dramatically interesting person in the context of the game). But my game could potentially have more such encounters per unit of play time yet fewer per unit of ingame time, because of particular system features (eg in Traveller, the tendency to use the week as the default unit of time for this sort of thing; in Prince Valiant, my fairly regular narration of seasons passing as the PCs hang out at castles doing their day-to-day knightly business). Which would make my game more exciting and more realistic!

 

[Sadras]

Coin flips work for me, too.

Aha, no more can you hide from us Harvey Satyrn Dent!