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GMs: Guiding Morals in GMing
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8989500" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>We both care a lot about player input. We just have very different ideas about how to empower players so that they have real agency. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed, and have always agreed with this claim. But I think you need to pay a lot more attention to your counter-example, because while I agree your counter-example is real, I think the nature of your counter-example utterly destroys the larger argument you are trying to construct.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed. There can be procedures in place such that a GM that finds themself in the precarious situation of not having preexisting myth to guide them can still as much as possible reduce the metagaming that is inevitable at that point and which reduces the amount of whim that goes into their GM's ruling. And what's important about your counter-example is that it involves there being an alternative to pre-existing myth that is also preexisting and constrains the choices of the GM in a way similar to what preexisting myth would do. For example, you've brought up the use of random tables to fall back on when doing myth creation such that the GM's whim is constrained by fortune. </p><p></p><p>In my own play I tend to rely on preexisting myth (my notes) and if my notes are silent then I tend to fall back onto a random table if one exists, and if no table exists or is practical to use at the time, then I tend to fall back onto baseline demographics that I preestablished for the setting as representative of the average thing in the setting. For example, in my current Star Wars game, I outlined what default normal NPCs would be like so that if the PC's randomly get into combat or conflict with something or someone unexpectedly, then I just utilize a generic stat block for whatever they've gotten in combat with. And over time as I'm running the game, the number of stat blocks just builds up through all the prep I've done, so that I have more and more examples of what a generic X is probably like. </p><p></p><p>But notice that the sort of games and processes of play that are encouraging illusionism as the duct tape of gaming are not also big on things like random encounter tables and simulationist demographics and braining storming out "how the world works" and applying a uniform game rules as physics type simulation to everything and everyone uniformly. Games that have open ended "success with complications" or "fail forward" type mechanics and where GMs are encouraged to go "no myth" aren't instructing the GM to fall back on random tables or on demographics, but to explicitly utilize their own whim and own notions about what is best for the story to riff on the situation freely. And yes, there are advantages to doing that, and I'm not saying that that is always wrong, but I am saying it's not a panacea and doesn't fulfill all the aesthetics play, and notably does not in fact empower player agency in the way that is often claimed by that same system. </p><p></p><p>Likewise the influencers and authors pushing Illusionism as the solution to the burden of GM preparation are not coming forward with the fact that the process they are outlining is how to manage a well-run railroad. They aren't really getting into what you are trading away when you adopt their process of play, and as such IMO, aren't teaching GMs how to manage these different concerns using different techniques. They are just pretending the only tool you need in the toolbox is illusionism, which is probably true if the only thing you care about is the GM staying in full control of the story at all times.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8989500, member: 4937"] We both care a lot about player input. We just have very different ideas about how to empower players so that they have real agency. Agreed, and have always agreed with this claim. But I think you need to pay a lot more attention to your counter-example, because while I agree your counter-example is real, I think the nature of your counter-example utterly destroys the larger argument you are trying to construct. Agreed. There can be procedures in place such that a GM that finds themself in the precarious situation of not having preexisting myth to guide them can still as much as possible reduce the metagaming that is inevitable at that point and which reduces the amount of whim that goes into their GM's ruling. And what's important about your counter-example is that it involves there being an alternative to pre-existing myth that is also preexisting and constrains the choices of the GM in a way similar to what preexisting myth would do. For example, you've brought up the use of random tables to fall back on when doing myth creation such that the GM's whim is constrained by fortune. In my own play I tend to rely on preexisting myth (my notes) and if my notes are silent then I tend to fall back onto a random table if one exists, and if no table exists or is practical to use at the time, then I tend to fall back onto baseline demographics that I preestablished for the setting as representative of the average thing in the setting. For example, in my current Star Wars game, I outlined what default normal NPCs would be like so that if the PC's randomly get into combat or conflict with something or someone unexpectedly, then I just utilize a generic stat block for whatever they've gotten in combat with. And over time as I'm running the game, the number of stat blocks just builds up through all the prep I've done, so that I have more and more examples of what a generic X is probably like. But notice that the sort of games and processes of play that are encouraging illusionism as the duct tape of gaming are not also big on things like random encounter tables and simulationist demographics and braining storming out "how the world works" and applying a uniform game rules as physics type simulation to everything and everyone uniformly. Games that have open ended "success with complications" or "fail forward" type mechanics and where GMs are encouraged to go "no myth" aren't instructing the GM to fall back on random tables or on demographics, but to explicitly utilize their own whim and own notions about what is best for the story to riff on the situation freely. And yes, there are advantages to doing that, and I'm not saying that that is always wrong, but I am saying it's not a panacea and doesn't fulfill all the aesthetics play, and notably does not in fact empower player agency in the way that is often claimed by that same system. Likewise the influencers and authors pushing Illusionism as the solution to the burden of GM preparation are not coming forward with the fact that the process they are outlining is how to manage a well-run railroad. They aren't really getting into what you are trading away when you adopt their process of play, and as such IMO, aren't teaching GMs how to manage these different concerns using different techniques. They are just pretending the only tool you need in the toolbox is illusionism, which is probably true if the only thing you care about is the GM staying in full control of the story at all times. [/QUOTE]
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