Can the GM cheat?

[billd91]

Yeah, one of my players clearly prefers it as well, though she probably wouldn't agree with it if you asked her. She even gets frustrated at the other players for going off the rails, ruining "the DM's magnificent plan" (despite having it repeatedly explained to her that I encourage this behavior and that I have no magnificent plan, simply vague ideas that I adapt to the evolving fiction). That the others players are rewarded for this behavior perplexes her.

Incidentally, she is also the only player who shows any ambition for game mastering--to play out her own magnificent plan--and by far the one who pays the most interest and attention to setting stuff.

Sounds to me like she wants to experience someone else's storytelling and setting, with some modest participation, while the others want to be the ones telling the story with their pro-activity. I fear she'd get really frustrated if she was GMing for the other players who tend to go off the expected path.

 

[randomeric]

Then I watched the special before the finale of BSG where they revealed that they had mostly been making the show up on the fly. That they didn't have any idea what was going to happen, they'd just write in vague references to things then figure out what they meant later. That kind of ruined the show for me.

When I discovered this, I had a pleasant "Ah, ha!" moment. This is how I run my games. Right now I am running Dungeon World using my own Of Gods and Relics game world of Malaforcia. Dungeon World itself requires a lot of, "now that you have rolled some dice, tell us how that result came about."

After a while (many gaming sessions), you can look back and see how the "plot" wound it's way over the river and through the woods to get where it is.

My players have started on the island continent of Artis, as part of the Oscillian war effort to conquer the known world. Something very significant has changed and the Oscillians are pulling out. Fast.

Most of the characters are from other races (Phyxia, Chartay, Slovenia, Aagmir, or Auch-mach) and were conscripted as the Oscillian army marched across Malaforcia. One of my players is Oscillian and came along for his own reasons...

The characters (and other non-pure Oscillian units) are the last to leave the shores of Artis. They are tasked with defending the position until the rest of the army has left. They find out rather quickly that they are essentially being left there to fend for themselves with no way off. Left to die.

The plot reveals itself as they make friends and enemies, look for a way off the hostile island continent (or decide to stay and look for ancient treasure and relics), seek revenge, or make some other path to fame and fortune.

Every group is different, as is each player. I have one guy playing a druid. Right now the freedom to change shape into a myriad of animals is keeping him very entertained. No larger plot necessary. One player is playing a female Chartayan warrior (female dominated society) and this has written 5 pages of background. Plot arcs will arise from that. Everyone else is somewhere in between.

To get back to the fudging issue, it was John's last game session (he winters here in Florida, but summers back up north). I wanted to make sure he had some good fun. He is playing a wizard and just got the fireball spell.

Jungle raptors were attacking and he fireballed them once before they were on the party. As it was his big new spell (and I realized the group needed some more quick damage to avoid heavy losses) I said, the gods have seen fit to grant you a one time MMO like use of the fireball, but you WILL suffer a consequence (dungeon world 7-9, success with consequence) no matter what you roll.

He went for it, rolled 2 d6 for damage and rolled two 1's! I insisted he roll again as that was simply not allowed. He ended up with 8 or 10 points of damage, the raptors were in flames, and fun was had by all.

I fudged. Out in the open, and really gave the player a choice more than outright fudged. But I did that purely because it was the right thing for the sake of fun. And since I gave him a special use, it would be totally not fun to then have a poor result and be stuck with it.

My goals when I run a game is that everyone has fun, participates, and leaves looking forward to the next time we play.

I'll fudge for that. I will NEVER fudge to ruin that.

Most of the time it takes care of itself. Sometimes you have to nudge it along a bit.

We are building a story together, but the real chance of failure makes it feel real. Never take that away with fudge. But you can take away the "we just got screwed by the dice." Unless it feeds into the plot arc. ;-)

This got way longer than I had intended.

Great discussion.

Play on everyone!

 

[ExploderWizard]

This is the key to what I'm talking about stated better than I could. I want the scenes to be framed by the DM both when I'm DMing and when I'm playing.

I want to know that the DM has a plan as to what will happen next and isn't making things up as he's going along unless he/she is REALLY good at it. Basically, I want to know there is an overarching plot to tie the adventure together.

I'm not a fan of meandering through whatever random ideas the players come up with. Doing a random scene in a bar then a random scene with one of the PCs parents, a random scene with a street urchin, etc. without any narrative connection between them is frustrating for me because I can't see why each scene has "meaning" in terms of the overall plot.

I feel it's the DMs job to....act as a director/editor, skipping the unimportant parts of the story in order to move to the scenes meaningful to the plot. I expect the DM to come up with that plot as well. In other words he chooses which scenes we participate in. Although those scenes are often created based on what has happened in previous scenes, and therefore have player input.

The player type that prefers railroads isn't a myth. For the most part a lot of casual players fall into this category. It isn't so much a strong preference for such a playstyle as it is apathy towards doing anything else. These players don't mind being led through scenes of the GM's choosing because the alternative means having to come up with goals and motivations of thier own. I have found myself playing in some campaigns this way. I just wanted to roll some dice, and play through whatever the GM felt like making up.

So I can see the desire of some players to kick back, and let the GM direct, and frame scenes. It is a style thats very easy on the players, especially busy players who really only have time to think about the game during actual play time.

The thing missing from such campaigns is active player involvement and investment in the campaign. When the action is purely player driven, there is an energy and intensity that makes the campaign become more alive.

Although tabletop games and video games are different animals, this videogame analogy should serve to illustrate difference in campaign styles:

#1 Your character is in a star fighter or similar ship. In this portion of the game the AI pilots the ship over several areas of enemies. You operate the lasers, and drop bombs as you fly over these areas.

#2 Your character is in a star fighter or similar ship. Your mission is to fly over and destroy enemy targets. You pilot the ship ,operate the lasers, and drop the bombs.

In the first instance, the scene is framed for you. The targets can only be attacked as the framing permits since you do not have control of the ship. Within that framing you decide how to attack the targets and what ordinance to use. You cannot decide what targets are first or how much time to spend on a particular target.

In the second instance, you decide when you take off, and where you will fly. You can attack the targets in any order you wish, fly by and attack them each a bit at a time, or even crash your ship into one. You are in control of your destiny.

Which game would be more engaging?

This doesn't mean that player driven games must be completely directionless. The GM is still the lens through which players see the campaign world and information to act on still needs to be provided. The central "story" or plot of the campaign simply becomes what the players decide to focus on instead of a GM provided focus. First and foremost, such a player decided focus requires interested and invested players. If the whole group prefers to just sit back and follow the GM's story then a player driven game will never get off the ground.

Matching expectations and knowing your play group are the keys to happy gaming.

 

[Mallus]

The player type that prefers railroads isn't a myth. For the most part a lot of casual players fall into this category. It isn't so much a strong preference for such a playstyle as it is apathy towards doing anything else. These players don't mind being led through scenes of the GM's choosing because the alternative means having to come up with goals and motivations of thier own.

That's probably true for some more casual players. But the appeal of more heavily scripted campaigns isn't limited to them. Like I posted earlier, Pathfinder Adventure Paths sell very well. As did the earlier generations linked module series and mega-dungeon campaigns.

There's another appeal to them (outside of a lack of motivation on the player's part): they resemble the classic quest novel structure where the protagonists get swept up in events outside their control, and become heroes in the process, often by following a set of directions (like a prophesy), ie Bilbo & Frodo. There's always been a segment of the D&D audience that wants to re-create their favorite epic fantasy novels.

The thing missing from such campaigns is active player involvement and investment in the campaign.

In my experience, this isn't true. For the record, heavy-scripting isn't my preferred way to the DM, but I've seen it work enough times to know those kinds of campaigns can produce memorable PCs and fond memories (which are great ways to measure player investment).

Although tabletop games and video games are different animals, this videogame analogy should serve to illustrate difference in campaign styles:

My go-to video-game analogy involves comparing Besthesda-style CRPGs like Skyrim/Elder Scrolls with Bioware-style games like Mass Effect.

In an Elder Scrolls game, you really get the sense of being in a fantasy world you are free to explore (and loot/murder). But you don't really get the sense of being a great story. Or if you do, it's the great story of a wandering kleptomaniac/murderer who can create really interesting small-scale "stories" -- usually by cleverly arranging the emergent behaviors produced by the game AI. But these don't amount to plot in the traditional sense. They're something else -- more like amusing anecdotes.

In a Mass Effect game, you get the sense of being in great (well, I think so) science fiction story -- because of all the scripting/plotting, scene-setting, ie direction, dialog, and voice-acting-- but this comes at the cost of feeling like you're free to explore to world presented to you (because, frankly, you can't). You're stuck with the designers story, and less amusing emergent behavior-scenes.

Both styles of game are cool, and produce heavily-invested players. Neither represent a "magic bullet" in terms of game design. And both approaches have their heavily-invested fans.

 

[ExploderWizard]

That's probably true for some more casual players. But the appeal of more heavily scripted campaigns isn't limited to them. Like I posted earlier, Pathfinder Adventure Paths sell very well. As did the earlier generations linked module series and mega-dungeon campaigns.

There's another appeal to them (outside of a lack of motivation on the player's part): they resemble the classic quest novel structure where the protagonists get swept up in events outside their control, and become heroes in process, often by following a set of directions (like a prophesy), ie Bilbo & Frodo. There's always been a segment of the D&D audience that wants to re-create their favorite epic fantasy novels.

This always circles back to player expectations. Do they want to participate in an epic story or do they want to game out whatever happens win or lose? Making sure everyone is in agreement with the group concensus and that the group knows what type of experience to expect, is more important than the merits and flaws of either style.

 

[LostSoul]

Actually, I think it does involve no less of a railroad than the node model because there is at least one outcome you've taken off the table - avoidance of the scene. That's one thing Alexander's node model has over your scene-framing with respect to railroad prevention. PCs can skip nodes.

Ultimately, in either case, you've got a GM prepping and presenting the encounters. In this debate, either you present it as part of scene-framing or, like in Alexander's model, you prep situations and see where they go.

I don't understand this.

Scene-framing is part of node-based design. When the players encounter a new node, the DM frames that node as a scene. Scene-framing isn't anything special; it's just one player (usually the DM) telling the other players what's going on in the game world. You can frame one railroaded scene after another, or prep a situation and frame scenes based on the player's choices.

I think you're talking about something else when you contrast scene-framing with node-based design, but I don't know what that is.

 

[timASW]

Example #1 - the players who enjoy Pathfinder Adventure Paths. I don't have exact numbers, but Pazio built an entire, successful business around them.

Example #2 - the players who enjoyed the classic TSR-era tournament modules, many of which included micro-level railroading like the puzzle rooms I mentioned. Again, I don't have exact numbers, but these modules aren't considered iconic because of their unpopularity.

So two groups of gamers, neither small. Do you require more?

AP's are absolutely NOT railroading. You need to read one before you claim that. They lay out a series of places and interconnected events that players may or may not interact with in pretty much anyway they want. AP's are almost the definition of a good sandbox. Theres a story going on in the background and how they deal with it or if they choose not to deal with it at all is almost entirely up to them in most AP's.

And yeah sorry but the % of gamers around right now who started back in TSR is smaller then you think, and even out of those of us who did (AD&D here) very, very few of us ever went within a country mile of a tournament adventure without modifying it so heavily you would barely recognize it playing it through. Or we did sit down to play it and hated it. We played it sure, didnt mean we liked it.

Those adventures are often Iconic because of a mix of rose tinted nostalgia from our youth and/or as much for what they did wrong as what they did right.

 

[timASW]

Well, I should imagine there are plenty of things you've never seen in real life. I daresay it's somewhat strange to disclaim something on that premise alone.

As for animal planet: Tell them, they're invited to our next gaming session! Apparently, we have a couple of bigfoots in disguise in our group. Who'd have thunk?
Actually, apparently one of my ancestors must have been a bigfoot, too. Because, you know, sometimes I enjoy being railroaded, too: It can be relaxing to not be expected to take the lead and press ahead with the action. Instead you can lean back and simply enjoy the ride. Works best with a serving of beer & pretzel. Maybe you should try it some day

Wheres your game? I'll bring the camera and we can do some interviews with all these players who love railroading.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Sounds to me like she wants to experience someone else's storytelling and setting, with some modest participation, while the others want to be the ones telling the story with their pro-activity. I fear she'd get really frustrated if she was GMing for the other players who tend to go off the expected path.

Yeah. I know. We'll see how that goes.

What I find most interesting is that the players were all gaming virgins before our campaign, yet have diverged this way--latched onto different features of my (somewhat muddled) narratively drifted simulationist DMing style.

 

[timASW]

They're not contradictory at all. If the players make it clear that they are hunting down Orcus cultists, and then I frame a sequence of scenes in which (i) they discover a cultist cave with stairs at the back and choose to descend them, and (ii) they arrive, at the bottom of the stairs, at an ancient temple of Orcus, then the players have got the scenes they want, but they haven't frramed them. I have. Hence - to give an example - I'm the one who gets to decide that, inside the temple, is an altar that will dominate PCs and turn them on their friends. (Fuller details here.)

Thats not what we're talking about though, we're talking about the GM putting together an anti-cultist dungeon crawl and the players saying "I dont really care what the cultists or doing, i have no interest in that". Or something like "my character doesnt like dungeons, they are full of traps and spells and its dark and as a human I cant see for crap. I'm not going down there, those cultists have to come out sometime. Lets camp and hide here by the entrance and kill them when they come out to do their nefarious deeds instead"

And the the DM says "I dont think those would be fun, so your going in that dungeon, rolling your D20's for traps and working out my puzzles or I'm taking my books and going home"