Be a GAME-MASTER, not a DIRECTOR

[bloodtide]

Framing this as the GM "making things" that the players tell them to make is just wrong. Insofar as anything is being "made" here, it's being made by everyone, collaboratively, with each player (including the GM) having one or more areas in which they get the final word. Everyone provides input and ideas, and as GM, I have plenty of opportunities to exercise creativity.

Ok, but this is not the example you gave. You example was: DM sits there, player tells them what to make and the DM makes what the player wants. If there are also like a dozen other things going on, why don't you list them?

And how exactly is the world made by everyone? I'd guess your not talking about the players writing down pages of fluff and rules crunch. And I'd guess your not talking about when you would stop playing the game and just have everyone create stuff for an hour or so.

What's more, establishing that one player has the final word doesn't preclude other players pushing back on ideas they don't like. My group doesn't do that very often, because we've been playing together for over ten years and we are generally on the same page creatively, but it does happen. When it does, we act like reasonable people and figure out something that everyone can accept.

Again, you did not mention this. The word final sounded very final.

Asking questions is, generally, a way of generating and eliciting ideas, but to be explicit: everyone, including the GM, can throw in ideas. I also don't know why you're obsessed with power relationships between the GM and the other players. It's a weird lens to use for talking about what I see as a collaborative activity, wherein my friends and I get to play a fun creative game together. But in this case, there are topics on which the GM gets the final word, so the notion that the GM has to do whatever the player says is mistaken.

And again, your adding to what you first said. So again, why did not not say the above the first time?

What is the point of an example if it has like a dozen secrets you don't mention that are critical to understanding it?

Your portrayal of what I described is inaccurate. I told the player that something important to the ogres was under threat. In game terms I was doing a GM move, what Fellowship calls a Cut - in this case, it was both "reveal an unwelcome truth" and "show signs of an approaching threat." This wasn't prompted by anything the player did or said; it was me, as the GM, dictating a truth about the world. The player told me what it was that was threatened. I took their answer and added to it, describing what the threat was in more detail. In this way we came up with a story collaboratively, with both of us contributing elements. I think in the case it was just me and one other player talking, but in other situations multiple players have chimed in with suggestions.

I really don't get this putting the player(s) up on such a high pedestal. Sure they said a couple things, but then the DM did everything else. But sure, give the player(s) 51% of the credit.

It's like talking to a person for five minutes, then spending six months to write a novel and then giving that person half the credit.

I also take issue with the way you're describing the exchange as the player offering "a tiny seed." They provided a detailed and substantive answer to a question, which served as the foundation for me to add more on.

Again, your counting nearly anything as the players doing a ton. A player says a couple of words and tells the DM to make something. The DM says ''ok player" and does and gives the player half the credit.

you look at these rules,

I've peeked a time or two, but the "free rules" don't seem to align with what anyone ever says.

In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy fiction. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. The synergy of inspiration, imagination, numbers and priorities is the most fundamental element of Burning Wheel. Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about. . . .

So...just to use your example for an example. It says "within situations presented by the GM". It does NOT say "in situations jointly made by all participants in the game together collaboratively" or anything like that.

So, as you can read for yourself, the players, as part of the build and play of their PCs, introduce certain priorities. The GM frames scenes that speak to those player-determined priorities. The players, playing their PCs, are thereby provoked to declare actions for their PCs. These actions are resolved via dice rolls. If the player's roll is a success, the PC succeeds at the declared task, and achieves their intent. If the roll fails, the GM re-frames the scene in a way that (i) means that the intent did not come to pass, and (ii) that provokes the player to a new action declaration, still based on their priorities for their PCs.

This back-and-forth between player and GM is what makes the game collaborative. The rise-and-fall of success and failure, all focused around the player's priorities for their PC, is what gives the unfolding events of the game a story-like rhythm (of rising action, crisis, resolution and denouement).

Ok, so player makes "priorities" and DM says 'yes player' and "frames the priorities". So...I would note this example has the DM only doing what the players tell them to do.....unless you just 'forgot' to add more to the above.

I guess I'm missing the collaboration? The player says "do this" and the DM "does that"....is not even close to collaboration. And the DM just sit there when ever a player makes a roll with a shrug and "well the rules say you win", but when the player fails a roll rules let the DM they can add in a little something bad.

I get the "theoretical" here that if the player rolls high and DM just hangs their head down and says "yes player....again". The rules say so, and the players can point to Page 11 and say "haha, you can't do anything DM!" And the DM can only do a bit, only when the players roll bad and the rules let them.

These parts of your post make me think that you don't have much experience with the sort of RPGing that @hawkeyefan, @CandyLaser, @innerdude and I are describing. You seem to struggle with the idea of collaboration and building ideas together - the player says something, the GM says something that builds on that, the player responds further, etc - "riffing" on one another's ideas and suggestions to build up a shared imagining of people, places, events etc.

Well, I'm not a fan of the way "collaboration" is presented here: The player tells the DM what to do and the DM says "yes player". To me a game where some people just boss one person around does not sound like fun at all.

You also seem to think that if all the details of a person, place, event etc are not pinned down all at once, then the thing must be "random".

It depends on the game play style. I'm not a fan of the "quantum gaming" where any detail can change on a whim. Where whatever the players randomly do is the "right thing" to move the game forward. No matter what goal the PCs have they will just auto do it, as anything they do furthers the goal.

 

[innerdude]

I've peeked a time or two, but the "free rules" don't seem to align with what anyone ever says.

I literally DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU to download the Ironsworn PDF for the price of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING---literally $0.00, free, gratis. Then read the rules from page 1 through 109, and then sit down and play a solo session of the game for 90 minutes.

What you will experience, if you approach it honestly and in good fatih, is the type of mindset and level of flexibility about the game world that PbtA gaming is all about. Since you're both player and GM in solo play, you have to find a balance between just deciding "stuff" your character does and automatically succeeds at, and stuff that you want to be narratively interesting due to the chance of failure.

Once you discover that balance, and you're now both playing and self-GM-ing using Ironsworn's Oracles, you'll understand the mindset that is universally applicable to PbtA gaming generally, and how it IS possible to both have an idea that you like, but have it be loosely held based on how the fiction plays out in front of you.

If you do all of that and it STILL doesn't make sense what we're talking about . . . then I guess it really isn't for you.

But if you do all that and it clicks, it's dead simple to then take that mindset and apply it to playing Ironsworn, or any other PbtA game, collaboratively as a GM with other players.

Well, I'm not a fan of the way "collaboration" is presented here: The player tells the DM what to do and the DM says "yes player". To me a game where some people just boss one person around does not sound like fun at all.

It depends on the game play style. I'm not a fan of the "quantum gaming" where any detail can change on a whim. Where whatever the players randomly do is the "right thing" to move the game forward. No matter what goal the PCs have they will just auto do it, as anything they do furthers the goal.

See, I used to think the same way. That "quantum gaming", or changing details to follow players desires and instincts, to further the story in interesting directions, was the ultimate sin of RPG GM-ing. It was anathema, a grave blasphemy against everything true and right about the way RPGs were meant to be played.

Then I tried Dungeon World and Ironsworn. And then I had to ask myself---why did I place more weight and greater importance on something I made up completely in my head a month ago, or six months ago, or 2 years ago, versus something I just made up in my head, just now, in response to how a player action played out using Ironsworn's rules?

Either way, it's still just something I totally and completely made up in my head that my players never knew or cared about until the very second it becomes relevant in play. Doesn't matter how long ago I made up this totally fictional "thing," it's still just something I totally and completely made up. It's authored fiction. The timestamp of when that fiction was authored has no relevance or bearing on its fictionality.

This comment also, as noted by other posters in this thread, disregards the fact that the consent of the group as a whole is still required. And if you have a high-functioning, intelligent group, they are just as likely to help you as a GM steer the fiction in interesting ways while still maintaining fidelity to the game world and challenges presented.

Another thing that's telling in this second comment---"Whatever the players randomly do is the 'right thing' to move the game forward"---is the embedded idea within this statement that somehow the GM's idea of how the game is supposed to move forward takes absolute and total primacy over any of the player's ideas of how the game should move forward.

As if the GM, simply by virtue of title, can and should enforce his vision of "how the game should move forward," regardless of player desire, instinct, character design or development, fictional positioning, game world building, or anything else. REGARDLESS of whether anything the GM randomly made up in his or her head 6 months ago (or 2 years ago) will actually be fun and enjoyable for anyone at the table to experience given the current circumstances and fictional positioning.

That when push comes to shove, if a player has a fantastic idea that will forward gameplay, if it conflicts with any backstory element previously made up in the GM's head, the GM must, by right, ignore the player's suggestion. For how could any GM possibly live him/herself if (s)he simply changes previously established fictional details just to, you know, make the game better or whatever?

If you're really so maniacally dead-set on maintaining your absolute, tyrannical, iron-fisted grip on control over the game because I'm the GM, dammit, and I deserve to have control of the game . . . then yeah, I don't know what to say.

 

[Celebrim]

Then I tried Dungeon World and Ironsworn. And then I had to ask myself---why did I place more weight and greater importance on something I made up completely in my head a month ago, or six months ago, or 2 years ago, versus something I just made up in my head, just now, in response to how a player action played out using Ironsworn's rules?

I don't have a huge stake in this because as long as everyone is having fun, well who cares, and different aesthetics appeal to different groups and even individuals can enjoy multiple aesthetics. But the answer to your question to me seems obvious. When you originally made up something "a month ago" you had no idea how it was going to play out. But if you make up something just now in response to player action, then you know what the action is and who it is likely to play out and so you can now know longer take your own preferences out of the equation. You've lost neutrality. Neutrality may or may not be a touchstone of good GMing, but being a largely neutral GM versus a non-neutral participant is definitely a change of aesthetic.

Either way, it's still just something I totally and completely made up in my head that my players never knew or cared about until the very second it becomes relevant in play. Doesn't matter how long ago I made up this totally fictional "thing," it's still just something I totally and completely made up. It's authored fiction. The timestamp of when that fiction was authored has no relevance or bearing on its fictionality.

Agreed, but that completely misses the point.

Another thing that's telling in this second comment---"Whatever the players randomly do is the 'right thing' to move the game forward"---is the embedded idea within this statement that somehow the GM's idea of how the game is supposed to move forward takes absolute and total primacy over any of the player's ideas of how the game should move forward.

Far be it for me to ever agree on anything with @bloodtide but out of fairness that's obviously wrong on its face. Quite clearly the idea is that the players are contributing their actions as part of what it takes to move the game forward and that the GM must always respond to that action fairly, regardless of whether the player's idea of where to go is where he wishes them to go. Your response here that saying the players have agency is some sort of dog whistle for the idea that they don't is just bizarre and seems to be searching for the absolute worst spin you can find on what was said.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't have a huge stake in this because as long as everyone is having fun, well who cares, and different aesthetics appeal to different groups and even individuals can enjoy multiple aesthetics. But the answer to your question to me seems obvious. When you originally made up something "a month ago" you had no idea how it was going to play out.

Why would you have no idea how things may play out if you made them up months before play?

But if you make up something just now in response to player action, then you know what the action is and who it is likely to play out and so you can now know longer take your own preferences out of the equation. You've lost neutrality. Neutrality may or may not be a touchstone of good GMing, but being a largely neutral GM versus a non-neutral participant is definitely a change of aesthetic.

Why must you lose neutrality? Having ideas about how it may play out doesn’t mean you have a preferred outcome. Or that you’ll push for that preferred outcome.

Agreed, but that completely misses the point.

When talking about the validity of the fiction, there is a perception by many here on these boards and in the wider hobby, that fiction prepared ahead of time is somehow better than the fiction introduced on the fly. But the quality of fiction isn’t determined by the amount of time ahead of play that it’s created.

Far be it for me to ever agree on anything with @bloodtide but out of fairness that's obviously wrong on its face. Quite clearly the idea is that the players are contributing their actions as part of what it takes to move the game forward and that the GM must always respond to that action fairly, regardless of whether the player's idea of where to go is where he wishes them to go. Your response here that saying the players have agency is some sort of dog whistle for the idea that they don't is just bizarre and seems to be searching for the absolute worst spin you can find on what was said.

I think that what @bloodtide said about the players’ idea being “right” implies that there is a right idea. And that in his opinion, what is the right idea is up to the GM. I think that’s what @innerdude was getting at.

I think this only becomes more clear when we consider past comments of bloodtide and how he advocates for GM authority, seems to consider most players borderline useless, and is the self-proclaimed “king of the railroad”.

 

[pemerton]

Why would you have no idea how things may play out if you made them up months before play?

Poor memory?

 

[bloodtide]

But if you do all that and it clicks, it's dead simple to then take that mindset and apply it to playing Ironsworn, or any other PbtA game, collaboratively as a GM with other players.

How would a solo game do anything?

See, I used to think the same way. That "quantum gaming", or changing details to follow players desires and instincts, to further the story in interesting directions, was the ultimate sin of RPG GM-ing. It was anathema, a grave blasphemy against everything true and right about the way RPGs were meant to be played.

Then I tried Dungeon World and Ironsworn. And then I had to ask myself---why did I place more weight and greater importance on something I made up completely in my head a month ago, or six months ago, or 2 years ago, versus something I just made up in my head, just now, in response to how a player action played out using Ironsworn's rules?

I guess the counter is: Why place so much importance on whatever the players randomly say?

Either way, it's still just something I totally and completely made up in my head that my players never knew or cared about until the very second it becomes relevant in play. Doesn't matter how long ago I made up this totally fictional "thing," it's still just something I totally and completely made up. It's authored fiction. The timestamp of when that fiction was authored has no relevance or bearing on its fictionality.

I think I might see the issue. There are three basic ways to do an RPG:
1.The players must solve and do things for real, in the real world. The DM, for example gives the players clues, and the players must 100% solve the mystery...for real. Using their characters in the game and getting very little or no help from the DM. This game requires real effort from the players to advance. This game can have a high failure rate as many DMs are just not that good at running a game and many players can't Do Things For Real.

2.The guided game. This is where most 5E adventures sit. The DM gives the player characters clues. And the players just use the rules to solve the mystery by rolling through it. The DM lays out a vague path, like an outline for the characters to follow. As the game is set up so characters make 80%-100% of the needed rolls, the game advancement is on 'automatic'. This game has a more average failure rate as most DMs can just drop the outline path, and most players can follow the path......but not all.

3.The player lead game. The players have their characters do whatever actions they want at random. No matter what the PCs do, they will find, and often create, the clues of the mystery, and like number two they will make 80%-100% of the rolls to advance the game forward. This game has a low or even no failure rate as no matter what the players do they will advance the game.

Another thing that's telling in this second comment---"Whatever the players randomly do is the 'right thing' to move the game forward"---is the embedded idea within this statement that somehow the GM's idea of how the game is supposed to move forward takes absolute and total primacy over any of the player's ideas of how the game should move forward.

Lets look at my above for this though: The group of PCs are hunting down a den a werewolves, but don't know where the den is....

1.The DM picks a logical spot on the map for the werewolf den and it is the 'right' spot. The DM adds plenty of clues for the players to find...but they must look for them, find them and figure them out all on their own. For real. The characters skills and abilities help the players figure things out, but do no work for them.

2.The DM still pick a 'right spot', but also lays down a fairly obvious path. So a character can use a skill or ability to make an easy roll to find the den with little or no effort.

3.The DM does not pick a spot for the werewolf den......but whatever random place the players decide to go: that is where the den is placed.

I think that what @bloodtide said about the players’ idea being “right” implies that there is a right idea. And that in his opinion, what is the right idea is up to the GM. I think that’s what @innerdude was getting at.

For just another example: The characters find a treasure map and want to follow it.

1.The DM makes an adventure and treasure location and everything else. The players, for real, must figure out where the map locations are and find the treasure site, for real. The map lists 'Old Elf Tree', the players must figure out where that location is, for real.

2.The DM makes a bit of a mini adventure. The character reads the map and then the player rolls a low DC to have the character 'remember' the location of the historical landmark of the "Old Elf Tree'. Then the PCs go there.

3.The DM makes little or nothing. After looking at the map, the players randomly decide to go south, and they find the 'Old Elf Tree' there, wherever they went as the DM puts it right in front of the characters.

 

[innerdude]

How would a solo game do anything?

Because it teaches you how to be both a player and GM at the same time --- which conceptually forces you to adopt the same kind of mindset that a "non-director" GM would take when playing Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Blades in the Dark, or Ironsworn.

Why would you play a solo RPG if you were just going to write the story for your character? "I want my character to be awesome and do all the awesome things I imagine, the end."

But if you apply Ironsworn's solo rules, use them along with the included GM-guide Oracles to play out uncertain areas---rather than just unilaterally deciding things in GM mode---you get a MASSIVELY different experience to just writing the story.

Ironsworn solo play teaches you to leave spaces open in the fiction that can be filled via application of the rules and future interpolation / interweaving of events that have already been fictionally established.

I've played Ironsworn solo exactly once, for approximately 2.5 hours. But it was (other than the moment I picked up my D&D Red Box from under the Christmas tree in 1985) quite literally the most profound, transformative experience of RPG play I've ever had. Playing Ironsworn solo ONE TIME completely UNLOCKED a new way of seeing/viewing how RPG play can work.

And once I unlocked that view/mindset, it became brilliantly clear how to apply that mindset, playstyle, and purpose to group-led play using similar rulesets and principles (Ironsworn in a group rather than solo, Blades in the Dark, Masks, etc. ).


One more thing --- I keep getting this sense that you somehow think that just because a player makes a suggestion about a particular thing in the fiction that the Ironsworn GM MUST, without question implement it.

Absolutely not so. As a GM, your goal is to continue to challenge the players, force them to make tough decisions, force them to make decisions that challenge their character's growth. This doesn't happen if the GM is just kow-towing to the players left and right.

What you do instead is make highly selective, strategic, purposeful, and meaningful changes to your GM fiction, in a deft, collaborative, often improv manner, so that the focus of play stays strongly on the action happening now.

You're not playing Candyland where every card in the deck reads "You win! Go to the end of the board!". You're strategically, methodically, through game rule and principle and system, acting to move players and characters into spaces where they make revelatory decisions.

Once again, try playing Ironsworn as intended in good faith. It is absolutely NOT IN ANY WAY representative of a "power trip fantasy." My character in my 2.5 hours Ironsworn solo session died of exposure and starvation trying to fulfill a quest.

I can't imagine that happening in any version of D&D later than 2e.

 

[innerdude]

For just another example: The characters find a treasure map and want to follow it.

1.The DM makes an adventure and treasure location and everything else. The players, for real, must figure out where the map locations are and find the treasure site, for real. The map lists 'Old Elf Tree', the players must figure out where that location is, for real.

2.The DM makes a bit of a mini adventure. The character reads the map and then the player rolls a low DC to have the character 'remember' the location of the historical landmark of the "Old Elf Tree'. Then the PCs go there.

3.The DM makes little or nothing. After looking at the map, the players randomly decide to go south, and they find the 'Old Elf Tree' there, wherever they went as the DM puts it right in front of the characters.

The fundamental misapprehension you're having here is that in the style of play we're talking about, the very existence of the "Old Elf Tree" should be fundamentally tied to something absolutely core to at least one of the PC's described motivations, instincts, beliefs, desires. Finding the the Old Elf Tree---or not---should result in a profound, foundational reckoning for the character who is hoping to find it.

If it isn't---in Ironsworn terms, if the Old Elf Tree isn't related to a character's Iron Vow---then there's no reason for the characters to be there at all, and it's just color/fluff. It's just the GM saying, "Oh look! A cool Old Elf Tree! Isn't it sweet?"

And the players all nod their heads absently, "Umm, sure. Now, where do find evidence of the bloodthirsty mercenary who slaughtered my sister in an act of robbery and violence last spring?"

*Edit --- In other words, describing anything about anything in relation to your fundamentally traditional, railroad-driven GM style will foundationally miss the mark, because all evidence and commentary from you suggests you are violently opposed to countenancing any kind of emotional stakes for your players' characters.

 

[tetrasodium]

How would a solo game do anything?

Here is an example

Spoiler: thousand year old vampire

 

[bloodtide]

Because it teaches you how to be both a player and GM at the same time ---

And that makes no sense. It's like doing the cross word puzzle I made, or worse: reading my own book.

One more thing --- I keep getting this sense that you somehow think that just because a player makes a suggestion about a particular thing in the fiction that the Ironsworn GM MUST, without question implement it.

Absolutely not so. As a GM, your goal is to continue to challenge the players, force them to make tough decisions, force them to make decisions that challenge their character's growth. This doesn't happen if the GM is just kow-towing to the players left and right.

What you do instead is make highly selective, strategic, purposeful, and meaningful changes to your GM fiction, in a deft, collaborative, often improv manner, so that the focus of play stays strongly on the action happening now.

I don't want to get bogged down in just this one game.

But to say the DM can just ignore the players seems to defeat the point of even playing this type of game. The game is "player lead", except when the DM says "nope"?

You're not playing Candyland where every card in the deck reads "You win! Go to the end of the board!". You're strategically, methodically, through game rule and principle and system, acting to move players and characters into spaces where they make revelatory decisions.

Just as you drag out the game to fill the session time, does not change the "win" aspect. I know the treasure is a spot seven.....but sure I can spend hours and hours "pretending" to check spots 1-6 and 8-12 and....amazingly...not find the treasure.

The fundamental misapprehension you're having here is that in the style of play we're talking about, the very existence of the "Old Elf Tree" should be fundamentally tied to something absolutely core to at least one of the PC's described motivations, instincts, beliefs, desires. Finding the the Old Elf Tree---or not---should result in a profound, foundational reckoning for the character who is hoping to find it.

This is the other aspect. The player lead game is all about the characters being the special chosen ones that the whole game world revolves around.

So, sure, for the fluff of this type of game it would have to be "Oh look it is the treasure map my all powerful pirate lord father left me!"

But in other types of games, characters can just find treasure maps that are in no way directly related specifically to their character.

*Edit --- In other words, describing anything about anything in relation to your fundamentally traditional, railroad-driven GM style will foundationally miss the mark, because all evidence and commentary from you suggests you are violently opposed to countenancing any kind of emotional stakes for your players' characters.

Well, I'm on the far side of Real RPG experiences. I want the players to feel real emotions. And a big part of this is the players must be 100% in the dark about everything. They experience the game only as their character.

So the "emotional stakes" of a player making a lost treasure and putting it in the game....then they just sort of look around and say "gosh wonder if I will ever find my hidden treasure" is not really "stakes".