DMing Philosophy, this time from Roger Musson

[pemerton]

This thread is a companion to the other one about Lewis Pulsipher's GMing advice. It is focused on the advice from Roger Musson.

My copies of these articles are in Best of White Dwarf 2, which has a 1983 copyright date. This blog suggests that the article was originally published around 1981. [MENTION=3586]MerricB[/MENTION] might know the exact date!

Roger Musson's biggest contribution to D&D might be his pioneering wounds/vitality model (the article is called "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive", in the same BoWD collection). But in this post I want to call out some of his GMing advice.

For a satisfying campaign . . . some effort is required. The players must play imaginatively; the DM must provide scope for them to do so. . .​

​

it would be a dull novel that consisted entirely of identical money-grubbing expeditions which conformed to the pattern of fight-loot, ad nauseum. If an FRP game is going to get anywhere, the must be provision for more than fighting and looting. . . .​

It is possible to have FRP without a dungeon; Chivalry & Sorcery is that, more or less. The trouble is, the more "realistic" your fantasy world is, the more demanding the game becomes to play, in terms of time, imagination and acting ability needed. . . . The advantage of dungeon-bashing is that it provides structure while allowing freedom for development. . . .​

​

D&D in its highest form allows players the fun of actually taking part in a fantasy "novel", but not at such a high level as to demand that each player should be Sir John Gielgud.​

​

(To digress, I believe that the restrictions on some character classes, though they might be viewed as disadvantages, are more the reverse. Restrictions make it easier to play "in character" by dictating necessary attitudes. A paladin should be noted by his largesse and flamboyant acts of charity; these make him more interesting than a stereotyped fighting man.)​

​

. . .​

​

There is one problem which will crop up eventually, so be prepared to deal with it in advance. Sooner or later, players reach part of the dungeon that you haven't got round to populating yet. . .​

​

[One] tactic is to make up the dungeon as you go along. This is not as difficult as it might sound, providing you are prepared to think quickly. The only problem is keeping a record . . . It is not a good idea to switch to improvising if the players are going to suspect. . . .​

​

I used to keep a goodies bag of unlocated odds and ends [of magical treasure], which I would dip into in two sorts of circumstances: one, if players were having such a sad time of it that I actually felt sorry for them; two, if a player searched in a hiding place which was so clever that I wished I'd thought of it myself. Should you follow this practice, never admit it. Now that I've admitted it, I shall abandon it. In D&D it isn't necessary to play by the book, but it is essential that the players shall always think you are.​

I think this advice has quite a contemporary feel, even though it's over 30 years old. Three things in particular stand out for me.

• The emphasis on acting and imagination - it is clear that the imaginative, "story" dimension to play is regarded as very important. This is a contrast with Pulsipher.
  
  
• The emphasis on GM illusionism - don't let them know you're improvising! The players are allowed to exercise (limited) narrative control, eg by looking in clever hiding places, but they're not allowed to know that they're exercising that control. This is exactly opposite to Pulsipher's advice, as it is an example of the very GM manipulation that he thinks is best eschewed. I think in the era of 2nd ed AD&D and White Wolf this became the default approach to RPGing, and it's interesting to see it being advocated in such an early text that well predates the "Hickman revolution".
  
  
• The incredibly insightful comment on paladin "restrictions", and the idea that these are actually advantages and not disadvantages because they establish clear signals between player and GM, give the player clear pathways for playing his/her PC, and in general contribute to the imaginative dimension of play. This is the most "modern" part of the whole essay, I think, as far as RPG design is concerned. The first game I know of that really learns this lesson, and is built around this sort of idea, is Maelstrom Storytelling in the mid-90s, though Over the Edge (1992) is something of a precursor. "Forge-y" games like HeroWars/Quest and Burning Wheel apply this idea in full force. I find it quite amazing to see it anticipated in such an early article.

When I first read this piece, and took up it's advice, I know that I found it more congenial than Lewis Pulsipher, but at the time I certainly didn't appreciate the significance of what I've called out in my second and third dot points.

Others' thoughts/experiences?

 

[Ahnehnois]

[One] tactic is to make up the dungeon as you go along. This is not as difficult as it might sound, providing you are prepared to think quickly. The only problem is keeping a record . . . It is not a good idea to switch to improvising if the players are going to suspect. . . .

I used to keep a goodies bag of unlocated odds and ends [of magical treasure], which I would dip into in two sorts of circumstances: one, if players were having such a sad time of it that I actually felt sorry for them; two, if a player searched in a hiding place which was so clever that I wished I'd thought of it myself. Should you follow this practice, never admit it. Now that I've admitted it, I shall abandon it. In D&D it isn't necessary to play by the book, but it is essential that the players shall always think you are.

It seems that he is talking about two different things. One of them is improvising content, which is still "by the book", and one is actually going off the book.

It seems an odd conceit to me, and one that must necessarily derive from earlier, highly structured styles of play. I would never have had the assumption that a DM was not making up some or most of the game as it was going along; the contrary would be very unusual and would almost certainly come off as railroading to me.

The way I see it, illusionism manifests more contemporaneously; the players are aware that I often make things up, but when it comes to a specific place, thing, or action, I might try to generate uncertainty as to whether I had prepared it as part of some auspicious plan or whether I had made it up on the spot. The preparation I do is explicitly designed to be amorphous and omnivalent to facilitate this type of deception. The goal is not to be deceptive about the techniques I use, only about the content within the game.

All of that process is very open to the players. They know what my prep looks like, what kind of things I'm liable to do, and after the game, I'll often tell them what the plan was, what I made up and when and why. Moreover, even during the game, sometimes they'll ask something and I'll blatantly admit that I'm making up an answer because I don't care.

On some level, I can see an impetus to keep all this process secret, but it just seems stodgy to me. And maybe it's an artifact of cultural changes. If one looks at D&D in a way that's analogous to reading a book or watching a movie, that experience has changed over the past couple of decades. Now, after a TV show, people watch the aftershow, read the recap, hit social media, watch documentaries and read blogs. People who watch Game of Thrones know the actors, listen to the creative staff talk about their goals, and visit or at least research the places where it was filmed. This was not the norm even a decade ago, really. But to me, D&D is kind of like that; I run a game that isn't just like a form of screen media in some ways, it also has the equivalent of a director's commentary or a writer's Twitter account. Like larger-scale creative figures, I think it's useful for a DM to engage players on this level.

 

[MerricB]

This thread is a companion to the other one about Lewis Pulsipher's GMing advice. It is focused on the advice from Roger Musson.

My copies of these articles are in Best of White Dwarf 2, which has a 1983 copyright date. This blog suggests that the article was originally published around 1981. [MENTION=3586]MerricB[/MENTION] might know the exact date!

"How to Lose Hit Points and Survive" - White Dwarf #15, October 1979.



I am indebted to the work of the people at rpggeek.com, who now have an excellent magazine and article index!

Cheers!

 

[Ed_Laprade]

While I always found Lew's stuff interesting, I got the distinct impression that he played a GM vs. Players style game, regardless of what he said.

Roger, on the other hand, seemed the kind of guy I'd like to have played with. And I certainly gave his advice more consideration than I did Lew's. However, since I couldn't act my way out of a paper bag, some of it didn't do me much good.

 

[Emerikol]

Agree or disagree, I love these topics so kudos!

I prefer D&D be more like "real life" than fiction. Fiction is always pat and always works out even when the result is things didn't work out. It's intentional. I believe D&D is first and foremost a game. Losing is one possibility. So it's the PCs against the world. They will prosper or fail depending THEIR choices not the choices of the DM. Ideally the DM will present a world and play it fairly. The question is whether the PCs will make their way in that world or not. It's a rare D&D campaign that would make a good novel and that is okay. It's a game not a novel.

Now having said all of that. I have tons of plot threads running a million different ways. All of my NPCs are playing their roles in the world. They have dreams, goals, ideas too. So they are dynamic and not static. So the PCs will run up against the goals of these NPCs in pursuit of their own goals. I don't design against the PCs. The PCs act against the natural goals of NPCs when they want to do so.

It's a subtle distinction and I'm sure I've not explained it well. I hope I got my point across. By not designing at the PCs you can create a very interesting world. A fiction writer though always writes against his characters.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

The players must play imaginatively; the DM must provide scope for them to do so.

Here we have a single sentence that tells players and DMs exactly what their respective roles are. I love it.

 

[pemerton]

Agree or disagree, I love these topics so kudos!

Thanks.

I'm going to mention a couple of other posters on these boards who play more old-school - [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION] - to see if they have any thoughts on this stuff.

 

[pemerton]

Here we have a single sentence that tells players and DMs exactly what their respective roles are. I love it.

I think this is another instance of the really contemporary nature of Musson's advice, which when you look at the articles for the first time can be obscured by some of the superficial trappings, like his continued assumption that mega-dungeoneering is the basic focus of play.

 

[Henry]

I think this is another instance of the really contemporary nature of Musson's advice, which when you look at the articles for the first time can be obscured by some of the superficial trappings, like his continued assumption that mega-dungeoneering is the basic focus of play.

I'm going to take the cop-out and say both advice is of equal value, due to the old saw of "all things in moderation." For me, just as I'd like to see a little more tactics and forethought as part of the RPG culture, I also think a game of nothing but tactics and forethought is a game that is rather dull and boring. Too much storytelling for its own sake leads to railroads to victory; too much gritty gamism leads to metagaming your way right out of the RP aspect of "RPG."

I've never heard of Roger Musson, but he sounds very much in the style of Dave Arneson and Dave Wesely's "Braunstein" games.

 

[pemerton]

I've never heard of Roger Musson

Outrageous!

Have a look in the index of your Fiend Folio (assuming you've got one - but who hasn't got a Fiend Folio?!) and you'll see him on multiple creatures. (The disenchanter is one that springs to mind. I found a full list here.)

I think that what he really deserves to be best-known for is his article that Merric B referenced upthread - "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive." This is a HP + CON wound and vitality system more then 20 years earlier than WotC's efforts in that regard, and with some of its own distinctive quirks and suggestions.

A valuable contributor to the hobby, in my view at least.