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"Illusionism" and "GM force" in RPGing
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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7923767" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>My second favorite part of the 5e ruleset: PC Background Features.</p><p></p><p>In this case of Force we have the Criminal Background:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The player wants to use their Criminal Contact who doubles as a gondolier who transports folks via the city canals during the day as a legal front for his illicit activities. The player has desperately tasked him to finesse a message to an illicit spice merchant NPC on the other side of the city who has under surveillance by the City Guard (looking for incriminating activity). </p><p></p><p>Fast forward to the evening and the Criminal Contact gondolier is in the clink. He paid a paper boy to insert a secret message into the folds of the day's paper and drop it on the doorstep of the spice merchant's shop. The City Guard grabbed the paper, chased down the boy, roughed him up for the identity of the person who hired him and made the arrest of the gondolier.</p><p></p><p>This is clearly a case of a GM (a) using their unique, unbridled access to content creation/the world to manufacture adversarial content, introducing a block which (b) subordinates a player's thematic input (c) via their PC-currency-spent feature (which effectively reads as player fiat and has no action resolution mechanics to resolve).</p><p></p><p>Now if this was a PBtA move, it would be resolved via 2d6+ modifier (probably Cha). If they rolled a 6-, this is absolutely an appropriate Hard Move. Its interesting, follows the fiction, reveals an unwelcome truth, and snowballs the danger into a cascading problem.</p><p></p><p>But this isn't PBtA and there isn't any action resolution mechanics in play. </p><p></p><p>Its a case where a GM vetos a player's input into the gamestate:fiction (which they purchased via PC build) in order to manufacture a block and force the players to engage the situation in an alternative way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 7923767, member: 6696971"] My second favorite part of the 5e ruleset: PC Background Features. In this case of Force we have the Criminal Background: The player wants to use their Criminal Contact who doubles as a gondolier who transports folks via the city canals during the day as a legal front for his illicit activities. The player has desperately tasked him to finesse a message to an illicit spice merchant NPC on the other side of the city who has under surveillance by the City Guard (looking for incriminating activity). Fast forward to the evening and the Criminal Contact gondolier is in the clink. He paid a paper boy to insert a secret message into the folds of the day's paper and drop it on the doorstep of the spice merchant's shop. The City Guard grabbed the paper, chased down the boy, roughed him up for the identity of the person who hired him and made the arrest of the gondolier. This is clearly a case of a GM (a) using their unique, unbridled access to content creation/the world to manufacture adversarial content, introducing a block which (b) subordinates a player's thematic input (c) via their PC-currency-spent feature (which effectively reads as player fiat and has no action resolution mechanics to resolve). Now if this was a PBtA move, it would be resolved via 2d6+ modifier (probably Cha). If they rolled a 6-, this is absolutely an appropriate Hard Move. Its interesting, follows the fiction, reveals an unwelcome truth, and snowballs the danger into a cascading problem. But this isn't PBtA and there isn't any action resolution mechanics in play. Its a case where a GM vetos a player's input into the gamestate:fiction (which they purchased via PC build) in order to manufacture a block and force the players to engage the situation in an alternative way. [/QUOTE]
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