Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9007838" data-attributes="member: 71699">I was thinking these over from a resolutely immersionist perspective. The second one reminded me of events in an RQ campaign. The player characters were outside the glowline in an area where there had been some rebellion against the Lunar Empire. In background I'd established that the Crimson Bat was in play, but IIRC the characters weren't aware of it's existence (it would have been possible for them to learn about it, but they were more interested in other things.)So the sky turns reddish and minutes later in drops the Crimson Bat; then while the Bat itself was focused on eating rebels its keening and some stray ticks gave the player characters a tough time. I would call this a fair encounter from an immersionist perspective. That the Bat was there had nothing to do with the player characters. It's movements were preestablished by me in background based on facts about Glorantha established by the game designers. There was effectively no chance characters would survive if they chose to attack it. On the other hand, it was setup (the Bat creates its own glowspot) and by no means a cause of instant no-interaction death.Thus, I believe it works out fine in that mode to have things in play that have nothing to do with the characters. This might be like your third case, which I see as borderline (not at all okay in some modes, okay in others.) In fact, the problem in your third case is most likely a lack of alignment on what kind of campaign is being played, which can easily lead to dissatisfaction.The second case would be more like - "a giant glowing bat with Lunar priests on its back drops on you and eats you." We've discussed a similar case under 5e before and depending on how you understand certain rules, it's not something that can happen in 5e. At most you get "a giant glowing bat with Lunar priests on its back drops on you and... roll initiative."Your first case I feel relies on helping oneself to the psychological state of Pat. One could help oneself to a different state - one where Pat was engaged with what was going on, recalls perfectly well the encounter and how hard they griefed the mercenaries, and is rather thrilled by the danger their characters are forced to navigate. I had something like that in an FKR once, and we had a clear social-contract up-front that it was a gloves-off game involving a lot of political intrigues and outright assassinations... including in your sleep if you vexed the wrong people and didn't look to your security! In a sense, there the setup or soft move is a meta-move: we as a group established an intent to play in a way that put hard moves based on hidden-information on the table. I can easily picture a PbtA game design that does exactly that. Some mightn't like it, and some might reject the notion of meta-moves, of course. You could also note the "vexed the wrong people" and "didn't look to your security" which certainly put it in player hands... but then there were some hidden laws that players didn't start the game knowing, only knowing they existed, and breaking one of those could also lead to a hard move.</blockquote>

Verification