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Illusionism: Where Do You Stand?
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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9083360" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>No, you've got it. </p><p></p><p><strong>A singular moment of Illusionism is a subset of GM Force.</strong> Its the <strong>covert deployment of Force</strong>; so you're talking about secretly changing outcomes via manipulation of action resolution mechanics/results and the like (maybe fudging dice behind a screen or concealing a target number to ensure one or the other of "pass/fail"). Not all Force is covert. A lot of it is in your face where GMs will "rug pull" like when the game is supposed to be about x premise/setting and then they flip the script to y premise/setting halfway through play. Another "rug pull" example might be when they just straight up take over an NPC/Faction/Trait that is effectively a PC asset and assert an outcome upon play that suborns player expectations of authority over that thing. Do you remember [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] 's GM in his 5e game shutting down his Folk Hero Trait? That is a good example of overt Force via "rug pull." Then you've got stuff like the rampant "Deus Ex Machina" you see in metaplot-heavy games (there are big examples of this in APs) where the PCs slay a metaplot-relevant NPC or throw off the metaplot's timing via some kind of monkeywrench and the GM/AP subverts the outcome with a "haha, here is NPC002 that does the exact same thing" or they just artificially un-monkeywrench the situation and bring the metaplot's timing back online like nothing ever happened. That kind of stuff is overt GM Force (which subverts player input via build or action & resolution and puts play "back online" toward the GM's preferred sequence/outcome).</p><p></p><p>Illusionism is also referred to as a type of game that is governed by covert GM Force to a sufficient degree that the GM effectively has claimed control over the trajectory of play. Its about frequency, magnitude, scale of deployment but, <em>for some folks, any instance of covert GM Force is enough to call a game Illusionism</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 9083360, member: 6696971"] No, you've got it. [B]A singular moment of Illusionism is a subset of GM Force.[/B] Its the [B]covert deployment of Force[/B]; so you're talking about secretly changing outcomes via manipulation of action resolution mechanics/results and the like (maybe fudging dice behind a screen or concealing a target number to ensure one or the other of "pass/fail"). Not all Force is covert. A lot of it is in your face where GMs will "rug pull" like when the game is supposed to be about x premise/setting and then they flip the script to y premise/setting halfway through play. Another "rug pull" example might be when they just straight up take over an NPC/Faction/Trait that is effectively a PC asset and assert an outcome upon play that suborns player expectations of authority over that thing. Do you remember [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] 's GM in his 5e game shutting down his Folk Hero Trait? That is a good example of overt Force via "rug pull." Then you've got stuff like the rampant "Deus Ex Machina" you see in metaplot-heavy games (there are big examples of this in APs) where the PCs slay a metaplot-relevant NPC or throw off the metaplot's timing via some kind of monkeywrench and the GM/AP subverts the outcome with a "haha, here is NPC002 that does the exact same thing" or they just artificially un-monkeywrench the situation and bring the metaplot's timing back online like nothing ever happened. That kind of stuff is overt GM Force (which subverts player input via build or action & resolution and puts play "back online" toward the GM's preferred sequence/outcome). Illusionism is also referred to as a type of game that is governed by covert GM Force to a sufficient degree that the GM effectively has claimed control over the trajectory of play. Its about frequency, magnitude, scale of deployment but, [I]for some folks, any instance of covert GM Force is enough to call a game Illusionism[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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