the point of any spell or skill or rule is not to give a player the ability to dictate any part of the narrative.
it's for the DM to decide what's in the world and how people behave.
I think it's obvious that the truth of these claims is highly variable across playstyles. For instance, it is clear that Gygax thought the point of the combat mechanics was to enable the players to help dictate a certain part of the narrative - namely, who is dead and who alive. (That is the nature of a wargame, after all, and the combat mechanics of Gygaxian D&D were conceived of along the lines of a wargame.)
I think Gygax also thought that the purpose of divination magic was comparable - hence he included failure chances in the Augury, Contact Other Plane and Divination spells. Those failure chances would be completely otiose if the GM was always free to disregard them and give any old response to the spell casting depending on what s/he thought was "good for the story". If the spell does not fail then the player, by casting it, has dictated part of the narrative - the GM is obliged to provide true information in accordance with the spell parameters.
I think the social rules in Gygax's DMG are similarly intended to allow the players to dictate the narrative - otherwise, what would be the point of Gygax's comments that a skilled player, by treating his/her henchmen and hirelings well, can ensure loyalty?
The searching rules are more ambiguous, because there are conflicting indications as to how exactly the mechanics are meant to work, and exactly how they relate to free roleplaying of searches based around fictional positioning of the searching characters. But even when we turn our attention to free roleplaying based on fictional positioning, it is clear that the players in a Gygaxian game have authority to dictate some elements of "what is in the world". For instane, if the GM describes the antechamber in which the players are waiting to meet the king, and tells the playes are served cups of tea, it is open to a player to say "I throw my cup to the ground", thereby brining it about that the gameworld contains one less cup full of tea and one more broken cup and puddle on the floor.
What about charm magic? When you look at Gygax's discussion of charm magic in his DMG, as well as the example in the Suggestion spell in the PHB, it is clear that this sort of magic does permit the players to dictate elements of the narrative, although it is also clear that even back in the late 70s the spells were headache-causing - hence the attempt to put parameters around these spells (which would have been better off included in the PHB, it seems to me). I would think this is mostly because the spells were designed initially for dealing with dungeon encounters - they grantted (i) an alternative to blowing things up with fireballs, and (ii) a way of recruiting extra muscle - but as the scope of the game expanded to include social and political dimensions to play they became obviously overpowered.
It is only in what I characterised upthread as "storyteller" play - which appears as the default D&D playstyle in the 2nd ed rulebooks - that the players have no role in shaping the narrative via deployment of the mechanics. The mechanics become more like another source of colour, rather than methods for resolving situations so as to determine ingame consequences.
I think the gaming culture overemphasizes player choice. The DM knows what's going on in the whole world, and he determines the tone of the game and the goals of the campaign. Soliciting player input can be great, but it's important that he make sure that no one is blatantly outside of his vision for the campaign
This is also very playstyle dependent. For instance, consider the advice in Burning Wheel (revised rulebook p 265):
When setting up a Burning Wheel game, the GM and the players come to an agreement about what this story/scenario is going to be all about. Essentially, they decide what type of game they want to play. Get all the players and GM on board with this concept. . .
Get this game concept out in the open right of. Sometimes, players will just have a concept for a character he [sic] wants to play. . . Pay attention to them.
<example about Danny, a player, wanting to play a lizardman priest>
There wasn't any Faith in my original concept, but I immediately modified it so as to incorporate Danny's ideas.
There is no reason that D&D can't be played in this fashion also: ie the group collectively determines "the tone of the game and the goals of the campaign". I would even go further and say that, in general, I prefer it when
the players determine the goals of the campaign, which follow from the backstory and goals that they come up with for their PCs.
the DM resolves it, drawing on a body of information about what's going on that is much broader than what the players will ever be aware of.
This is the "GM's secret backstory" that I talked quite a bit about upthread.
The greater the influence of this secret backstory on action resolution, the less control the players have over the consequences of their choices. Hence the general tendency, in indie play, to reduce or eliminate GM secret backstory as part of the contribution to action resolution. Instead, it contributes to scene-framing (both story elements of scene-framing and mechanical elements of scene-framing).
the DM's motivation is not to oppose the player. His motivation is to create a world, populate it with characters, and play out a plot of some sort.
I guess it's pretty obvious that this is not the role of the GM in "indie" RPGing. Quite a way upthread I quoted
a good account of the GM's role in that style of play:
One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . .
The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end. . .
The GM . . . needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).
I guess, looking at the wizard example above, is why bother? Why would you put a wizard in the town where the players can sell their loot, and then have the wizard unavailable and then be coy about why he's unavailable? Isn't that a whole lot of work for nothing?
How do you define nothing? It's nothing in terms of the players accomplishing their goal or the plot moving forward. However, what stuff like this does is establish that the wizard is not a plot device or a tool for the players to use. He is a person, who has motivations and activities completely independent of the PCs.
To me, one of the big differences between a beginner and an advanced DM is the ability to strategically put in red herrings
The idea of "red herrings" - particularly in the form of episodes of play that might take up an hour or more at the table, and serve no purpose other than to "establsh that [a certain NPC] is not a plot devie or a tool" - strike me as highly playstyle dependent. I wouldn't play in a game that had this sort of stuff going on in it. And I certainly wouldn't introduce it into my own game. As per my quote above, I regard my role as GM being to go where the action is: if there is no action (as per Hussar's absent wizard) then I don't go there. And if my players go there, I simply say yes - they sell their loot and play then moves on to something more interesting.
Conversely, if for some reason selling the loot
is part of the action - eg they're trying to sell a stolen artefact - then I don't just say yes, but I don't just say no either. That's when the other half of the slogan comes into play - we start rolling the dice.
I don't know whether it is a bunch of work for nothing, a plotline in the making (perhaps we can locate this wizard, or alternatively maybe we should seek another buyer for our loot), future foreshadowing or something else.
Here, again, we see distinctive playstyle preferences that are not universally shared. For instance, there is the idea that there can be "a plotlline in the making" which is mostly, perhaps completely, independent of player choices and priorities. I don't run my games that way.
The other assumption I make is that the rules define the entire world.
<snip>
Overcoming the social structures of the world would require a player be either incredibly powerful or incredibly clever.
I do not make this assumption - I am yet to see an RPG whose rules were remotely adequate for handling this sort of sociological explanatory burden, even if I though it was desirable. I tend to stick to the approach of the fantasy fiction with which I am familiar - Arthurian romance, Tolkien, REH, fairy stories - and treat the world and its history as a backdrop established via genre-governed stipulation, and not as the focus of play.
I would think that a sensible player would assume that a powerful NPC probably has defenses in place that prevent anyone from enchanting people close to him
I think I'm a sensible player. I'm a sensible player who has also watched Return of the Jedi. So I would probably think that charming an associate or servant of a powerful NPC (eg Bib Fortuna) was a clever and genre-appropriate way to secure an audience with a powerful NPC.
It certainly doesn't strike me as remotely abusive.
Funny how we don’t criticize adversarial players who assume the GM is always out to get them, and constantly waste time in efforts to screw over the GM (often and/or the other players as well).
if the players suddenly come up with a potentially disruptive idea, a DM is going to react defensively and preserve the status quo. He should, lest the players fool him into letting them doing something game-breaking.
Hussar's experience is one of mean DMs trying to abuse the players to make them play his way. The problem is, he's never been in the position of having a player try to run roughshod over the DM, to the detriment both the game and the other players. Trust me, it's a pain.
<snip>
we get players robbing the local magic shop with their first-level characters because the DM was inexperienced enough to realize that might happen, and wasn't prepared for it.
I don't know if "1st level PCs robbing the local magic shop" was what Ahnehnois and N'raac had in mind when they talk about "adversarial players" and "disruptive ideas", but if so then in my view their advice for dealing with the issue - the suggestion that you can stop that sort of "disruptive play" via GMing techniques like secret backstory and heavy-handed GM force - is completely misguided. That sort of "disruptive play" is a social issue - the analogue of tipping over the board when loosing, or keeping cards up one's sleeve - and needs to be dealt with at the social level.
In my own experience it generally results from a mismatch between player and GM expectations (including players who aren't actually interested in RPGing at all). One form of such mismatch I've seen on multiple occasions results from GM deceit - the GM explains to the new player that "in a roleplaying game you can attempt anything you want" but in fact the GM doesn't believe that at all, and has a very narrow conception of permissible actions for PCs which s/he then goes on to enforce via a combination of overt force and illusionist GMing. The "disruptive play" is a form of player retaliation.
If the range of player actions that the GM will permit is in fact rather narrow, in my view the GM should be upfront about that.
It amazes me that some people have less trust in their own friends than in Hasbro.
I generally trust Hasbro - or, rather, the WotC game designers - to come up with effective RPG rules, given that that is their profession. None of my friends is a professional game designer, and so I don't trust them to the same extent.
There are cultural factors within WotC/TSR - in particular, a very great reluctance to candidly discuss the play experience the rules are intended and expected to produce - which put limits on my trust. Game designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws, and even ex-WoTCers publishing independently (eg Tweet and Heinsoo with 13th Age) are more trustworthy, because more candid about what their game is trying to achieve and the techniques whereby it does that.
Are there any data that back up your rather radical and unique perspective? If so, you've never presented any.
I don't find [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s perspective at all radical, nor remotely unique. Even if we put to side whole websites (eg The Forge) dedicated to designing RPGs along the lines that Hussar describes, there is an edition of D&D built explicitly along such lines (4e), plus play traditions along those lines that extend back at least to the mid-1980s (I know that because I was playing in more-or-less the style Hussar describes in the second half of 1986).
I have never read or played the James Bond RPG (published in 1983) but it clearly had player-narrative mechanics in the form of Hero Points. The OGL Conan RPG - mechaincally a 3E variant - has overt player-narrative mechanics in the form of Fate Points. The idea that the players can make meaningful changes in the gameworld via deploying their mechanical resources, and hence that the gameworld should be designed with this possibility in mind, was I think taken for granted in the earliest approaches to D&D, and is stated expressly in GMing advice from the late 70s and early 80s found in early White Dwarf magazines. These all indicate that there is nothing odd about regarding the content of the gameworld as being something that the GM alone does not have sole purview over.
As to whether or not D&D is a world-building engine, I have never used it as such, and the closest approximation to that approach I can think of from 1st ed AD&D is in the two Survival Guides. Perhaps this is another idea that has its origins in 2nd ed AD&D.
