Failing Forward

[Maxperson]

None of that means anything to me, even if it did, it wouldn't add anything to my investment in the game. For me it's mere color, no depth.

Now if I decided as a player that my character will tap into his concept that he's out for revenge (for what I still haven't decided) and I decide that this might be a good opportunity to connect my revenge motif to the body on the floor, now we're getting somewhere. Maybe as a result of a successful knowledge check I decide to announce that I recognize the symbol on the breast plate as a something my character saw as a child when his sister was killed (now I've developed what I want revenge for). All of this being created in the moment during the scene. As we continue through play, it might come to pass, through action declaration, that it wasn't that order that killed my sister, but rather they were there trying to defend her. All good stuff that shouldn't be decided until the moment it is necessary to decide, usually the result of an action. Depth is created when there's a connection between the scene and the character. That connection can only be made via the player and not the GM. If the GM told me that the symbol was the same as I saw when my character was a child, I'd probably tell him no thanks because I'm not interested in being forced to connect to pre-authored materials. It's just not that interesting to me. I'd rather nothing than that sort of thing. And as I've mentioned before, I'm perfectly fine playing in a game where that connection isn't there, but there's nothing worse than trying to force it into the game. Not my cup of tea.

You do realize that almost everything you just said involved no depth whatsoever, right? It was about stuff authored in the moment. The one thing that offered any kind of depth, was you connecting the symbol to your pre-authored concept of being out for revenge.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't believe I'm understanding this correctly.

What exactly are the Antagonists doing in the above version of the roleplaying. Do they not have Dramatic Needs? Are the the BBEG's completely 'reactive' beings with no agenda's of their own? So how does an adventure start, with PCs declaring their Dramatic Needs? i.e. I want to traverse the Plains of Dust; I want to open a College for Bards; I want to hunt a Vampire Lord...and the DM takes it from there?

It appears you are saying adventures like Gardmore Abbey have no place in @pemerton's and @Manbearcat's tables.

I'm not familiar with Madness at Gardmore Abbey, unfortunately, so I can't really comment. While I'm familiar with a few classics (due to curiosity), my knowledge of most modules is extremely lacking so I don't have a lot of commentary on any specific module's utility or depth (and I tend to stay away from conversations about them due to my ignorance). I've never run a campaign that was module-leveraged or even module-inspired. I learned GMing probably very different than most and module study and usage weren't a part of that process. Consequently, my mental framework when it comes to "theme calibration for the table" and organizing my own overhead and workload (before and during play) may very well be askew from the mainstream.

Thank you for that. What happens when these beliefs are concluded? Does the campaign end or does the PC keep generating new beliefs (goals)? What if you couldn't marry the two beliefs or the PCs didn't prefer it, how would the session play out? It would feel that you would have to contrive the goals for both to link up for that city. Now throw in 2 more PC to get a group of 5, how does a GM manage 5 beliefs all intermingling and having to satisfy the unique Dramatic Needs of 5 PCs in one 4-hour setting?

How do you translate this into 4e? How do your 4e story-arcs start?
And can Gardmore Abbey be played at your table? I don't think so unless you blend it as part of the PC background/belief and then only fractionally.

Here and here are a few threads that you could take a look at to get a sense of how most of my games get going.

In Burning Wheel, Beliefs (and growth through failure) are the primary locus of play. At the outset of play, the GM, the table agrees on the big picture of play and builds characters together. Each characters' Beliefs will interact with these elements so that they can be tested by the process of GM framing scenes which challenge those Beliefs, which in turn requires you to take action. As the game evolves, some beliefs will be resolved/fulfilled by the play that emerges. Others will evolve to reflect the changing perspective of your character and the changing circumstances of play. Now and again, a stray Belief might be left behind if the game has moved past it. If so, change it to something relevant.

Dungeon World's Bonds and Alignment were inspired by Burning Wheel's Beliefs. 4e's Quests, Themes, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies (which naturally commingle/interface) are that system's analog. Does it become more difficult to integrate/maintain coherency/relevance as more players get in the mix? Potentially. It puts more pressure on overall table communication/calibration and player malleability I'd say (hence one reason why I only run games for 3 people anymore!).

I have to strongly disagree with you. Most of what you have described above is a result of pre-authoring and using your own DM bias for the NPC antagonist you created to use at some point in play and to colour failed skill checks.

The disconnect I think I see in a lot of these conversations comes from this:

That "DM bias" you're detecting? That is the game's "bias" that your attributing to the person running the game. That is "running the game by the prescribed GMing directives/ethos and addressing the focused premise of play itself."

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s post above talks about play that focuses like a laser beam on protagonism, Dramatic Need, and antagonism interposing itself between the two. I think that is as good a way as any to put it. That Dark Elf that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was pondering outside of play? That could have come in many shapes or forms. The play wasn't about the Dark Elf. He became a part of the setting mosaic when he was introduced into the fiction, yes, but it wasn't about him. Play turns on the Situation (a) challenging a Belief (or multiples) and (b) forcing the players to address the What (do I want out of this Situation) and How (am I going to resolve it). The Dark Elf is just the means for pemerton to facilitate that proper GMing (which isn't his bias). It isn't a story about his Dark Elf. It is a story about his players' Beliefs being tested in the crucible of high/dark fantasy conflict (over and over and over) and seeing what shakes out of it (character progression/evolution and story emergence). In this case, the introduction of the Dark Elf complication was just another system-coherent (and genre-coherent) means of doing that.

 

[sheadunne]

You do realize that almost everything you just said involved no depth whatsoever, right? It was about stuff authored in the moment. The one thing that offered any kind of depth, was you connecting the symbol to your pre-authored concept of being out for revenge.

Couple things

1) The symbol has no depth and can never have any depth unless the viewer chooses to relate it to their character's experiences. Otherwise it's the same as saying the sky is blue. Who cares, it's not interesting or relevant to the game.
2) Let's not confuse exposition with action. Relating information is not playing the game.
3) Revenge is a stat on the character sheet, not a pre-authored background. It is leveraged in play like any other character resource.

 

[pemerton]

I think one of the biggest blockers to this conversation going further is the inability to have an agreed upon distinction between what material constitutes pre-authored "fiction" and what is in the moment authoring... I asked you as well as @Manbearcat... and someone else I believe what exactly are the boundaries between... fiction being pre-authored vs. pre-prepped vs. notes/ideas vs. in the moment authoring... could you take a minute to answer this as I think it will make our discussions more productive.

The terminology isn't that important to me except as a way to get at certain techniques and approaches to play.

I hope I've been fairly clear about these. On the positive side, the main thing I want is for the player's, via action declarations, to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires - which means, within the fiction, that their PCs achieve things that they want.

On the negative side, the main thing I don't want is a GM's secret backstory to be a block or constraint on action resolution that the players can't overcome, which dooms their action declarations to a futility that isn't known in advance, and perhaps is not even known after the event (if the players don't know that the secret backstory explains why they failed).

These are what I describe as a game that is not grounded in pre-authoring. I regard that as quite different from GM prep - generating ideas, statting up NPCs or monsters, etc. The latter isn't any sort of block or constraint on action declaration and action resolution.

Because in my games geography tends not to be at the heart of play - it's just a means to an end - it doesn't impede my goals (described above) to use pre-drawn maps. Though there will always be flexibility in the details (eg I need to be able to drop an oasis or a pyramid into the Bright Desert without fussing exactly over where it is in relation to exactly how many miles the PCs travelled in exactly what direction). At a table which, in general, shared my outlook, but did put geography more at the centre of things, my use of pre-drawn maps might be too much pre-authoring.

On the other hand, in my game NPCs, gods, politics, and other socio-cosmological matters do tend to be at the heart of play, and so I use less pre-authored material in this respect. I might come up with an idea for an NPC, or a god, and even write up a candidate backstory, but this will not be a constraint on adjudication in the form of secret backstory, and is not a determinate part of the fiction until revealed in play either via scene framing or action resolution.

For instance, in my BW game what are the precise motivations and allegiances of Dame Katerina of Urnst, who is travelling in the company of her confessor Father Simon, who in turn is very reasonably suspected by the PCs of being a death cultist? It's clear that she is loyal to her confessor - that has been established in play, as part of my narration around the episode in which the PCs accused him of being a cultist - but is that because she's also a death cultist, or rather she has been duped by him? I have some ideas on how this could play out, and where it might lead, but they're not part of the fiction and certainly not something that I would use to adjudicate action resolution involving her.

In my 4e game, the precise motivations and desires of the Raven Queen are in a similar state - very important to the PCs (and the players) but not yet entirely known, though there are strong (and differing) views from various PCs. This is likely to come to a head soon, perhaps in our next session of that campaign.

For me, part of the skill of GMing is teasing out these details via play, in a way which feeds on the players' suspicions and inclinations, and allows them to engage (via their PCs) and test their (potentially conflicting) views, without (i) bringing things to a climax too early, or (ii) letting things drag on beyond their ability to sustain dramatic weight.

With the dark elf in my BW game, I feel that I could have done a better job in this respect - as is shown, in part, by the fact that one of the players, during our Sunday session, predicted that the dark elf would return in some form or other, perhaps re-animated as an undead. I'm not sure about that - BW tends to treat undeath as a purely human condition - but I am thinking about ways to somehow bring the dark elf back into focus even though he's dead - for instance, if the elven ronin tried a Circles check and then failed, the failure could take the form of the appearance of an NPC who knew both the ronin and the dark elf before their respective (thought somewhat different) falls from being honourable soldiers of the White Tower.

I would think that certainly counts as having an idea, and by some measures must count as preparing for the game, but it's not any sort of pre-authoring of anything. No fiction is being established by me having that idea.

This reads that the PCs were looking for the mace from before. The player guessed the dark elf had it. You wrote it into the story because it suited your purpose. Same with the ruined tower.

The ruined tower existed in the fiction because it was part of the backstory of a PC, written by that PC's player. To elaborate: in BW PC generation is via Lifepaths, and this particular PC has a lifepath as a Sorcerer than two Rogue Sorcerer LPs (which is 7 years a pop). In the backstory of the PC, 14 years ago the tower where he was living as a mage with his brother Joachim was attacked by orcs. In order to try and defeat the orcs Joachim tried to summon a Lighting Storm (AoE attack spell) but failed and was possessed by a balrog. The PC escaped - living for the next 14 years as a rogue wizard - but the orcs sacked the tower.

The mace existed in the fiction because the same player wrote that into his PC's backstory, wrote a Belief for his PC in relation to it (along the lines of "I will recover the Falcon's Claw, the nickel-silver mace that I had forged and was in the process of enchanting when the orcs sacked the tower"), and then - once the PCs arrived at the tower - declared as an action an attempt to find the mace in the tower.

So in neither case did I write these story elements into the fiction. The player did that.

When the attempt to find the mace failed (from memory, an Ob 5 check made with 6 dice, so needing five of six d6 to come up 4 or better - never very likely to succeed), the player knew that finding it would involve overcoming some more difficult obstacle. (The whole focus of BW play is on making the players work hard (via their PCs) for their PCs' Beliefs.) Given that the dark elf had already, at that point, been established as existing within the fiction, the player conjectured that the elf would have it. Because that would be a difficult obstacle.

there are plenty of DMs who pilfer ideas from their player's ramblings and guesswork because sometimes it makes for a better story. Even with pre-authorship there is plenty that is determined at the table.

But if the GM is authoring the fiction at the table, perhaps drivin by player ramblings, then it is not pre-authorship. Is it? So saying that stuff that's not pre-authored resembles the sort of non-pre-authored stuff that I like seems true, but not a point of disagreement with anything I'm saying.

You haven't used improv... but you've continuously pointed to authoring in the moment of resolution, which IMO is the same as improv... otherwise like you said it doesn't matter if the fiction you present was authored a year ago, a month ago or a minute before... it's pre-authored

An idea, on its own, is not part of the fiction. Nor is a page of stats. Its raw material that might or might not be incorporated into the fiction, in some form or other or not at all.

In the case of the dark elf, for instance, it was only at the last minute that I crossed out the entry for sword skill on the stat sheet I'd written up and wrote in "mace" - so that when he turned up wielding the nickel-silver mace he would be able to attack the PCs with it.

That sheet also has some notes on it about backstory for the dark elf, but none of that conjectured backstory actually came out in play. So from my point of view the backstory remains highly open (and in this post I've set out some ideas I have for working it out in play) though it will have to include some seminal moment in which the elf was turned from Grief to Spite (which is the crux of being a Dark Elf in BW - hence the relevance of Eol and Maeglin from the Silmarillion).

What I'm talking about is that with your method, if I as the DM announce in the moment that the body on the floor wears a breastplate with the symbol of the Order of Manbearpigs on his chest, nobody is going to know what I'm talking about.

But what you describe here is not part of my method. In fact it's almost contrary to it.

My method would more likely be to announce that the body on the floor wears a breastplate with the symbol of Orcus - whom the PCs (at least those who serve the Raven Queen) are sworn to oppose - or that it bears a symbol of the Order of the Bat - a secret society among the drow, invented by one of my players, that is dedicated to the worship of Corellon and to undoing the sundering of the elves.

In my BW game something quite similar to the scenario you posit came up in our second-to-most-recent session. One of the PCs - the elven princess - was dining with a priest, who evinced a more than healthy interest in elven immortality, and deathlessness in general. The player, and the PC, pegged him for some sort of death cultist. When, later on, the PCs had a chance to search his room one found his death cult book, bound in human skin. (On the stat sheet that I'd written up a holy book was noted. The decision that it would be a death cult book was made by me on the spur of the moment.) I described it being bound in human skin.

This mattered to the players because one of their PCs - the elven ronin - is sworn to oppose evil whether it resides in orcs or in humanity, while another - the sorcerer-assassin who discovered the book - is seeking revenge on her former master, the balrog-possessed brother of the mage PC, who is also the sort of chap to use books bound in human skin.

When in due course I told the players, as their PCs were looking through the book, that it is a tome of the cult of Chemosh, this didn't have the result that nobody knew what I was talking about. Rather, the significance of Chemosh and Chemosh-worship - that it involves the worship of a dark god and the quest for immortality through undeath - had already been established and grounded in relation to the PCs. Between sessions, the player of the mage PC even wrote a new Belief for his PC, to learn what the cult of Chemosh knows about the coming apocalypse. (That there is a coming apocalypse is something of an article of faith for this PC.)

Upthread, [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] have talked about establishing depth in relation to story elements introduced during the actual course of play. I don't know how the example I've just given strikes them, but for me it is illustrative of how I like to establish depth and player engagement: not by evoking or referring back to some piece of fiction that they've already read (like Ed Greenwood's stories about Purple Dragon Knights), but by establishing the significance of the story element in relation to the dramatic needs of the PCs.

(Of course the name "Chemosh" is taken from Dragonlance. So is the motif of skull masks, which came up in the last session when the mage PC detected a magical skull mask in the priest's apartment. I don't think any of my players have ever read Dragonlance - certainly no one has commented that they recognise the name. And I don't know anything more about Chemosh in Dragonlance than the entry in the old Dragonlance Adventures book, which I last read probably 20-odd years ago.)

Now with regards to your Dark Elf. From your own words he was always going to be an antagonist similar to how I "pre-author" my Bad Guys in my adventures.

<snip>

So if they fail the desert - Dark Elf is an Antagonist.
So if they succeeded in the desert = No Dark Elf
If PCs leave tower (1 - and they were travelling to it) (2- No Skill Check required to leave) & (3 - I'm guessing at one point they have to leave) = Dark Elf Antagonist.

That is a pure rail road to a Dark Elf Antagonist.

<snip>

It wasn't that random you just had to pick the appropriate moment during the story to create the most dramatic play.

What is the railroad? Are we using some notion of railroad where every time the GM makes a decision rather than rolls on a random table (that was randomly constructed?) that counts as railroad?

How is this different to pre-authorship adventures where I include a monsters/encounter at X location.

In this case, if the PCs never go to X they won't meet the monster. So the difference is that I am using a scene-framing style whereas what you describe - from the brief description - looks like a sandbox style.

Since YOU created the Dark Elf, you brought the below into play through "pre-authorship" of the Dark Elf antagonist

<snip>

you determined to 'colour' the failed skilled check with the motives of a pre-determined (pre-authored) Antagonist.

<snip>

Most of what you have described above is a result of pre-authoring and using your own DM bias for the NPC antagonist you created to use at some point in play and to colour failed skill checks.

One could claim you used DM force to push them into an encounter with the Dark Elf, probably because you had a desire to use the NPC you created beforehand... you decided arbitrarily what their failure would mean (encountering the Dark Elf NPC you had pre-authored outside of play)

The dark elf had no established backstory until he appeared in play (and as I've noted above, that backstory itself is not very richly established - by the rules of the game, he underwent some experience that turned his Grief to Spite; and it's been established in play that he was serving a dark naga in trying to hurt the PCs; but that's it).

He had no location until he appeared in play - at which point he was established as living in the general vicinity of the ruined tower.

His most important possession (the mace) and his weapon skill (mace, not sword) were not established until after he had appeared in play - and were established as responses to a failed check by a player, and concerned an item which wouldn't have been part of the fiction but for being built by one of the players into the backstory and aspirations of his PC.

What fiction, exactly, has been pre-authored here? All I can see is that there are dark elves in this world, who are spiteful people who might try and hurt others. Even the forms this spiteful hurt actually took in the fiction - fouling a waterhole, stealing a mace - weren't pre-authored.

I'm not sure how "Dark Elf appears" is contrary to "Successfully navigated your way"...

To address your second point about the water being fouled... that is not true. A survivalist could in theory find a way to purify the water... a spellcaster might be able t purify the water...and so on. See IMO this is the difference between railroading vs pre-authoring. Pre-authoring does not suppose a solution can or cannot be found... it just is.

Why would that be true? Why couldn't the survival roll include the possible outcome of making the water drinkable?

Successful navigation through a desert includes finding water. When the check is failed, the intent is not realised. I decided that the task had succeeded (the PCs found the waterhole) but intent failed - the waterhole was fouled.

The dark elf that I had written up had the Filthy trait, but I hadn't given much prior thought to what that might mean. When I described the recently-fouled waterhole to my players they were suitably disgusted, and moreso when they worked out from the footprints that it was an elf. (Which I was glad of - I was worried that it might divert the game into schoolground humour.)

If the navigation check had succeeded but I nevertheless described the waterhole as fouled, and hence needing more effort to purify it (or find another, or whatever) then I would have been vitiating the basic rule of the game, which is that when a check succeeds the player (and PC) realises his/her intention - in this case, to navigate safely and successfully through the desert.

I'm not sure if Maxperson is suggesting that I might narrate a successful check as coming to the waterhole, finding it fouled, but then purifying it in some fashion - but that would, in my view, be contrary to the spirit of the game: introducing a complication of that sort only to narrate it away again seems not to add anything to play except GM verbiage.

 

[Maxperson]

Couple things

1) The symbol has no depth and can never have any depth unless the viewer chooses to relate it to their character's experiences. Otherwise it's the same as saying the sky is blue. Who cares, it's not interesting or relevant to the game.

Depth is there whether the player appreciates it or not. It's jumping into a pool vs jumping into a puddle. The depth is set even if you never jump into either one.

3) Revenge is a stat on the character sheet, not a pre-authored background. It is leveraged in play like any other character resource.

Anything authored prior to the moment of the game is pre-authored. Every single time you establish something in the moment, it becomes pre-authored content when the moment passes. Don't pretend you don't play with pre-authored content. You do. It's just pre-authored in a different manner.

 

[Maxperson]

Successful navigation through a desert includes finding water. When the check is failed, the intent is not realised. I decided that the task had succeeded (the PCs found the waterhole) but intent failed - the waterhole was fouled.

And if I pre-author a fouled waterhole, a successful navigation or survival roll could still find a different fresh waterhole and failure finds them at the fouled hole. The scene plays out exactly the same as yours, except that the DM pre-authored a fouled waterhole. What's so much better about you coming up with the fouled waterhole in the moment vs. my pre-authoring it?

The point I'm making is that pre-authorship doesn't mean you have to walk down a narrow pathway where things are highly limited.

The dark elf that I had written up had the Filthy trait, but I hadn't given much prior thought to what that might mean. When I described the recently-fouled waterhole to my players they were suitably disgusted, and moreso when they worked out from the footprints that it was an elf. (Which I was glad of - I was worried that it might divert the game into schoolground humour.)

Filthy is pretty standard in meaning. That trait was pre-authored, even if you didn't have all the details worked out. You took that pre-authored trait and used it to enhance the game, just like I do with other pre-authored content.

When I use the Forgotten Realms, it's full of pre-authored content. However, the vast majority of that content is vague enough that what that pre-authored content means for the scene can almost always go in multiple different directions. Pre-authored content is not a straight jacket. It's an addition that allows the DM options that add more depth to a scene.

I'm not sure if Maxperson is suggesting that I might narrate a successful check as coming to the waterhole, finding it fouled, but then purifying it in some fashion - but that would, in my view, be contrary to the spirit of the game: introducing a complication of that sort only to narrate it away again seems not to add anything to play except GM verbiage.

Why would that be contrary to the spirit of the game? A success is a success, regardless of how you get there. They wanted a clean waterhole and they got one. You could go either way and still be in the spirit of the game. Also, GM verbiage itself is positive for the game. As for what it would add, it adds information for the PCs. It lets them know that there are fouled waterholes around and warns them that they can't count on the next one being fresh. It alerts them to the presence of an enemy who is deliberately fouling drinking water. And so on.

 

[pemerton]

What happens when these beliefs are concluded? Does the campaign end or does the PC keep generating new beliefs (goals)?

In BW, the expectation is that some Beliefs will change over the course of play, but that certain core Beliefs (or, at least, Beliefs around certain core relationships or similar subject-matters) will emerge as the focus of play and that, when those are resolved, the campaign is done.

For instance, in my BW game it seems likely that, if some resolution is reached in respect of the possessed brother, the story of at least some of the PCs will be done. That said, there is always the possibility that, during play, some new focus will emerge which can sustain the dramatic participation of those PCs. Maybe something linking them in to the elves, perhaps.

What if you couldn't marry the two beliefs or the PCs didn't prefer it, how would the session play out?

Not as well as it should. Part of the skill of being a player in this sort of game is finding ways to hook your PC into others' PCs. FATE builds this into its PC generation system. In BW, it is not a formal part of the system but the books talk a lot about how to go about it.

how does a GM manage 5 beliefs all intermingling and having to satisfy the unique Dramatic Needs of 5 PCs in one 4-hour setting?

Well, that's part of the skill of GMing this sort of game. At this level of abstract description, it's no different from the skill that Monte Cook talks about in the 3E DMG, of being able to manage the consequences for exploratory-type play of high level D&D spells like Commune, Teleport etc. All GMing, whatever the approach, needs some skill if it's to be done well.

Getting more into the nitty-gritty, a given session might be more likely to focus on one PC rather than another. So in the second-to-last session, the elven princess got a lot of "screen time" as she dealt with the (alleged) death cultist priest. In our most recent session, the focus was more on all the other PCs, especially the mage and the sorcerer-assassin, while the princess got comparatively little "screen time". If I was running a one-off, or for strangers, I would put more effort into trying to even these things out, but I'm GMing for friends, who are in for the long haul and so are going to cut some slack in relation to session-by-session variation in whose PC is the focus of the action.

But it's also part of my job to frame situations in a way that create overlapping engagement from multiple angles. Eg the dark elf with the mace relates to both elven PCs, plus the mage PC; and by using a rockfall in the Abor-Alz, he creates an opportunity for the shaman PC (introduced in that session) who can summon spirits of the foothills. Or the (alleged) death cult priest who is carrying wedding gifts from Urnst to Hardby, for the marriage of Jabal the Red and the Gynarch of Hardby: this connects to the sorcerer-assassin (who wants to rob the wedding gifts, and who has a bad relationship with another evil mage who trades in suspicious tomes), to the elven ronin sworn to oppose evil, to the elven princess who wants to learn more about the forthcoming wedding (and who is also a natural point of focus for upper class NPCs), and to the mage PC, who has a prior history with Jabal (the intended recipient of the wedding gifts).

Sometimes it misfires - I imagine most GMs have had that experience at least on occasion. As I've posted just above this post, I'm not sure that the dark elf, or the dark naga, have quite worked out as I had hoped they might. Maybe they'll somehow become reinvigorated within the fiction, or maybe they'll just fade away - it's too early to tell.

How do you translate this into 4e? How do your 4e story-arcs start?

At the start of my 4e game I told the players that each PC had to have (i) at least one loyalty written into his/her backstory, and (ii) a reason to be ready to fight goblins. (ii) was because I wanted to use the module Night's Dark Terror, which opens with a goblin assault on a forest homestead. (i) produced a Corellon-worshipper, three Raven Queen devotees (one of whom was also one of the last surviving refugees from the (one-time) city of Entekash (an invention of that player), which had been sacked by evil humanoids) and a dwarven stalwart wanting to prove himself.

These loyalties have all remained central to the game. The dwarven PC went on to become the most powerful cleric of Moradin in the gameworld, and an Eternal Defender who has now (in our last 4e session) taken on the mantel of the god of pain and imprisonment (whom the PCs had earlier killed). The PCs - even those who don't profess to serve the Raven Queen - have mostly done her bidding very well, killing her enemies Lolth and Orcus and giving her a high degree of influence on the Feywild by bringing the Winter Fey under he sway. By killing Lolth the PCs also freed the drow, while by killing Torog they rendered the Underdark uninhabitable - so the drow have now returned to the surface and can be welcomed back to the fold of Corellon.

And can Gardmore Abbey be played at your table? I don't think so unless you blend it as part of the PC background/belief and then only fractionally.

I don't own it and haven't read it. But my suspicion is that it is not well-suited, which is one reason why I didn't buy it, despite my curiosity about the Deck of Many Things.

When I use a module I typically use (or adapt) maps and NPCs, and bits of general backstory, but otherwise treat is as a collection of ideas for situations or scenes to use in my game. I don't expect to play through the module systematically and entirely.

 

[pemerton]

Filthy is pretty standard in meaning.

At least in Australian English, the most natural association with "filthy" involves dirt and a lack of cleanliness, rather than habits around defecation.

That trait was pre-authored, even if you didn't have all the details worked out. You took that pre-authored trait and used it to enhance the game, just like I do with other pre-authored content.

I don't see how, by pointing out that your pre-authorship is not total - that you work out details during play - you think you're showing some sort of disagreement with me.

My point is that I worked out the details of the fiction during play. That's what not pre-authoring means!

Why would that be contrary to the spirit of the game? A success is a success, regardless of how you get there. They wanted a clean waterhole and they got one. You could go either way and still be in the spirit of the game. Also, GM verbiage itself is positive for the game. As for what it would add, it adds information for the PCs. It lets them know that there are fouled waterholes around and warns them that they can't count on the next one being fresh. It alerts them to the presence of an enemy who is deliberately fouling drinking water. And so on.

On the issue of information - this is predicated on an assumption that there is otherwise secret backstory (eg the presence of fouled waterholes) which the players get an advantage from knowing. That's not a factor in my game. The point of information is to drive the action in a dramatic and thematic sense - eg by learning that the priest might be a death-cultist, the players (as their PCs) now have a reason to oppose him - not to provide a tactial or logistical advantage.

On the issue of "spirit of the game" - have you read the BW books? I can tell you that the sort of narration you suggest would be contrary to the spirit of the game. On a successful check, the player gets what s/he wanted out of the action declaration. The GM isn't free to just add in additional narration. S/he might flesh something out that the player has left underspecified, where the fleshing out adds additional interesting colour or motivation; but s/he couldn't add in an additional complication plus a narration of the PC overcoming that. Any complication must have already been part of the framing of the scene, and hence of the check.

EDIT: Something of a meta-comment. From other threads, plus parts of this thread, it's clear that I don't approach GMing and RPGing in the same way that you do. We have different views on the role and importance of alignment, of GM backstory, of GM fudging, etc. So I'm a bit confused as to why you seem to be trying to show that the way I create and manage the shared fiction is no different from how you do it.

 

[Maxperson]

At least in Australian English, the most natural association with "filthy" involves dirt and a lack of cleanliness, rather than habits around defecation.

Even if the most natural usage involved dirt and a lack of cleanliness, there are still other usages.

I don't see how, by pointing out that your pre-authorship is not total - that you work out details during play - you think you're showing some sort of disagreement with me.

My point is that I worked out the details of the fiction during play. That's what not pre-authoring means!

Pre-authoring means authoring things before the scene. If I pre-author the fouled waterhole, that doesn't limit me to one way to use it, or that I even know for sure how it will be used. Pre-authorship does not have to be total in order for it to be pre-authorship. That's my point. You seem to be thinking that pre-authoring involves having a set advance plan that will happen no matter what in an exacting manner that isn't open to change.

I'm just pointing out that pre-authoring is not like that and that you can still run a game similar to how you run it AND use pre-authored content at the same time.

On the issue of information - this is predicated on an assumption that there is otherwise secret backstory (eg the presence of fouled waterholes) which the players get an advantage from knowing. That's not a factor in my game. The point of information is to drive the action in a dramatic and thematic sense - eg by learning that the priest might be a death-cultist, the players (as their PCs) now have a reason to oppose him - not to provide a tactial or logistical advantage.

If the players cannot learn from a fouled waterhole that there are possibly enemies around that are fouling waterholes and/or that they might run across more fouled waterholes, then your method of gaming also has limitations. You've just chosen different limitations than those provided by pre-authoring.

On the issue of "spirit of the game" - have you read the BW books? I can tell you that the sort of narration you suggest would be contrary to the spirit of the game. On a successful check, the player gets what s/he wanted out of the action declaration. The GM isn't free to just add in additional narration. S/he might flesh something out that the player has left underspecified, where the fleshing out adds additional interesting colour or motivation; but s/he couldn't add in an additional complication plus a narration of the PC overcoming that. Any complication must have already been part of the framing of the scene, and hence of the check.

Since I don't know what BW stands for, I'm going to go with no

However, your paragraph shows where the misunderstanding is coming from. What you are describing has nothing to do with the spirit of the game. The game is D&D and what I am saying is right in line with the game's spirit. What you are describing is an issue dealing with the spirit of the playstyle. You have chosen a playstyle to use in the game of D&D that would be violated by a DM narrating the scene like that.

EDIT: Something of a meta-comment. From other threads, plus parts of this thread, it's clear that I don't approach GMing and RPGing in the same way that you do. We have different views on the role and importance of alignment, of GM backstory, of GM fudging, etc. So I'm a bit confused as to why you seem to be trying to show that the way I create and manage the shared fiction is no different from how you do it.

That's not what I'm trying to show. I'm trying to show that the way I do it, in this case pre-authorship, is different from your portrayal of what I do. Pre-authorship is not the bane you make it out to be. Indeed, that I pre-author and you stated...

"I don't see how, by pointing out that your pre-authorship is not total - that you work out details during play - you think you're showing some sort of disagreement with me."

...seems to indicate that you realize that pre-authorship doesn't in and of itself doesn't run completely contrary to how you do things.

 

[Imaro]

EDIT: [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ... moving forward can you not put multiple posters/answers in one post, it makes it extrememly hard to answer what is posted as a direct response to my own questions, thoughts, etc. If not​I can respect that but it means our conversation will probably die off as it's too much work splicing out the necessary posts to reply. Thanks.

The terminology isn't that important to me except as a way to get at certain techniques and approaches to play.

While terminology may not be important to you personally...I think the terminology is pretty important in correctly conveying your thoughts, and especially the difference in concepts to others. In fact without an understanding of terminology I'm not sure how you even begin to have a discussion...

I hope I've been fairly clear about these. On the positive side, the main thing I want is for the player's, via action declarations, to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires - which means, within the fiction, that their PCs achieve things that they want.

I think most games strive to achieve this, whether those desires are authored by the players, part of an agreed upon premise or selected from those available in a sandbox. In fact I'm trying to determine what type of game actively wants for players not to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires via action declarations...

On the negative side, the main thing I don't want is a GM's secret backstory to be a block or constraint on action resolution that the players can't overcome, which dooms their action declarations to a futility that isn't known in advance, and perhaps is not even known after the event (if the players don't know that the secret backstory explains why they failed).

Again... inevitable at a certain point if a campaign is to maintain a semblance of logical cohesion... it is only the scope/granularity/scale that is in question.

These are what I describe as a game that is not grounded in pre-authoring. I regard that as quite different from GM prep - generating ideas, statting up NPCs or monsters, etc. The latter isn't any sort of block or constraint on action declaration and action resolution.

I still don't get a clear understanding of the difference... and I disagree, the moment the GM gets it in his head he wants to use one of the things he's statted up outside of play... whether he acknowledges it or not he's putting constraints on action declaration... such as pre-determining an NPC will be an antagonist... or even that on the next failure he will find a way to use this particular idea, NPC, etc. It's not in the moment at that point it's what I understand to be a pre-authoring of the fiction...

Because in my games geography tends not to be at the heart of play - it's just a means to an end - it doesn't impede my goals (described above) to use pre-drawn maps. Though there will always be flexibility in the details (eg I need to be able to drop an oasis or a pyramid into the Bright Desert without fussing exactly over where it is in relation to exactly how many miles the PCs travelled in exactly what direction). At a table which, in general, shared my outlook, but did put geography more at the centre of things, my use of pre-drawn maps might be too much pre-authoring.

So a pre-drawn map is pre-authoring... even if certain areas of it haven't been used in the fiction yet? Or is it only pre-authored once revealed? Because it seems to be dancing on a razor thin line very similar to the prep you claimed before was no pre-authoring. What do you see as the major differences between the two?

On the other hand, in my game NPCs, gods, politics, and other socio-cosmological matters do tend to be at the heart of play, and so I use less pre-authored material in this respect. I might come up with an idea for an NPC, or a god, and even write up a candidate backstory, but this will not be a constraint on adjudication in the form of secret backstory, and is not a determinate part of the fiction until revealed in play either via scene framing or action resolution.

If the backstory of an NPC has no effect in actual play... why write it up?

For instance, in my BW game what are the precise motivations and allegiances of Dame Katerina of Urnst, who is travelling in the company of her confessor Father Simon, who in turn is very reasonably suspected by the PCs of being a death cultist? It's clear that she is loyal to her confessor - that has been established in play, as part of my narration around the episode in which the PCs accused him of being a cultist - but is that because she's also a death cultist, or rather she has been duped by him? I have some ideas on how this could play out, and where it might lead, but they're not part of the fiction and certainly not something that I would use to adjudicate action resolution involving her.

In my 4e game, the precise motivations and desires of the Raven Queen are in a similar state - very important to the PCs (and the players) but not yet entirely known, though there are strong (and differing) views from various PCs. This is likely to come to a head soon, perhaps in our next session of that campaign.

You keep using the word... "entirely" and I have to assume there is a reason for that. Does this mean there are aspects of these NPC's and gods that are pre-authored. As an example would it be possible for a player through action declaration to make the Raven Queen the goddess of daisies as opposed to death or is the fact that she is the godess of death a pre-authored fact?

For me, part of the skill of GMing is teasing out these details via play, in a way which feeds on the players' suspicions and inclinations, and allows them to engage (via their PCs) and test their (potentially conflicting) views, without (i) bringing things to a climax too early, or (ii) letting things drag on beyond their ability to sustain dramatic weight.

So in your game are the PC's ever surprised? I don't mean one particular PC but the PC's as a whole... or does everything eventually work out to point to exactly what one of the PC's suspected... If that is the case I'm not sure I would enjoy a game like this.

With the dark elf in my BW game, I feel that I could have done a better job in this respect - as is shown, in part, by the fact that one of the players, during our Sunday session, predicted that the dark elf would return in some form or other, perhaps re-animated as an undead. I'm not sure about that - BW tends to treat undeath as a purely human condition - but I am thinking about ways to somehow bring the dark elf back into focus even though he's dead - for instance, if the elven ronin tried a Circles check and then failed, the failure could take the form of the appearance of an NPC who knew both the ronin and the dark elf before their respective (thought somewhat different) falls from being honourable soldiers of the White Tower.

I would think that certainly counts as having an idea, and by some measures must count as preparing for the game, but it's not any sort of pre-authoring of anything. No fiction is being established by me having that idea.

IMO You're pre-authoring a failure state to introduce this new form of the PC... just as a DM running a sandbox could state there's a 40% chance he comes back as an undead... but it's not pre-authoring anything because he didn't actually put him in the fiction or not yet...

An idea, on its own, is not part of the fiction. Nor is a page of stats. Its raw material that might or might not be incorporated into the fiction, in some form or other or not at all.

In the case of the dark elf, for instance, it was only at the last minute that I crossed out the entry for sword skill on the stat sheet I'd written up and wrote in "mace" - so that when he turned up wielding the nickel-silver mace he would be able to attack the PCs with it.

That sheet also has some notes on it about backstory for the dark elf, but none of that conjectured backstory actually came out in play. So from my point of view the backstory remains highly open (and in this post I've set out some ideas I have for working it out in play) though it will have to include some seminal moment in which the elf was turned from Grief to Spite (which is the crux of being a Dark Elf in BW - hence the relevance of Eol and Maeglin from the Silmarillion).

I find the fact that you changed his weapon skill minor in the extreme (and him having the silver mace minor as well)... the fact that you statted him out, devised a way for him to enter the fiction, admitted you had a desire to use him as an antagonist outside of play, set his appearance up in an antagonistic manner, and so on... much more important than a minor change to a skill or the weapon he was carrying. And again why write backstory except to use it?

The dark elf had no established backstory until he appeared in play (and as I've noted above, that backstory itself is not very richly established - by the rules of the game, he underwent some experience that turned his Grief to Spite; and it's been established in play that he was serving a dark naga in trying to hurt the PCs; but that's it).

He had no location until he appeared in play - at which point he was established as living in the general vicinity of the ruined tower.

His most important possession (the mace) and his weapon skill (mace, not sword) were not established until after he had appeared in play - and were established as responses to a failed check by a player, and concerned an item which wouldn't have been part of the fiction but for being built by one of the players into the backstory and aspirations of his PC.

What fiction, exactly, has been pre-authored here? All I can see is that there are dark elves in this world, who are spiteful people who might try and hurt others. Even the forms this spiteful hurt actually took in the fiction - fouling a waterhole, stealing a mace - weren't pre-authored.

The fact that a Dark Elf... as opposed to a regular elf, a half-elf or whatever appeared... the fact that he was antagonistic... his backstory (which you said was not used but was still created, and as I asked before if you never use the stuff... why create it?) In other words you pre-authored this antagonist, it wasn't created by one of your players it was created by you...

Successful navigation through a desert includes finding water. When the check is failed, the intent is not realised. I decided that the task had succeeded (the PCs found the waterhole) but intent failed - the waterhole was fouled.

The dark elf that I had written up had the Filthy trait, but I hadn't given much prior thought to what that might mean. When I described the recently-fouled waterhole to my players they were suitably disgusted, and moreso when they worked out from the footprints that it was an elf. (Which I was glad of - I was worried that it might divert the game into schoolground humour.)

If the navigation check had succeeded but I nevertheless described the waterhole as fouled, and hence needing more effort to purify it (or find another, or whatever) then I would have been vitiating the basic rule of the game, which is that when a check succeeds the player (and PC) realises his/her intention - in this case, to navigate safely and successfully through the desert.

I'm not sure if Maxperson is suggesting that I might narrate a successful check as coming to the waterhole, finding it fouled, but then purifying it in some fashion - but that would, in my view, be contrary to the spirit of the game: introducing a complication of that sort only to narrate it away again seems not to add anything to play except GM verbiage.

But finding a fouled water hole does not equate to... "Did not navigate safely and successfully through the desert"... it equates to found a fouled waterhole in a desert. So I don't see it as vitiating the basic rule (at least as you are presenting them here) of the game.

I think you could narrate a successful check and still reinforce or reiterate on the dangers found in a desert. It gives context, it gives color and it's actually pretty close to how most stories of heroic fantasy narrate such trips (as opposed to the hero not encontering any dangers whatsoever) and can provide consistency (and agency) for failure states that may happen if they traverse the dessert again... they've grown to know at least some of the dangers that lurk in a desert. Personally I don't see it as GM verbiage... but then I also suspect this has alot to do with not just your DM style but the type of players you have as well.