Authenticity in RPGing

[AbdulAlhazred]

Really I don't know what else one would want the three clue rule to do in order to make it less railroady or place less limits on character exploration. Obviously it is different from a game like Hillfolk, which I have also run a mystery with (and equally obviously the three clue rule is advice, not a game system, but I think it assumes you are using something more like Call of Cthulhu or D&D). With Hillfolk, the way a mystery would be handled is totally different because the players can assert details about NPCs and events that happened int he past and make them so through dialogue (there are methods to countermand this, but basically I as a player can say "But I heard John was seen at the docks drenched in blood last friday" and that pretty much means it happened. This approach also avoids railroads, but it also means you can't have an objective mystery at the heart of the adventure (which is fun, but also a totally different mystery solving experience). You can have an objective thing like at the start of the adventure a body of the sect leader is found in his room. But as you play the background information can be informed by ideas the players present trough their dialogue. That increases player freedom to explore but it also puts limits on things because everyone knows the mystery at the heart isn't nailed down but is in flux, so it means how you portray your character and how the GM portrays NPCs has to account for that unknown (which is limiting because it get into portraying motives). Neither approach is a railroad though. Fundamentally which approach is better is more about what you want in a mystery adventure than about whether or not you are interested in evading railroads or enhancing meaningful choice

Right, I think there are at least three sorts of situations/processes that people are drawing from. There's the linear sort of A -> B -> C kind of thing. In that case there's an obvious and strong utility to the 3 clue rule, because you better get the 'keys' to pass B and get to C while you are at A, or else things break down. As you say, most mysteries are not of this form, at least decent ones aren't. So in a mystery that is more like the game 'clue' where you run around a 'sandbox' and gather clues you could employ the 3 clue rule, but there's no linearity to stick to, aside from a sort of basic time sequence of events. THIRDLY we could have what you call out in Hillfolk, and would be a principled and intended kind of flow in a PbtA mystery game, I would imagine. The Players statements about things can establish facts, or at the very least interact with the game principles/agenda to insure that the GM introduces said facts. My previous example of the detective and his sister would be a likely kind of situation to arise in a hypothetical PbtA of this kind. From what I know of Dramasystem it might produce that kind of result as well, though I haven't really been much exposed to games built on that engine.

 

[Manbearcat]

Figured I’d drop this in here as it seems apt to the conversation:

Here are two ways to contrast the nature of and implications upon play of “locked in” backstory like 3 Clue Rule:

Take AW/DW/ST and Read a Person (RAP) and Open Your Mind (OYM) and their derivatives and any playbook specific stand-ins:

SITUATION A

1) We’ve got a situation with no Threat that has already been built out from prior play (so Impulse, tags, moves pending).

2) Players make RAP and OYM to actually build out the situation and the Threat before them. The Threat is an in-situ (authentic) creation of RAP + OYM + AQ&UtA (Ask Questions and Use the Answers).

SITUATION B

1) We’ve got a Threat that has emerged from prior play. Players either already know the Threat Impulse, tags, moves or they make RAP + OYM to (a) uncover them and (b) open up/amplify their move space to act next.

2) Players in AW are like Wizards in D&D. They have a tremendous amount of fiat power via playbook and move design so they can “rewire/orient” the situation /Threat toward their own designs upon the fiction (rather than being constrained by play and conversation undergirded by task resolution + actor stance + limited in “meta-scope” prowess + GM decides ethos).

————-

A2 and B2 create both a very different sort of participant headspace and a very different process of play than something like “3 clue rule where PCs aren’t effectively D&D Wizards.”

Not better.

Different.

And by the by, the outputs (the post-play narratives) of AW Situation A, AW Situation B, and a game undergirded by 3 Clue Rule may very well all be the same.

 

[pemerton]

It reminds me of something I was thinking about in regard to a campaign of Spire that I just wrapped up with my group. I made sure that any and all prep I did was about the situation now and the players involved, and never ever planned anything sequentially. I never committed to what was next for the PCs. Never anything like “once the PCs realize that the corpse fruit is being alchemically turned into the drug ambrosia, then they will confront the retroengineers responsible” or “once they speak to Trill the addict in Threadneedle Square, then they’ll go to The Sisters’ compound”.

Investigative adventures can be difficult to not sequence like that. I think if the GM has steps in mind…this will happen and then this which leads to that… that’s problematic (if we’re valuing player freedom and that sort of thing). The GM shouldn’t be deciding what’s next.

I would go further than what you set out in your last two sentences here. In the OP I mentioned the "three clue rule". I see "node based design" as a variation of the same thing.

I'm not contradicting you, but perhaps pushing the implications of your point a little further than you intended. (Or maybe not - perhaps you can see why I push further in the way that I do.)

 

[pemerton]

If you are trying to avoid having folks thing Snarf is right in his assessment, this maybe isn't a good way to do it. Putting this together with the prior writing yields, "My game is about friendship, collaboration, and genuine conversation, other games squelch those things!"

I think you may be confusing X => Y with Y => X.

Your post appeared to suggest that notions of revelation, responsibility, honesty, trust belong in the specialised zone of counselling. My response is that they are central to such commonplace (but not therefore trivial) things as friendship and conversation.

And the psychological safety required for genuine and authentic interactions is not generated by the rulesets, either.

Think about joining a poetry writing-and-reading club. And contrast that with joining, say, a chess club. They're both clubs. You might make friends at either of them. You might hope to improve your technique at either of them. But the nature of the activity participants are invited to engage in is different, from the point of view of authenticity.

 

[pemerton]

Presumably in a game of the type you are pointing to this T intersection would be deliberately placed by the GM in the course of play

Even if the GM has not been deliberate, a player might seize the bull by the horns - as it were - an work with what they've been given.

This relates also to my replies to @kenada, about how "pure" sandboxes can become something else.

Authenticity doesn't have to flow from the GM. In fact, having written that down, I think the notion that it would do so is probably self-contradictory!

 

[pemerton]

I don't think this is really what was meant by GM enforced alignment. I don't think alignment in and of itself is the issue, it's when the GM enforces behavior of players based on alignment. The idea that a character could shift alignment in some way... either at the player's wishes, or at the GM's suggestion based on what the character's done... doesn't seem inauthentic as it relates to the discussion.

By GM-enforced alignment I would certainly include what you say, but also am intending to capture play in which the GM more-or-less unilaterally tells player what the moral meaning of their action declarations for their PCs is.

There are curious borderline cases here, whose existence is I think an offshoot of trying to reconcile AD&D's alignment techniques with authentic play: the player declares action X for their PC, the GM responds that it is an evil act, and the player in turn responds that it is nevertheless the right and warranted thing to do and follows through.

I can think of two possible "logical" structures to the situation I've just described. As I'll explain, I think one is typically a more apt characterisation.

(1) The situation is one of what Walzer calls "dirty hands" - situations in which a, even the only, warranted choice is an evil one. Walzer's go-to example of this is what he calls "supreme emergency" in wartime, which morally permits departure from the rule against killing civilians (his example is British terror-bombing of Germany prior to the US entering the war, which brought defeat of Germany by morally permissible means within the scope of feasible action). Characteristic of such situations is that the warranted choice is still understood to carry its moral taint.

(2) The situation is one in which the labels of "good" and "evil" are more-or-less rejected, either outright, or at least in the way they are being applied in this situation. Nietzsche is a strident exemplar of this, but there are slightly milder variants: Bertrand Russell, for instance, would talk about women being permitted to do "wicked" things once they got the vote, and he meant "wicked" in some conventional sense which he himself (being a suffragist) rejected.

I think the RPG situation I've described is characteristically like (2) rather than (1): the players (and their characters) repudiate the "conventional" moral labels that are being managed and applied by the GM, as "spokesperson" for "the gameworld". And so retain the conviction that what they are doing actually is morally permissible (contra a dirty hands analysis) and is classified as evil only within a framework that they have rejected (or, perhaps, transcended).

(2)-type situations are closely connected to notions of authenticity.

I've done a fair bit of RPGing involving (2)-type situations myself, in both RM and 4e D&D, but not as a way of coping with or "sublimating" AD&D alignment techniques: I've made it clear that the god's moral framework is just that, and left it an open question for the players to choose their PCs' orientation towards the gods. I see this as, structurally although not in terms of content, a little bit like the "beyond just sandboxing" phenomenon that I discussed with @kenada a bit upthread.

 

[clearstream]

What if a character has a Belief that "I will always choose the right-hand path!" And a player, by choosing to go right, manifests that Belief in play. Depending on other features of the game being played, the procedures adopted, etc, this might be meaningful. And might connect in some fashion to authenticity.

Or flip it around: if that character's player chooses to go left despite the Belief, maybe they are setting things up for some kind of character epiphany, or are inviting the GM to "bring it on".

A question that raises for me is that supposing a player has an aim of exploring/expressing personal authenticity, and writes a belief that they do not have "I will always choose the right-hand path!" How can they pursue a belief that they do not have authentically? It requires them to choose actions (for their character) that they would personally not choose. It seems to require inauthenticity.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Even if the GM has not been deliberate, a player might seize the bull by the horns - as it were - an work with what they've been given.

This relates also to my replies to @kenada, about how "pure" sandboxes can become something else.

Authenticity doesn't have to flow from the GM. In fact, having written that down, I think the notion that it would do so is probably self-contradictory!

Yeah, I would say that the whole concept of authenticity is a bit like the old saw about indecency, you know it when you see it but it is impossible to completely define, and subjective. It seems most worthwhile to discuss what techniques are favorable to its appearance and which are not, vs any sort of formulation of what 'is and is not' authentic.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

By GM-enforced alignment I would certainly include what you say, but also am intending to capture play in which the GM more-or-less unilaterally tells player what the moral meaning of their action declarations for their PCs is.

There are curious borderline cases here, whose existence is I think an offshoot of trying to reconcile AD&D's alignment techniques with authentic play: the player declares action X for their PC, the GM responds that it is an evil act, and the player in turn responds that it is nevertheless the right and warranted thing to do and follows through.

I can think of two possible "logical" structures to the situation I've just described. As I'll explain, I think one is typically a more apt characterisation.

(1) The situation is one of what Walzer calls "dirty hands" - situations in which a, even the only, warranted choice is an evil one. Walzer's go-to example of this is what he calls "supreme emergency" in wartime, which morally permits departure from the rule against killing civilians (his example is British terror-bombing of Germany prior to the US entering the war, which brought defeat of Germany by morally permissible means within the scope of feasible action). Characteristic of such situations is that the warranted choice is still understood to carry its moral taint.

(2) The situation is one in which the labels of "good" and "evil" are more-or-less rejected, either outright, or at least in the way they are being applied in this situation. Nietzsche is a strident exemplar of this, but there are slightly milder variants: Bertrand Russell, for instance, would talk about women being permitted to do "wicked" things once they got the vote, and he meant "wicked" in some conventional sense which he himself (being a suffragist) rejected.

I think the RPG situation I've described is characteristically like (2) rather than (1): the players (and their characters) repudiate the "conventional" moral labels that are being managed and applied by the GM, as "spokesperson" for "the gameworld". And so retain the conviction that what they are doing actually is morally permissible (contra a dirty hands analysis) and is classified as evil only within a framework that they have rejected (or, perhaps, transcended).

(2)-type situations are closely connected to notions of authenticity.

I've done a fair bit of RPGing involving (2)-type situations myself, in both RM and 4e D&D, but not as a way of coping with or "sublimating" AD&D alignment techniques: I've made it clear that the god's moral framework is just that, and left it an open question for the players to choose their PCs' orientation towards the gods. I see this as, structurally although not in terms of content, a little bit like the "beyond just sandboxing" phenomenon that I discussed with @kenada a bit upthread.

I am not sure why you would think less of the potential for authentic play with situation 1. You brought up the real world situation of UK Bomber Command during WWII and this is an interesting one. Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travis Harris is usually credited with planning, and certainly advocated for, the mass bombing of civilian targets by the RAF in the 1942-45 time frame. There is NO memorial to this man. While RAF Bomber Command has been memorialized, Harris was not only forgotten, he was virtually ostracized and the British government has remained largely silent in his regard. He was advanced to the peerage and received some honors, but alone amongst all the WWII supreme commanders of Allied Forces he was THE only one who was not made a peer in 1946 (Churchill later insisted that he accept a Baronetcy). His command were also denied certain service medals, particularly by the French and Germans. While he was definitely not punished or entirely ostracized, he was shut out from government service and certain explicit recognition, and later UK governments have expressed deep unease regarding such things as the bombing of Dresden.

I would think that this sort of thing would be rather interesting RP territory, at least for some! It is certainly the sort of logic under which many acts of what are later considered 'evil' have been performed. Often such situations are utilized in an 'off screen' sort of technique, like PCs dealing with the consequences of past events, or the actions of themselves or family members, etc. in some previous time frame.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think what makes a choice authentic is that it IS informed. I mean, you would, outside the context of an RPG discussion, probably consider the phrase 'authentic choice' to indicate something where the chooser is using their volition to determine a course of action, taking various things into consideration, and that the choice is consequential, right? I think in that context 'genuine' would generally come across as fairly synonymous with authentic too.

Again, I think we've gone in circles on what the terms mean here. It is probably better to dig into what we are actually talking about. Depending on what aspect of 'authentic' one is leaning into it certainly might tilt more in the direction you are pointing to. But I do think what I am pointing to is a middle territory that is important and gets glossed over with dividing things this way. If we are using authentic to mean real or genuine, I would still say if the stakes are profound enough, even if your choice isn't informed, it is a genuine choice. Your decision, even if it wasn't a product of you reasoning through what option is likely to yield what result, still resulted in something of significant consequence. Getting on the plane and not getting on the plane (if the plane ends up crashing) would have been a genuine choice in my life, even if I had no way of knowing there was anything wrong with the plane. Arguably the process by which I arrived at my decision was less interesting and less a result of any significant deliberation (though even there it could have been the result of me wrestling with fear of flying issues). I am not saying there isn't a difference between that and between a more informed choice that also has significant consequences. But I see there being three basic types of choice: 1) meaningless (the GM decides what is behind the door or the mechanics decide regardless of what you choose), 2) meaningful (the choice is a real choice between two objective outcomes even if you don't have much information to go by), 3) informed and meaningful (you have more information helping you make a choice about which door to choose),

That is why I used the real world example of taking the bus versus driving to work. I think part of why authentic versus inauthentic choice the way it is being used here falls short for me (apart from deciphering what is meant by authentic), is you miss that. Again I am not saying load your adventures with doors A and B with something horrific that cannot be deciphered beyond one of them. I am saying you need that range, and to me, one of the things that makes it meaningful is that the GM wasn't playing tricks behind the scenes, or just deciding regardless of what I chose. And again, even if I don't know what is beyond the door, I make tons of little decisions leading up to the opening of the door that are more informed (by my experience, my characters personality, etc). So even the most reductive example (door A versus door B) is going to have a lot more going on in terms of choice than just "I pick door B".

That said, I do think you are pointing to another important distinction. Which is there is clearly a difference between the door A and B example and something more emotionally or morally weighty (like a character who has to choose between saving the President or his wife for example in a terrorism scenario, or a character who has to choose between loyalty to his friends or loyalty to the law). My point is just there is a spectrum of choices that are significant with different degrees of the player being informed about them (most are probably going to reside somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, many will be more malleable and subject to the players trying to discern more: in the Door A and B example, deciding to listen at the door might yield relevant information, but it might not if what aways is just a mechanical trap). My argument for including choices with less information is the way they can enhance excitement, surprise and suspense. And I don't think including such choices in any way makes a game more railroady or makes characters less able to have development (though I would say if the GM just flat out says "nothing the players can do yields any information, no matter what" then you are getting into railroad territory).

For me personally a good campaign has a mixture of choices type 2 and 3.