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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9608243" data-attributes="member: 42582">This thread is about identifying and analysing GM fiat as a way of establishing the shared fiction in RPGing. My experience is that, often, many cases of GM fiat go unnoticed, or at least unremarked upon. Here's one example, that I posted in a recent thread:In this post I want to present another example, and say a bit about it. My example is <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2619222-alarm" target="_blank">the Alarm spell, from D&D 5e</a>:Casting Time: 1 Minute Range/Area: 30 ft. (20 ft. ) Duration: 8 Hours You set an alarm against intrusion. Choose a door, a window, or an area within range that is no larger than a 20-foot Cube. Until the spell ends, an alarm alerts you whenever a creature touches or enters the warded area. When you cast the spell, you can designate creatures that won’t set off the alarm. You also choose whether the alarm is audible or mental: Audible Alarm. The alarm produces the sound of a handbell for 10 seconds within 60 feet of the warded area. Mental Alarm. You are alerted by a mental ping if you are within 1 mile of the warded area. This ping awakens you if you’re asleep.On its fact, this spell looks like something that a player could use to help control the risk environment for their PC. But on closer analysis, it turns almost entirely on GM decision-making that is significantly unconstrained.For instance,* Does the player's character have an uninterrupted minute of time to cast the spell? * Does any potential intruder come within 8 hours, or do they turn up (say) 8 hours and 5 minutes after the spell was cast? * Does a potential intruder come within the warded area, or open the warded portal? Or do they sneak around the warded portal, or inspect/attack from outside the area? * If the caster (and friends) are asleep, and are woken by this spell, how much can the intruder accomplish while they rouse themselves?All of this depends on GM decision-making. That decision-making is largely unconstrained, except by some pretty loose notions of "fair play". By choosing to use the spell, does a player actually affect the risk to their position in the game? Does this happen in any way other than by invoking the GM's notion of "fair play"? Perhaps if the GM is relying on a very precise timeline for introducing threats, the 1 minute and/or 8 hour issue might be obviated. But that still leaves the other issues.Here is a superficially similar spell from a different game - Torchbearer 2e's Aetherial Premonition:The caster sets an aetherial alarm in the Otherworld to provide warning against approaching danger. AETHERIAL PREMONITION EFFECT This spell wards a camp, house or the like. It creates the sound of a ringing bell in the event of trouble. Cast this spell as you enter camp (before rolling for camp events) and the spell grants +1 to the camp events roll. The watch in camp are granted +1D to tests to avert disaster.The fiction of this spell is very much the same as that of the D&D Alarm spell. But the gameplay is different:* The player is permitted to have their PC attempt to cast the spell as part of the declaration that the party is camping - if the roll to cast fails, then the GM might narrate that as an interruption of the casting, but there is no unilateral power the GM to narrate some interruption analogous to something disturbing the caster during the 1 minute casting of Alarm; * The way the use of the spell affects the risk to which the player's character is exposed is clear, and not subject to GM decision-making: when the GM makes the camp event roll, as part of the process of determining what happens during the camp phase (which can include resting in town - "camp phase" and "camp event" are semi-technical terms), the player benefits from a +1, which reduces the likelihood of bad results and increases the likelihood of good results; * If disaster strikes (due to a poor camp event roll), the benefit of being alerted is clear: the watch gain a bonus die in their pool when they declare some action in responseIt's possible, in TB2e, for a wily intruder to avoid the alarm, but that would be a narration adopted after the camp event roll is made and an unhappy event results despite the bonus. And it is possible for the watch to be too distracted or drowsy or whatever to effectively respond, despite the alarm; but again, that would be a narration adopted after their test to avert disaster fails, notwithstanding the +1D bonus.The GM is not at liberty just to narrate things in such a way that the spell makes no difference.Some RPGers might prefer the GM fiat-free Torchbearer 2e approach; others might prefer the approach of the Alarm spell, which puts some parameters around the GM's narration (eg the GM can't just narrate someone wandering into the warded area 4 hours after the spell is cast without also narrating that the alarm is triggered) but otherwise leaves the GM free to introduce a threat, or not, that does or does not trigger the alarm, as they see fit.But I think the difference between the two approaches is clear.</blockquote>

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