D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Of course.

And as you say,
This reiterates that what is relevant in Dungeon World is not the environment as described "objectively" by the GM ("You come to a 20' wide chasm"), but rather the narrative logic and trajectory of play, and the status of something as a threat, or an opportunity, and how that is established in relation to prior play and player priorities.

Play in Dungeon World can't be "objective". It's inherently normative - "thread", "opportunity", "useful", "having fun" - these are normative notions, and are at the core of DW play. (My actual model here is AW, but I think that DW follows it pretty closely.)

Yup, in fact the main impediment to arbitrary granularity in AW-like PbtAs (and I imagine in at least some other narrative/player focused games) is that the specific mechanics will limit you. So, CONCEPTUALLY you could, in DW, say "well there's a dungeon over there, roll Defy Danger to see if you successfully loot it." (I mean aside from the conversation won't be structured that way). However, you can't really engage the PC's specific moves and 'stuff' very well that way! I guess the GM could then ride the snowball down the slope to specificity like "Oh, you failed the DD check, well, you're 3 hours underground and you just fell in a pit, what now?" It might be interesting to deliberately build a PbtA which was intended to work that way. I'm not sure exactly why you would, but it might make an interesting way to, for example, do a Supers game!

 

[pemerton]

Yup, in fact the main impediment to arbitrary granularity in AW-like PbtAs (and I imagine in at least some other narrative/player focused games) is that the specific mechanics will limit you. So, CONCEPTUALLY you could, in DW, say "well there's a dungeon over there, roll Defy Danger to see if you successfully loot it." (I mean aside from the conversation won't be structured that way). However, you can't really engage the PC's specific moves and 'stuff' very well that way! I guess the GM could then ride the snowball down the slope to specificity like "Oh, you failed the DD check, well, you're 3 hours underground and you just fell in a pit, what now?" It might be interesting to deliberately build a PbtA which was intended to work that way. I'm not sure exactly why you would, but it might make an interesting way to, for example, do a Supers game!

Why would you want to do this? To emulate Gandalf's incursion into the dungeons of Dol Guldur, where he got the map and key from Thrain.

We don't need all the minutiae - but if the Defy Danger fails, then yep, you're three hours underground and in a pit in the dungeons of the Necromancer, what do you do now?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a lot of people prefer the feeling that there is objective fictional reality that matters, and thus the DW approach might rub them up the wrong way.

Well, the fictional reality matters just as much in narrative games. It HAS to, there's nothing else to provide any explanation of what actions are appropriate. It isn't any more or less 'objective' in one type of game than the other. I don't think the objection is really about that, I think it is about whether or not you feel like you are an active participant in deciding what the fiction is, or passively experiencing its existence. A lot of us just do not get so much out of the later, its very hit or miss as to whether it clicks with people.

Honestly, people will have their preferences, and that's fine. I often just get the impression that somehow anything that isn't trad is treated almost like it cannot really exist or its not 'right' somehow.

 

[Enrahim2]

As I said, I don't see "ask for a roll and then come up with arbitrary results" as a tool. Maybe it satisfies the most basic definition of one, but that's like saying a rock is a tool. For cavemen that didn't have factory-made hammers, yeah, I guess?

The argument was that D&D is a flexible toolbox and that is why it's successful, when... Well, no, it isn't flexible and it isn't a toolbox.

I can see how Fate provides tools: you take a look at the situation at hand, take a look at all the different options the system provides to deal with it, and choose the one that will handle it best, depending on both the fictional positioning and significance of the task. You can handle a fight with a dragon with the same speed as picking a lock; you can handle picking a lock with the same complexity as fighting a dragon.

I can't see how D&D provides tools: you take a look at the situation at hand, check the rules the system prescribes to handle it. That's it. Then you might decide that the rules provided suck ass and can't handle the situation in a way you see fit and disregard them, but like... That's not a strength of D&D. That's just a nature of a tabletop game.

I unfortunately don't have time to read trough all to see if this has been answered by others, or if the conversation has completely shifted.

I think I see what you are getting at. If we are restraining ourself to the out of combat mode, The tools for DMs of D&D isn't plentiful, nor particularly complex/sophisticated. You hence do not have the same flexibility of choice of tools as you have in fate. The flexibility that can be argued rather lies in that the tools you have each can be applied to a very wide range of situations to acheive certain effects. Moreover while not complex in themselves, the interaction with tools and content given to the players, they allow for richer gameplay, than applying similar looking tools in a different game. Some of the tools the DM has available:

Ability checks - bare bone universally applicable task and conflict resolution tool.
Xp/milestones - A tool for motivating and creating a sense of mechanical large scale progress
Damage/fatigue/conditions: A not insignificant set of diverse tools for giving mechanical weight to negative consequences. Can be used for increasing pressure/tension, punish, or direct the game. Likely the most dangerous tools in the toolchest.
Treasures: Tools for motivating, direct and also provide variation to the players as character capabilities can change more fluidly than the leveling mechanism.
Inspiration: I would say arguably the weakest tool of those mentioned here, but works as a truly universal way to revard and direct player behavior.

So I would say while there might only be a stone in there for hammering things together, the toolbox also contains a fine number of sharp knives, at least a marker pen, a pump and a screwdriver. That sound like a toolbox to me

 

[clearstream]

Well, the fictional reality matters just as much in narrative games. It HAS to, there's nothing else to provide any explanation of what actions are appropriate. It isn't any more or less 'objective' in one type of game than the other. I don't think the objection is really about that, I think it is about whether or not you feel like you are an active participant in deciding what the fiction is, or passively experiencing its existence. A lot of us just do not get so much out of the later, its very hit or miss as to whether it clicks with people.

Not too hit and miss, seeing as it seems to click for a great many folk. It might be rarer to want to do the creating, than to want to enjoy the creation.

Honestly, people will have their preferences, and that's fine. I often just get the impression that somehow anything that isn't trad is treated almost like it cannot really exist or its not 'right' somehow.

I believe that impression just applies on all sides. Folk are left feeling that others see their preferred mode as not right somehow.

 

[pemerton]

In terms of the "toolbox" of D&D, I think it makes more sense to ask What are all the lists for?

The lists of spells. Of race/lineage and class abilities. Of magic items. Of monsters. Etc.

It's fairly clear what they were for in the classic (Gygax/Moldvay) game:

*Player-side resources under the players' control (starting race and class abilities);

*Player-side resources that are placed by the GM, and that players can "unlock" by lucky or clever play (class abilities that are gained by levelling; spells; magic items);

*GM-side resources for creating obstacles (monsters, traps, tricks)​

The interaction between the categories of resources was partly mechanised - eg rules for elves finding secret doors, for rangers gaining surprise, etc - and partly based around implicit understandings about the content and context of the fiction - eg rules for spell ranges, Hold Portal, Transmute Rock to Mud, which monsters to place on which dungeon levels, etc.

What are the lists for in mainstream contemporary (post-DL) D&D play? The implicit understandings about the content and context of the fiction no longer hold. The idea that players unlock abilities by lucky or clever play has become vestigial.

They're doing something quite different. Colour is an important part of it, but I'm not sure that's all of it.

 

[Manbearcat]

Because different forms of game play can absolutely feel more or less "real" to the people playing the game. Yellowstone feels more real to me than Bugs Bunny. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy both, just that one is something I could see happening and the other has a cartoon rabbit that would never get lost if they remembered to take a left at Albuquerque.

In all the GMing of DW (and alike) that I’ve run, not a single moment of play (not a one) has generated an orientation to our shared imagined space that is anywhere near approaching Loony Toons themes or causal logic.

No holes penned on a sides of mountains in which characters disappear into (until the next comes along and splats into the face).

No one man bands.

No giant ACME caches with rockets and sledges and skis and oversized hammers.

No running off the side of a cliff and scrambling in thin air for a moment, standing in space long enough to pull out a sign that says “oops”, then fall a massive distance and survive.

No “rabbit season, duck season, NOW SHOOT!”

Etc etc.

I love Looney Toons and have watched probably half as much as hours I’ve GMed DW (and derivative). There is nothing kindred between the two in either feel of experience or governing dynamics.

I have no idea what you could be getting at here and why you would invoke Loony Toons to relate the whatever it is you’re attempting to drive home. Is it that you have an absurdist view of DW? DW is not absurdist in any way, so if you have an imagined contempt based on imagined absurdism, that is one you can let go.

 

[pemerton]

I have no idea what you could be getting at here and why you would invoke Loony Toons to relate the whatever it is you’re attempting to drive home. Is it that you have an absurdist view of DW? DW is not absurdist in any way, so if you have an imagined contempt based on imagined absurdism, that is one you can let go.

Upthread, @Oofta said he had read the DW rulebook. More recently, along with the Bugs Bunny stuff, he posted "I can't suddenly make a million dollars appear in my bank account because it would be better for my life story if it did" as if that had some bearing on comparing the play of 5e D&D to the play of DW.

So like you, I'm puzzled as I don't know how to reconcile I read this book with I am attributing XYZ to this book when in fact the book says nothing like XYZ.

A bit like @AbdulAlhazred, I get puzzled by the seeming tendency to need to explain a preference for GM control over the fiction by making absurd claims about the way that alternative sorts of RPGs play.

I mean, upthread I posted in detail a description of the "agenda" of BW. It's obvious how it differs from 5e D&D. I don't see why we can't just talk about that.

 

[clearstream]

The premise is this: that it is important that the imagined stuff the players engage with is the product of someone else's imagination.

Or perhaps desirable better gets at it.

Because it's the product of someone else's imagination, a player can learn about it by asking that other person to tell them what they're imagining!

I've been thinking that one might say it's technically objective, on the grounds that it's external to the subject (the player.)

Whereas something that is the product of one's own imagination is not an object of discovery.

Now even good storytelling games (eg like A Penny For My Thoughts) have techniques to mediate between just making up one's own stuff, and engaging with or integrating the stuff that others imagine. And once we get to RPGs like (say) DW or BW, there are very sophisticated design features that exploit the asymmetric participant roles to achieve this sort of mediation and integration. Most posts from @Oofta and @Lanefant don't acknowledge those design features, and the associated techniques, and so just presume that if the player gets to exercise imagination then the player is just making it all up - but that's simply a result, as best I can tell, of not having any or any real familiarity with the games in question.

I'd really like to recommend Ironsworn to you. It provides a perfect example of how the product of one's own imagination can be an object of discovery. (Which is, I think, what you are saying.) The way that oracles are used to prompt the player's imagination in directions they might not otherwise have considered helps to see really clearly how that can work. It is best played in small groups or solo.

But the previous paragraph doesn't alter the basic point, that there is an unstated premise about where the imagined stuff should come from.

My experience is that if you bring this premise to the surface by describing it as "an objective fictional reality" you will be praised, and if you bring it to the surface as "learning what someone else has imagined" or "learning what someone else has written down about what they imagined, perhaps in note form" you will be criticised. But the different descriptions are all referring to the same thing.

EDIT Ideally each side steelmans the other's position. So "an objective fictional reality" is accepted, and so is "learning what someone else has imagined." I've explained why I think objective is right, above. And raised a question about learning what someone else has imagined, in my next post.

If you thing that discovering what someone else has imagined is fundamental to being a RPG player, then you will naturally think that the GM should have a LOT of control!

I'm not yet sure if that's required or not. Suppose we gave the GM total control over all mechanics, but divided out authorship of fiction? Or, I guess, the converse! I've assayed a few designs in such directions and it seems that the two aren't welded together. There's more a list of things that can be controlled, and one can choose who controls each of those things.

To give a sense of some options

• establishing which mechanics are used
• invoking mechanics
• proposing inputs to mechanics / approving inputs to mechanics
• establishing facts about creatures (here I use creatures very broadly, to include NPCs)
• saying what creatures do / saying what hostile creatures do
• establishing facts about the world such as landscape, landmarks, season
• saying how it changes
• establishing facts about the characters (The Elusive Shift has a thought-provoking example of Costikyan's tongue-in-cheek take on that)
• saying what the characters do
• establishing facts about the metaphysics (e.g. about magic)
• invoking metaphysics

That might not be complete. It's been robustly demonstrated in the last few decades that the ways control can be successfully allocated is far more flexible than many supposed in the first few decades of TTRPG. However, the question remains: can one effectively create that which one does not control? Or where one does not have control? A player could establish the existence of a cult, and a GM could then control that cult (or the converse.) As one example.

 

[clearstream]

@hawkeyefan I have been wondering about something you may have a view on. Let's say I don't care to learn what someone else imagined. As player 1 anything player 2 imagines is something that someone else imagined. Therefore I should not care for it. As player 1 anything that the game designer imagined is also something that someone else imagined. I shouldn't care for that either.

Following that line of thought, it seems to me that the benefits of sharing the job of imaginative contribution to the fiction are actually not that I should or should not care to learn what someone else imagined. That's beside the point. It's rather in view of other benefits. For example, perhaps for player 1 it's in view of getting their turn to contribute something to the fiction? Or perhaps it's something about shared authorship being more powerful than a sole auteur (in the past there have been cultural - perhaps patriarchal - assumptions that the opposite is true.)

What is uniquely detestable about GM's imagination, versus that of player or game designer? I suspect the answer is "nothing" leading to the questions I've posed. Above you've already touched on some possible benefits. I wondered also if you see authority over fiction and authority over system identically? And if there were elements of either that you'd treat differently, e.g. in order to respect the Czege Principle.