Black Box GMing - Would you play with it?

[Umbran]

My first D&D experience was "black box".

I've used that style in the past. I might again in the future. It is very useful for games in which the point is for the characters to explore a world and abilities they don't understand. So, if you're playing a game in which the characters all start as normal humans, and gain superpowers they need to learn how to use, then it can be fun.

 

[kitsune9]

Nah, I would pass on this as a GM. I love putting in a lot of work into my campaigns, but I don't want to do it all.

There'd definitely would be no way that I'd play this as a player.

 

[nnms]

If I generate a sheet of rolls, just basic ones, via randomization on a simple excel sheet for 2 characters... I'm approaching almost 1000 d20 rolls/pg. If I played with my nephews using that sheet I may run through one every... 7-8 sessions? Rolling for EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING . Of course, if each player gets a generated sheet or three at the beginning of the average gaming year they would be good to go.

Well, i just whipped up a spreadsheet page with about as small a font as I'm comfortable with in print and managed to fit 3724 results on a page. Given a system that uses the same die size and no more than a handful of results per rules interaction and a single page could last me a very, very long time.

As well, I could put the page in a plastic sleeve and mark the numbers off with a dry/wet erase and then when it was done, it would get used again going vertically instead of horizontally. So each page produces over 14,000 results just by going different directions. Never mind if you then add in letting your pen fall on the first number and starting there for a session. Or going diagonal.

No muss, no fuss... No cocked dice, no 'it rolled off the table', and no fudging. Now, in theory, your entire character year is 'plotted' for you ahead of time...

I think it's a psychological thing. When it comes to philosophy I'm more of a determinist than not, so it doesn't both me.

In my Basic D&D game, we play sitting on couches and whatnot rather than at a table and we have dice fall into the cushions or between the couches or whatever all the time. The host's nephew loves it when he comes over, plays around the couches and finds "crystals!"

I really feel that the ability to take the dice out of the hands of everyone and leave them to a random generator speeds up the game immensely.

I'm inclined to agree.

And once the sheet has been used?

I pitch it.

I think I'd reuse mine. I'm not sticking a few hundred results on the page, but a few thousand, and I'm willing to go any direction that I haven't yet, including diagonal and maybe even patterns.

Oh what a quick game you can run. And you can provide for completely different types of benefits in combat. Of course it does require a goodly bit of DM trust, but all 'rolls' are visible at the beginning, middle, and end of each session... And it doesn't actually affect the state of play save for the removal of fudging.

This whole black box discussion is all about DM trust. People still have fun with AD&D1E which had the assumption that the players didn't have any real access to the rules.

If resolution speed to get back to the description/story is the goal, the pre-printed sheet of results might be the best tool for the job. Thanks for reminding me about it.

Again, the DM must be trusted to not screw on rolls, but you can confirm all rolls via the Sheets. And half a ream of paper just eliminated an empire campaign (or more) set of rolls.

If you pick a system that uses a single die size and fill a page up with 7 point font results, and then go in multiple directions on the sheet, with changing starting positions, a single sheet could last forever.

Leaving time for, you know, roleplaying .

I have to say that seeing the complete lack of focus on a die leading to the declaration that shiny scales reflect back spells and wands was glorious. Definitely made me smile .

As much as I'd like to agree with you that the removal of the focus on the dice was the cause, I'd say it was probably just a contributor and the biggest cause would be a feeling that one is free to make such declarations. Children often assume they have it and older gamers often forget that they could.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I could see running a freeform game with no rules.

However, the rules-to my way of thinking-exist to facilitate a sense of fairness and involve the players in decision-making beyond the perspectives of their characters. I can't see how having the DM solely control the rules would work better than doing free-form collaborative improvisational storytelling with no rules.

 

[nedjer]

That's really neat. Seems to have produced good play.

I think I may have gone from idle curiosity to starting to hunt down a suitable system and talking to some friends about trying it out.

I'm maybe thinking/ playing in terms of a different kind of black box than presented by the sandboxy, rules as light as possible to arrive at improvisation approach.

The rules are very much there, but the types of rules chosen are scalable systems that allow the GM, and players, to in effect zoom in and out as play goes on. If improvisation/ imaginative input is flowing freely the rules sit in the background and play is driven by the players' choices based on a loose framework. However, the GM and players can seamlessly draw on greater levels of detail/ zoom in on the rules to feed back into rekindling player-driven narratives.

So it's not an either or situation where wafer-thin rules leave the GM and players to constantly drive play - and it doesn't rely on random generation, as players choices and the situations they interact with form shared expectations which suggest which options present themselves.

Essentially, this is about leaving gaps, but not huge holes, for the GM and players' imaginations to fill - and calling upon the rules cavalry to support them in building further shared expectations alongside further improvisation.

The choice of rules set makes a difference here, as any RPG could be adapted to such purposes but that leaves a large 'transactional' overhead for GMs to mediate, i.e. is tiring, hard work.

Systems with certain characteristics make it very easy or fluid to zoom/ scale shared expectations and player choice, while balancing those expectations and choices.

Classic Traveller is the obvious example, as it's highly modular, easily extensible and everything connects up. For fantasy, Treasure was designed specifically to learn from Traveller with the intention of supporting this kind of play.

Improvisational jazz and jamming offer an analogy. There's a framework provided by the instruments, the musicians' skills and experience, the interaction between the musicians and the audience's interpretation, (and reaction), to the performance . . . However, improvisation and experimentation bobbles along on top of all that, often taking the lead/ shaping further improvisation, because the shared expectations formed by the context provide a stage or platform for such improvisation.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

My wife wanted to play, but didn't want to learn all the rules, so I DMed her that way.

I made her a gestalt (3e) character, so she'd have many more options as to what she could do, and that seemed to help.


I wouldn't do it with a large group, but it was fun when we tried it.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I never have (with one 15 minute exception - sorta) and I know I wouldn't like it.

I play to immerse in characters, and as the character swings a sword, or casts a spell or whatnot, I am rolling the dice. This is a 1 to 1 correlation. I am doing something physically that is a representation of what the character is doing. I lose that point of contact with the character I would have a harder time enjoying the game - just as if I were not allowed to speak in character, or make decisions based on character motivations or knowledge.

The one time it happened was in Rolemaster. The big boss was coming up and my character attacked it. RM is an openended system - if you roll well enough you roll again and add.

With dice rolled in the open, I openedended twice with the attack, and then on the crit table (which you could open end on because of the type of creature it was) I rolled openended again, and killed the beasty.

That is the way RM works though - a couple of really lucky or unlucky rolls can swing combat widely.

Next session the GM said he was going to roll all dice, and do it behind his screen. So I handed him my character and walked out. Never gamed with him again.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

As a player, "black-box" would be my dream game. As a GM, it would be too much work under any system I've played.

I generally play method-actor style and aim for immersive play. Rolling dice and thinking about the game in terms of rule mechanics rather than narrative ruins this for me.

I would need a good idea about how the world works, things that are usually provided by reading the rules. The easiest way to do this would be to base the game on a work of fiction I'm familiar with and would like to play in, such as LOTR, Black Company, Witch World, or Amber.

 

[Mircoles]

I had a Gm once that had decided to do all the rolling for us. It drove us crazy.

It doesn't feel like you're doing anything in that kind of situation.

 

[Gulla]

I've played that way both as a player and GM, but not in any sort of number heavy and/or tactical and/or dice active games. Amber Dice-less RPG is more or less made for this (players have only 4 stats and the highest will win, unless you come up with a good enough way to cheat, and the characters know in-game the internal ranking between them). I've both played and GMed muti-year campaigns in Amber.

Several shorter campaigns with (close to) rules less (home brew) systems have been played as well. It works very nicely, with players who want a very heavy focus on the storytelling (and no focus at all at stat-growth, skill improvement or other types of "my numbers are better now"). We often introduce some sort of randomizer (unless playing Amber) to increase tension. It is more exciting when the players roll a die now and then in tense situations. Usually this takes the form of the GM telling in advance "you need a 4 or higher on the d6 to succeed".