D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[andreszarta]

I think this is the claim that is hard to swallow. A text of any significant length without any ambiguities is in itself basicaly inconceivable to me. And even if such en incredible feat of language was acheived, human errors like misreading, incorrect memory and pushing the limits is bound to cause situations in actual play where two persons are having different idea about the rules of the game.

This is reasonable to expect! I think what @pemerton is saying is that, to this day, there are no major outstanding rules uncertainties in AW, as any that have arisen before have been ironed out over the years through community discussions and revisions to the rules. Yes, @pemerton?

Within a group itself? I'm onboard with you that there are rules uncertainties that naturally emerge during the ongoing play given different interpretations of the rules. The difference with other gaming traditions, though, is that there usually there exists a correct interpretation of the rule that honors the authors intent. If we decide to apply it differently at our table, that's us already hacking the game to suit our needs.

*Quick aside to mention that the system we use vs the system as written are two different intersecting circles.

My question is - is that what is actually observed "in the wild" - in actual play? I dont know as I have not had enough actual play experience with these systems. However I think a lot of those being suspicious about the claims regarding how well GM - RPG work wihout GM authority over rules are tied to the suspicion that there is indeed some covert GM rules authority going on in the success stories.

Oh! I can share something. I'm currently playing in an AW game where I'm one of the players and one of my friends is MCing. I'm also the most experienced person at the table with the game and have a firm grasp on how it really works. This gives me a lot credibility!
Whenever any rules uncertainties come up (which is normal as most of the other players are still learning the game) I usually let the MC handle it, but on occasion I will speak out if I know of a different interpretation of the rules. I can typically provide supporting arguments/evidence for that different interpretation. The group, generously, always tends to accept my contribution to the discussion as final.

AW is silent about who the "keeper of the rules" is, clearly leaving it up to the individual groups of players to decide how to handle it. It's up to all members of the group to accent, case by case, what the correct interpretation is.

 

[Oofta]

This can very easily happen in AW too.

The difference is in the process of play. In the approach that @Lanefan has made clear he prefers (he has made his preference clear in this thread and many previous thread), the "recurrence" is decided by the GM independently of what the players do, and could produce a hard move that has no grounding except in the GM's imagination (ie from the players' perspective it comes from nowhere).

In AW, the GM makes a hard move when a player fails a roll, or when a player hands a golden opportunity to the GM (mostly, this will be not attempting to avoid or prevent the consequences of a soft move that signals an immediate threat or risk). Only when such a possibility arises, can the GM then make a hard move which might involve the recurrence of a GM-controlled actor (say, a NPC, or some sort of impersonal force).

The analogue of this in AW is GM preparation of fronts. But as per what I said earlier in this post, a front does not give the GM licence to make hard moves willy nilly.

There is also a bigger picture aspect to AW (and similar games), which is that the GM is expected to follow the lead of the players in establishing their fronts, their NPCs etc. There are different ways this can be done. In AW, the starting point for building these up is the first session, in which the game is focused on following the PCs around, seeing what conflicts they get into, which NPCs they clash with, etc (and the process of PC build and other elements of the GM instructions more-or-less guarantee that conflict and clashes will occur).

So it wouldn't be typical, in AW, for the GM to just introduce an invasion by another hardhold without the players having played some role - whether via the play of their PCs, or via direct communication to the GM, in making that salient.

You attributed a belief to other posters which no one has expressed, and which as far as I know no one holds, namely that GMs are "power hungry" and "abusive" and therefore need to be reined in by rules.

I am wondering why you attributed that belief, and whether - once it's pointed out to you that no one holds it - you will retract the attribution.

This hasn't changed anything about my supposition. What you're describing is that things only happen because of something in the sphere of influence of the characters. That's what I was trying to get at. In my games things aren't always triggered by anything the players do or express interest in, they happen because it makes sense in the fiction of the world.

We're talking the difference between player driven fiction vs world driven fiction modified by character activity. For the latter, the DM controls most of the fiction of course, although it can also be modified by PC backstories. Start with the DM's world*, figure out how what the PCs do or don't do impacts that. To a certain degree it's also modified by what campaign arcs the players decide to pursue in my games. Of course most of what I work on and prep is in service to the campaign. But not all of what I decide for the fiction is directly related to what players desire or act upon, sometimes it's just figuring out ripple effects and figuring out geopolitics. I do this so that if the players decide to investigate certain aspects of the world I already have some of the fiction already thought out. Occasionally enemies could invade because of something that happened in a previous campaign that has nothing to do with the current campaign.

Fairly often it never leads anywhere other than a few notes here and there. But to me it makes the world feel more real. The PCs are important, but they aren't the only game in town. It's not the only way to run games. It's not a better way, just different way and one that works for me. I don't see what it is you think I need to retract.

*In my games. Of course others can add into this through more than just backstories if that's your thing and you do collaborative world building.

 

[Aldarc]

Okay, @Oofta. I'm back with Dungeon World / Stonetop actual plays.

RollPlay with GM Steve Lumpkin/SilentOsiris (NSFW: occasional cursing): character creation is video 1, with actual play beginning in the second video. Mechanics do come up a bit since this is the first time everyone played Dungeon World, though 3/4 players have experience with Apocalypse World.


Roll20 with GM/Co-Creator Adam Koebel: A one-shot run by the co-creator. Koebel has a black mark in the hobby now, but you may still find it useful to see how the creator runs their game. Steve Lumpkin (GM in the above) is also a player in this one.


Bluejay World with GM Bluejay (NSFW: occasional cursing): Adam Koebel (co-creator) and Matt Mercer (some dude) are players in this game. Character creation takes up most of the first video (below), but it should be easy to navigate to the second video if you want to jump into the gameplay, though you will lose a bit of the intro.


Blinding Light (Stonetop) with GM/Creator Jeremy Strandberg: the purpose of this actual play is also to help teach and introduce Stonetop (a DW deviation) to newcomers. It's annotated to help others understand the rules or principles that are at play in the background, since GMs in PbtA aren't explicitly announcing or naming moves.

 

[pemerton]

I think this is the claim that is hard to swallow. A text of any significant length without any ambiguities is in itself basicaly inconceivable to me. And even if such en incredible feat of language was acheived, human errors like misreading, incorrect memory and pushing the limits is bound to cause situations in actual play where two persons are having different idea about the rules of the game.

Have you read the AW rules?

Their avoidance of uncertainty is nothing to do with "an incredible feat of language". It's a result of an incredible feat of RPG design, that rests on all the work Vincent Baker did for many years identifying the relationship between shared fiction, participant functions, and mechanics.

As I already posted not far upthread, the rules of AW are: the players declare actions, if they do it, they do it, and otherwise the GM makes a move. Often the resolution of a player-side move also requires the GM to make a move. When the GM makes a move, the game provides a list of ones to choose from.

None of this is uncertain. It puts all the weight on the fiction. And as I posted upthread, if a player misunderstands the fiction and hence is taken by the GM to have "done it" when they didn't mean to "do it", then their action can be taken back.

So even if it is not possible to point to any concrete uncertainties in the rules of AW, it make sense to ask what is the standard modus when uncertanties arise in play?

What sorts of uncertainties do you have in mind? Uncertainty about the rules? Or uncertainty about the fiction? I've expressed my view that the rules aren't uncertain; and I've already explained how uncertainties about the fiction are handled.

My question is - is that what is actually observed "in the wild" - in actual play? I dont know as I have not had enough actual play experience with these systems. However I think a lot of those being suspicious about the claims regarding how well GM - RPG work wihout GM authority over rules are tied to the suspicion that there is indeed some covert GM rules authority going on in the success stories.

I think a lot of those who are "suspicious" are not able to think clearly about RPG rules that don't look more-or-less like wargame or boardgame rules.

In a lot of discussions about AW over the past few years, I've noticed a general hesitation on the part of some posters - the ones you are calling "suspicious" - to take literally the AW rules. They want to import wargame-like assumptions, such as the role of maps and prep, and the associated expectation that the GM can make hard moves outside the clear rules statements in AW as to when hard moves can be made.

 

[Oofta]

Okay, @Oofta. I'm back with Dungeon World / Stonetop actual plays.

RollPlay with GM Steve Lumpkin/SilentOsiris (NSFW: occasional cursing): character creation is video 1, with actual play beginning in the second video. Mechanics do come up a bit since this is the first time everyone played Dungeon World, though 3/4 players have experience with Apocalypse World.


Roll20 with GM/Co-Creator Adam Koebel: A one-shot run by the co-creator. Koebel has a black mark in the hobby now, but you may still find it useful to see how the creator runs their game. Steve Lumpkin (GM in the above) is also a player in this one.


Bluejay World with GM Bluejay (NSFW: occasional cursing): Adam Koebel (co-creator) and Matt Mercer (some dude) are players in this game. Character creation takes up most of the first video (below), but it should be easy to navigate to the second video if you want to jump into the gameplay, though you will lose a bit of the intro.


Blinding Light (Stonetop) with GM/Creator Jeremy Strandberg: the purpose of this actual play is also to help teach and introduce Stonetop (a DW deviation) to newcomers. It's annotated to help others understand the rules or principles that are at play in the background, since GMs in PbtA aren't explicitly announcing or naming moves.

Might be a while before I can look at this, likely won't change my opinions, but I appreciate you making the effort to find some curated videos. When I have time I will definitely give them a gander.

 

[pemerton]

This hasn't changed anything about my supposition. What you're describing is that things only happen because of something in the sphere of influence of the characters. That's what I was trying to get at. In my games things aren't always triggered by anything the players do or express interest in, they happen because it makes sense in the fiction of the world.

This is very hard for me to follow.

When you say "things only happen", do you mean that things are only said among the game participants at the table, or do you mean imaginary events only occur in the imaginary world?

In the imaginary world, all sorts of imaginary people are doing all sorts of things. The AW GM makes notes of some of this in their preparation, which - as per the AW rules - is structured in terms of threats structured into fronts (in D&D terms, threats are NPCs or impersonal forces, and the fronts into which they are grouped are factions or tendencies or plots or unfolding disasters).

But at the real world, when everyone gets together to play, the GM says things in response to the players having had their PCs do things. I don't think D&D play is usually very different in this respect. Some of the things the GM says might reveal elements of the imaginary stuff that the GM prepped: for instance, you see a dustcloud on the horizon, and can hear the sound of engines might be something the GM says (a soft move, announcing future badness) that is grounded in prep of a front that is a rival gang of some sort.

In the fiction, the gang turning up is not caused by the PCs. But of course at the table, the GM telling it to the players is caused by things the players have done. In that respect, it's like any other conversation and as I said I think not very different from D&D. The difference from D&D is about when hard moves can be made: for instance, you mentioned the possibility of the PCs returning home and finding their town razed by invading forces. While it's possible to imagine a context in which that might count as a soft move, I think typically it is going to be a pretty hard one, and so isn't something that a AW GM would say - "When you return to the hardhold, you find it's been razed" - simply on the basis of prep, without making a soft move first or without the players doing something that opened up the possibility of this hard move.

We're talking the difference between player driven fiction vs world driven fiction modified by character activity. For the latter, the DM controls most of the fiction of course

It seems like it might be more accurate to call "world driven fiction" GM driven fiction given that the imagined world has no motive power.

But player-driven fiction is not the same thing as "things only happen because of something in the sphere of influence of the characters". They're quite distinct.

 

[pemerton]

This is reasonable to expect! I think what @pemerton is saying is that, to this day, there are no major outstanding rules uncertainties in AW, as any that have arisen before have been ironed out over the years through community discussions and revisions to the rules. Yes, @pemerton?

Within a group itself? I'm onboard with you that there are rules uncertainties that naturally emerge during the ongoing play given different interpretations of the rules.

Well, speaking from both experience and from theory (the theory of statutory interpretation), there are two sources of uncertainty in rules: uncertainty as to reference, and uncertainty as to interaction.

AW has almost no interacting rules. There are some (eg things like Use Weird in place of Hot when Seducing/Manipulating), but these are normally pretty straightforward. It does not approach wargame-like complexity.

And when its rules make references, they're typically either to participants, or to the fiction.

The contrast for me is with a system like, say, RM or RQ or AD&D or 4e, where the rules have lots of interaction. In RM, for instance, how does your parry defence relate to your initiative result?; or in RQ, Can you parry and attack? Parry and dodge?; or in AD&D, From what segment in the round do you start counting the casting time of a spell?; or, in 4e, When does a creature become your ally? (the 4e Dark Sun rules for defiling have a weird clause in them which has no purpose except to handle this issue).

And the flipside of these rules-interactions is that the fiction tends not to be referred to in the rules, or their relationship to the fiction becomes far more uncertain.

Anyway, that's how I've been thinking about it. What sorts of uncertainties do you find coming up in AW?

 

[Aldarc]

Might be a while before I can look at this, likely won't change my opinions, but I appreciate you making the effort to find some curated videos. When I have time I will definitely give them a gander.

I'm not seeking to change your opinions about your play preferences; however, I do hope that these videos may improve your general opinions about Dungeon World and how they play in practice.

 

[andreszarta]

What sorts of uncertainties do you find coming up in AW?

Oh! It's just all of the things we discussed in Help Me Get "Apocalypse World" and PbtA games in general so many moons ago. At least when we look at it the MC's side of the equation.

From the PCs side, I think this one tends to throw people off:

An arresting skinner: when you remove a piece of clothing, your own or someone else’s, no one who can see you can do anything but watch. You command their absolute attention. If you choose, you can exempt individual people, by name.

Many would be uncertain about the extent of the hypnotic influence on the NPCs. Those of us with some experience know that we want to grant the Skinner the full extent of what the move does, as it honors the spirit of the game. Still I hope you can see how new people to the system might want to immediately intervene to patch it.

 

[clearstream]

Well, speaking from both experience and from theory (the theory of statutory interpretation), there are two sources of uncertainty in rules: uncertainty as to reference, and uncertainty as to interaction.

Do you include semantic ambiguities under uncertainty as to reference? An example I have in mind is

Visions of death: when you go into battle, roll+weird. On a 10+, name one person who’ll die and one who’ll live. On a 7–9, name one person who’ll die OR one person who’ll live. Don’t name a player’s character; name NPCs only. The MC will make your vision come true, if it’s even remotely possible. On a miss, you foresee your own death, and accordingly take -1 throughout the battle.

This move is a love letter from the player to you. Be delighted and grateful, and kill, kill, kill.

When will one person die, and for how long will one live? It's implied that it's confined to the current battle. It doesn't say that, however.

Everybody eats, even that guy: when you want to know something about someone important (your call), roll+hot. On a hit, you can ask the MC questions. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7-9, ask 1:
• How are they doing? what’s up with them?
• What or who do they love best?
• Who do they know, like and/or trust?
• When next should I expect to see them?
• How could I get to them, physically or emotionally?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but they hear about your interest in them.

This move doesn’t make the person in question important in any absolute sense, it’s just whether the maestro d’ thinks she is. When the maestro d’ uses this move on another PC, it’s that player, not the MC, who answers the questions, naturally.

For me asking "how they are doing, what's up with them" could be an example of semantic uncertainty. What does "what's up with them" cover? Someone has to decide. There are guidelines for deciding. I don't feel it can be called semantically certain what the meaning is.

And the flipside of these rules-interactions is that the fiction tends not to be referred to in the rules, or their relationship to the fiction becomes far more uncertain.

That is an interesting conjecture and I appreciate some of your motives for making it. There have been some quite polarised perspectives on it.

 

[pemerton]

Oh! It's just all of the things we discussed in Help Me Get "Apocalypse World" and PbtA games in general so many moons ago. At least when we look at it the MC's side of the equation.

From the PCs side, I think this one tends to throw people off:

An arresting skinner: when you remove a piece of clothing, your own or someone else’s, no one who can see you can do anything but watch. You command their absolute attention. If you choose, you can exempt individual people, by name.

Many would be uncertain about the extent of the hypnotic influence on the NPCs. Those of us with some experience know that we want to grant the Skinner the full extent of what the move does, as it honors the spirit of the game. Still I hope you can see how new people to the system might want to immediately intervene to patch it.

I see what you mean. So not ambiguity in the rules text, or uncertainty about how rules interact, but uncertainty about how to decide what happens next while giving effect to the rules text?

 

[pemerton]

Anyway, here's one answer to the question this thread poses:

You need to have a system by which scenes start and stop. The rawest solution is to do it by group consensus: anybody moved to can suggest a scene or suggest that a scene be over, and it's up to the group to act on the suggestion or not. You don't need a final authority beyond the players' collective will.

You need to have a system whereby narration becomes in-game truth. That is, when somebody suggests something to happen or something to be so, does it or doesn't it? Is it or isn't it? Again the rawest solution is group consensus, with suggestions made by whoever's moved and then taken up or let fall according to the group's interest.

You need to have orchestrated conflict, and there's the tricky bit. GMs are very good at orchestrating conflict, and it's hard to see a rawer solution. . . .

In our co-GMed Ars Magica game, each of us is responsible for orchestrating conflict for the others, which works but isn't radical wrt GM doage-away-with. It amounts to when Emily's character's conflicts climax explosively and set off Meg's character's conflicts, which also climax explosively, in a great kickin' season finale last autumn, I'm the GM. GM-swapping, in other words, isn't the same as GM-sharing.​

So the GM needs enough control to orchestrate conflict. This probably means enough control to introduce antagonism, whether in the form of NPCs or in the form of external/impersonal forces.

 

[clearstream]

So the GM needs enough control to orchestrate conflict. This probably means enough control to introduce antagonism, whether in the form of NPCs or in the form of external/impersonal forces.

That's a great observation. I was thinking about how folk get from there to the additional power over the meaning of rules?

My conjecture is that there exists at times decisions to make about the meaning of rules during conflict, and the same considerations that suggest giving adversity to one participant suggest giving that participant the job of making said decisions. Who else can do it? In the Arresting Skinner example, if it's used to resolve adversity who gets the job of settling what its effect on adversaries should be?

That seems to be saying that the ur-justfication for "GM power" is the Czege Principle. There are naturally a number of jobs to do, and conforming with the CP results in appointing a "Game Master".

 

[clearstream]

I see what you mean. So not ambiguity in the rules text, or uncertainty about how rules interact, but uncertainty about how to decide what happens next while giving effect to the rules text?

Perhaps then one puts Visions of Death in the same bucket. That wording "if it’s even remotely possible." What effect should one give to "remotely possible"? What's excluded from "remotely possible"? That creates uncertainty about how to decide what happens next.

Semantic ambiguity might then be differentiated from uncertainty. In ambiguous cases, each party can feel certain about how to decide what happens next, even though two different parties may be certain of two different things. One example from 5e is Long Rests. There was debate on whether a conditional applied to a list or just the first item on that list. Each side felt certain they knew what effect to give to the rule, they disagreed on how to read the rule.

Does that difference matter, or does it amount to the same thing?

 

[clearstream]

Yeh... given the number of times I've had to say something about this, and given how easy it is to do, your continued choice to comment about FKR while displaying a level of ignorance about it continues to befuddle me. Again, there's a lot of resources- I recommend just running it for a while, and it will make a lot more sense.

Well, a lot of people live history- the thing is, actual history is a lot more varied than a single person's experience.

While reading The Elusive Shift this morning, I noted "it does not appear that Arneson played by his own rules, but this was in keeping with remarks he made elsewhere that year about the insignificance of "rules" to the invention of role-playing games". An essay by Arneson is referenced where he characterised his attitude toward rules during his Blackmoor campaign as "Rules? What rules?" Arneson wrote that "applying a fantasy setting to RPG was merely another outgrowth of an already established tradition (abet one without any real rules) in various non-fantasy settings."

What I found interesting though was that - in reference to ongoing rules-free play - "by the end of the 1970s some referees had begun to remove themselves from this [rules-free] most versatile expression of the role-playing game." (Emphasis mine.) So here Peterson is laying out a history of not only FKR (a label I use for convenience) but additionally GM-less FKR.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think time invested by the GM matters, really. From the outside, the difference between carefully planned assassination where the GM took sniper's capabilities into the account, rolled dice or whatever the same way she would do for the PCs, and a decision to screw that player in particular on a whim is non-existent.

An ambush kill in a game like D&D will always look cheap, and being completely unrepeatable and unverifiable, this means it will always be cheap.

You're making a false assumption there, though. I DM who carefully planned the assassination will probably have had subtle clues out there for quite some time that the players will suddenly see now that the event has happened. They will be able to do research into who the person was and why he did what he did and come up with all the carefully planned details, which a DM who decided to do it on a whim won't have.

It is both repeatable and verifiable if carefully planned, and not being done on a whim, won't be a decision to "screw that player."

I mused about it upthread, it was something along the lines of "if you have infinite dragons, there's no thrill in using this specific one to the best of your abilities".

Again a false assumption. Since you are not using infinite dragons(or even bunches and bunches of them), using this one that you carefully planned out to the best of your abilities does come with a thrill. At least for many DMs it does. Your personal experiences aren't automatically the ones that any other particular DM experiences. While you may not experience the thrill, others do.

I do believe that a game like D&D would work infinitely better if there was some kind of roster-building mechanic, where GM has to pay resources to do stuff, conforming narrative to the rules rather than vice-versa, both way more fun to run and, obviously, way more fun to play.

Maybe, but then it wouldn't be D&D. It would be one of those other games that you personally enjoy. I enjoy D&D the way it is and such a change would be "infinitely" worse for me. That's not the sort of play experience that what I want when I play D&D.

 

[Maxperson]

If the warrant is determined by the prep, then it's hard not to see this as pulling punches.

The prep doesn't determine it, though. Game play does. Prep determines if there is an ancient red dragon on the mountain 100 miles north of the town of Wefrysometimes. Prep determines that the dragon being there is marked on maps of the area. Prep determines that there is local gossip about the 10 adventuring companies that have vanished in the last 6 months after going to "handle the dragon." Game play determines that if the 5th level group heads there despite all of those things that the DM not pull any punches and fry the party.

Prep just sets up situations. Punches pulled or not pulled aren't required by the prep.

 

[Mort]

I do believe that a game like D&D would work infinitely better if there was some kind of roster-building mechanic, where GM has to pay resources to do stuff, conforming narrative to the rules rather than vice-versa, both way more fun to run and, obviously, way more fun to play.

5e has this, at least a form of it.

When building encounters, the DMG has a suggested daily XP budget to spread among the encounters for the "day."

It's somewhat derided, but I've found it can provide a pretty challenging experience to the players if applied with some care.

 

[Maxperson]

Exactly. Absolute power that is never used because doing so would have deleterious consequences is not absolute power. It is conditional power--by definition.

This is very wrong. Conditional power has those conditions imposed upon you by an outside authority. If I own a business and I hire a manager that can tell other workers what to do and write them up, but not hire or fire anyone, that is conditional authority. If I as a business owner cannot hire or fire someone based on gender, religion, age, etc. because the government won't let me, my authority is conditional. If I as a business owner have no such restrictions by I personally CHOOSE to not hire or fire someone based on gender, religion, age, etc. because I think my other workers might quit, that is not conditional power. I still retain such authority even if I opt not to use it.

If the power is going to be conditional either way, why not make those conditions knowable?

Because if you do you are taking unconditional power and making it conditional. The "conditions" become imposed by the game instead of being 100% optional.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is very wrong. Conditional power has those conditions imposed upon you by an outside authority. If I own a business and I hire a manager that can tell other workers what to do and write them up, but not hire or fire anyone, that is conditional authority. If I as a business owner cannot hire or fire someone based on gender, religion, age, etc. because the government won't let me, my authority is conditional. If I as a business owner have no such restrictions by I personally CHOOSE to not hire or fire someone based on gender, religion, age, etc. because I think my other workers might quit, that is not conditional power. I still retain such authority even if I opt not to use it.

Because if you do you are taking unconditional power and making it conditional. The "conditions" become imposed by the game instead of being 100% optional.

I'm not going to revive our previous discussion, Max.