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"Illusionism" and "GM force" in RPGing
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7923492" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Yes. I think I said these things also. I'm not sure what you take the point of controversy to be.</p><p></p><p>I think it's widely - not universally - accepted that PC death, and even moreso TPK, is a loss condition in D&D play. (Which is where the example of the dragon armies comes from - it's in a DL module.)</p><p></p><p>The fact that the players can thwart the attempt at manipulation by sucking up a loss (and presumably giving up on the module?) doesn't show that there was no attempt at manipulation. It just shows it failed!</p><p></p><p>I don't really agree with this, or at least with what all that it seems to imply.</p><p></p><p>For instance, the GM doesn't have to get the PCs <em>into</em> inteesting situations. The GM can begin with a situation that is interesting.</p><p></p><p>Eg I started my Burning Wheel game with the PCs in a bazaar, giving one of them a chance to act on his Belief that he will find useful magical artefacts to free his brother form possession by a balrog, and the other the chance to act on a Belief about getting money.) The PCs can have "kickers" - ie player-authored interesting situations that provide the starting point for play.</p><p></p><p>In my 4e D&D Dark Sun game we used kickers - the barbarian gladiator started in the arena about to behead his opponent when the crowd all looked away as the cry rang out that "The tyrant's dead"; the Veiled Alliance bard/wizard started in the stands, where the contact he was about to meet had just fallen down dead, apparently assassinated.</p><p></p><p>In my two Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy games (one Vikings, one LotR), the players - after choosing their PCs from the pregens I provided - established what their objectives were that gave them reasons to set out on a journey, and then I built on that.</p><p></p><p>And I don't generally find that players object to the GM framing interesting situations either, as long as they follow from the fiction and respect player choices (both in PC build and prior action resolution). In my main 4e game the fighter PC failed a check in a skill challenge where the PCs were interacting with some witches. The player had indicated some interest in taking the Pit Fighter paragon path, and the wtitches were predicting his PC's future in respect of this, and as the consequence of failure I narrated the pulling of a cord and the resultant dropping of the PC into a pit, where he had to fight giant spiders. The existence of spiders in the witches' ruined manor had already been foreshadowed; being a pit fighter was the player's own content-introduction!; there was no objection to the way it unfolded - it was a consequecne of failure that followed from the fiction.</p><p></p><p>RPGing with interesting situations is possible without guidance or manipulation towards fore-ordained results in the fiction; and players can be enjoy RPGing without GM illusionism.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7923492, member: 42582"] Yes. I think I said these things also. I'm not sure what you take the point of controversy to be. I think it's widely - not universally - accepted that PC death, and even moreso TPK, is a loss condition in D&D play. (Which is where the example of the dragon armies comes from - it's in a DL module.) The fact that the players can thwart the attempt at manipulation by sucking up a loss (and presumably giving up on the module?) doesn't show that there was no attempt at manipulation. It just shows it failed! I don't really agree with this, or at least with what all that it seems to imply. For instance, the GM doesn't have to get the PCs [i]into[/i] inteesting situations. The GM can begin with a situation that is interesting. Eg I started my Burning Wheel game with the PCs in a bazaar, giving one of them a chance to act on his Belief that he will find useful magical artefacts to free his brother form possession by a balrog, and the other the chance to act on a Belief about getting money.) The PCs can have "kickers" - ie player-authored interesting situations that provide the starting point for play. In my 4e D&D Dark Sun game we used kickers - the barbarian gladiator started in the arena about to behead his opponent when the crowd all looked away as the cry rang out that "The tyrant's dead"; the Veiled Alliance bard/wizard started in the stands, where the contact he was about to meet had just fallen down dead, apparently assassinated. In my two Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy games (one Vikings, one LotR), the players - after choosing their PCs from the pregens I provided - established what their objectives were that gave them reasons to set out on a journey, and then I built on that. And I don't generally find that players object to the GM framing interesting situations either, as long as they follow from the fiction and respect player choices (both in PC build and prior action resolution). In my main 4e game the fighter PC failed a check in a skill challenge where the PCs were interacting with some witches. The player had indicated some interest in taking the Pit Fighter paragon path, and the wtitches were predicting his PC's future in respect of this, and as the consequence of failure I narrated the pulling of a cord and the resultant dropping of the PC into a pit, where he had to fight giant spiders. The existence of spiders in the witches' ruined manor had already been foreshadowed; being a pit fighter was the player's own content-introduction!; there was no objection to the way it unfolded - it was a consequecne of failure that followed from the fiction. RPGing with interesting situations is possible without guidance or manipulation towards fore-ordained results in the fiction; and players can be enjoy RPGing without GM illusionism. [/QUOTE]
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