Illusionism: Where Do You Stand?

[Jd Smith1]

Across the board: don't like it as a player, almost never use it as a DM.

Ditto

 

[Committed Hero]

I'm OK with this setup, for a couple reasons. First of all, as a player, I don't know how I would ever find out that meeting the ogre was inevitable. Why would a GM brag about it after the fact?

Secondly, the setup is not an automatically antagonistic reaction between GM and players. Or between party and monsters: I assume, for this case, that the party has a chance to notice the existence of the ogres, and may pursue alternate strategies for interacting with them beyond combat. I think this is the choice that matters in such a setup. If we try to avoid them, and the GM takes active steps to prevent activities other than fighting - especially if things like skill checks would typically happen, and they don't in this instance - then IMO we cross over into railroading.

Thirdly, depending on the game, the GM may have spent time and money constructing what she thinks is an interesting encounter. If you are not willing to give her the benefit of the doubt regarding this, you should think twice about agreeing to play in the game. And certainly, if the encounter doesn't end up being fun, you have the right to say that (hopefully, in a tactful way). Or even state in a session zero that you don't appreciate these sort of inevitable showdowns.

Note that this cuts both ways. If the party picks the fork that leads to the peaceful forest, at least one player will wonder why they had a choice with one limb of the decision tree so boring. It may not be mentioned, but someone will think it. And if your GM is the type who'd say the encounter was inevitable, they would also say "too bad you didn't encounter the bandits the other way; they had a vorpal sword."

Finally, if the game we are playing is one of tactical combat, I should expect tactical combat, and not be surprised when it crops up. No one ever posits a hypothetical where a skill check or diplomatic encounter is inevitable.

 

[TheSword]

There's advice and game rules for starters. There's also campaign worlds, random tables, prebuilt NPCs, and locations.
Does anyone have specific product recommendations??
I'm sure subscribing to En5ider will provide you with all sorts of things to help a person illuzionize less!

Random tables are not inherently better than the GM just deciding what the party face. The GM has still decided every single variable on the random table and what the likelihood of it happening is. It’s still illusionism just with a greater range of possibilities.

There is nothing wrong with players being magnets for interesting stuff in the area. The fact that this stuff just happens to find them everywhere they go is absolutely fine.

No campaign world can fill all the gaps, even fully fleshed sandboxes like Slumbering Tsar or Rappan Athuk with hundreds (if not thousands) of prebuilt locations. The DM still has to elaborate and decide when and how stuff happens and what happens in between those bits.

 

[payn]

These lines in the sand are growing tiresome. Illusionism is a fine choice for folks who dont mind it. Best avoided for those who do.

 

[Deset Gled]

These lines in the sand are growing tiresome. Illusionism is a fine choice for folks who dont mind it. Best avoided for those who do.

Definitely. On a related discussion, there's no reason for "illusionism" to be treated as a line. There are varying amounts of illusionism. Every D&D game ever has a least a little illusionism. Some have a lot. Some have a little. It's not a binary decision. You don't choose if you have it, you choose how much.

I'm ready to throw illusionism into the growing pile of False Gaming Dichotomies, right along with "actions/intentions" and "simulationism".

 

[kenada]

So to start: how do you feel about illusionism in your games? Do you feel differently about it as a player versus a GM? Does it vary with the game? With the group? With the session?

I am running a sandbox-style game and designing a homebrew system to support it. My goal is to be a neutral referee. I sometimes call this “campaign as science experiment”. If I put my thumb on things, I am undermining the integrity of experiment (seeing whether the PCs can accomplishment their campaign goal via the play of the campaign). I have some prep, but I rely on the system to enforce my role as a neutral referee.

One of the things it does is constrain how I can respond by separating my role as adjudicator from that of content creator. If there is an ogre in the woods, it was either put there as prep, or it resulted from a system-defined point that allows me to put it there (like an event check or a consequence). To help reinforce that an illusion is not being staged by my decision-making, mechanics and resolution are transparent.

If an ogre’s being in the woods is a consequence, and it’s not an obvious one, it needs to be articulated as part of the process of setting up the Skill Check to navigate to the woods. That allows the players to reason and decide what to do. They can risk it and go anyway. If the ogre shows up as a consequence, they can resist the consequence to avoid it (though a failure cannot be resisted fully). They can also back out, which I have had happen (in that case my players did not like the possibly seen by raiders they were trying to avoid while climbing a tree to scout the area, so they opted not to do that).

With that established, to answer your questions: no, not in my games. Transparency of resolution does not work with illusionism unless I am playing my role of neutral referee unprincipled or in bad faith (neither which I endeavor to do). As a player, it depends. If it’s established that we’re doing a particular style of play that is amenable to it, then I guess it’s fine, though I think the kind of game where that would happen is unlikely to be one I would normally play outside of convention play.

 

[Committed Hero]

My goal is to be a neutral referee.

I'm interested in whether you think this goal clashes with "be a fan of the PCs" - or if the latter is important at all in your eyes.

 

[Lanefan]

Same.
Consider it one of the most toxic practices from the Gygaxian advice. Right after punishing players for learning the rules, rolling without a reason to build tension, and lying about dice rolls/fudging.

(Rolling to build tension eventually -- in some cases, almost immediately -- inures players to it... so it's short term only value, long term counterproductive. The rest are toxic.)

I disagree about "rolling without a reason to build tension" being bad. In fact, rolling without a reason (or fake rolls) is a good way of disguising real rolls at times when the players, both in and out of character, have as yet no reason to suspect anything's amiss.

Fudging is generally bad news.

Not sure what you mean by "punishing the players for learning the rules", though. Can you elaborate?

 

[kenada]

I'm interested in whether you think this goal clashes with "be a fan of the PCs" - or if the latter is important at all in your eyes.

It clashes. I won’t say it’s not important, but I will say it depends on the agenda. Just like being a neutral referee is not appropriate for certain styles of play, being a fan of the PCs is likewise not appropriate.

In a game like Dungeon World, my job as the GM is to provide the PCs with adversity based on what they have told me based on their bonds, etc. This is necessary because fundamentally we’re playing to learn who these characters are. If the paladin dedicates themself to slaying the Demon King, then there better be scenes framed relating to that conflict. If I just frame things neutrally, then I’m not doing my job.

Whereas in the game I’m running, my job is to provide the milieu. If the PCs want to do something, they have to go out and do it. A paladin who wants to slay the Demon King who doesn’t take steps to do that will find the status quo mostly unchanged. They’re going to have to attack that problem and figure out the path forward. Sometimes I will provide adversity, but that follows as a consequence of the paladin’s actions.

For example, if the paladin kills a local Demon Lord, that is something that should have consequences. The PCs’ actions do not happen in a vacuum. To maintain my neutrality, I need to delegate that to the system, which will decide when and if the fallout happens. I use clocks for this, and they’re also handled transparently. The players know as soon as it happens, but the PCs only know based on how the ticks manifest in the game world (and they must because otherwise I’m wasting my time simulating the world for my own sake, which is not the point of play).

I should note that while some drift is possible (there is a particular situation in my current campaign involving a vampire ally one of the characters seemingly hates, and determining whether she would pull the trigger if she had a vampire-killing gun is something I’d like to play to find out), it’s never going to be the primary agenda, and it can’t interfere with the primary one (meaning the vampire ally is going to continue per suing her agenda, and we’ll see what happens should the character ever get strong enough to go against the ally).

Hopefully that provides some clarity. I would list both PbtA and FitD games as influential (among several others) even though I’m obviously interested in a different style of play. Many of the techniques they use to good effect also work very well for what I’m trying to do. I just have to be mindful of my overall agenda and avoid doing things to undermine it.

 

[aramis erak]

I disagree about "rolling without a reason to build tension" being bad. In fact, rolling without a reason (or fake rolls) is a good way of disguising real rolls at times when the players, both in and out of character, have as yet no reason to suspect anything's amiss.

Fudging is generally bad news.

Not sure what you mean by "punishing the players for learning the rules", though. Can you elaborate?

Gygaxian advice to change rules because players learned them. In some printings of the DMG:

As this book is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing it as something less than worthy of honorable death. Peeping players there will undoubtedly be, but they are simply lessening their own enjoyment of the game by taking away some of the sense of wonder that otherwise arises from a game which has rules hidden from participants. It is in your interests, and in theirs, to discourage possession of this book by players. If any of your participants do read herein, it is suggested that you assess them a heavy fee for consulting "sages" and other sources of information not normally attainable by the inhabitants of your milieu. If they express knowledge which could only be garnered by consulting these pages, a magic item or two can be taken as payment - insufficient, but perhaps it will tend to discourage such actions.

Later advice (ISTR in Dragon) suggests changing rules to thwart those reading the DMG.