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Introducing Complications Without Forcing Players to Play the "Mother May I?" Game
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7562348" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I've posted it before but I think it's time to post it again - <a href="http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=20791.0" target="_blank">a comment from Ron Edwards at The Forge in 2006</a>, on a thread in which another poster was looking for advice on how to manage scene-framing:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Well, let's look at this [ie the other poster's actual play report] again. Actually, I think it has nothing at all to do with distributed authority, but rather with the group members' shared trust that situational authority [ie decisions about what's going on and which PCs are there when it happens] is going to get exerted for maximal enjoyment among everyone. If, for example, we are playing a game in which I, alone, have full situational authority, and if everyone is confident that I will use that authority to get to stuff they want (for example, taking suggestions), then all is well. Or if we are playing a game in which we do "next person to the left frames each scene," and if that confidence is just as shared, around the table, that each of us will get to the stuff that others want (again, suggestions are accepted), then all is well.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the S[hared ]I[maginary ]S[pace] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.</p><p></p><p>I think this isn't really a problem for wargaming-type D&D, because that sort of play isn't really about <em>situation</em> at all. It's about the maze, the puzzles, the loot, and so rather than engaging situations a good GM needs a clever dungeon.</p><p></p><p>But this problem used to affect my Traveller games 30 years ago - I would struggle to come up with situations that were "worth anyone's time". Obviously the basic system elements suggest some starting points - hijackers on a starship is a standard one - but they wear thin quickly; and while Book 1 is called <em>Characters and Combat</em>, I think that interpersonal combat is actually not one of the most engaging aspects of Traveller play.</p><p></p><p>Questions of consequences (which is what the OP asks about), of when to say "yes" and when to push conflict hard, of what sort of control to exercise over scene-framing (which will feed into the fictional positioning that informs action declarations) - these can all be seen as ways of trying to ensure that the situations the GM is framing (assuming a fairly conventional allocation of responsibilities at the table) are "worth anyone's time".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7562348, member: 42582"] I've posted it before but I think it's time to post it again - [url=http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=20791.0]a comment from Ron Edwards at The Forge in 2006[/url], on a thread in which another poster was looking for advice on how to manage scene-framing: [indent]Well, let's look at this [ie the other poster's actual play report] again. Actually, I think it has nothing at all to do with distributed authority, but rather with the group members' shared trust that situational authority [ie decisions about what's going on and which PCs are there when it happens] is going to get exerted for maximal enjoyment among everyone. If, for example, we are playing a game in which I, alone, have full situational authority, and if everyone is confident that I will use that authority to get to stuff they want (for example, taking suggestions), then all is well. Or if we are playing a game in which we do "next person to the left frames each scene," and if that confidence is just as shared, around the table, that each of us will get to the stuff that others want (again, suggestions are accepted), then all is well. It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the S[hared ]I[maginary ]S[pace] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.[/indent] I think this isn't really a problem for wargaming-type D&D, because that sort of play isn't really about [I]situation[/I] at all. It's about the maze, the puzzles, the loot, and so rather than engaging situations a good GM needs a clever dungeon. But this problem used to affect my Traveller games 30 years ago - I would struggle to come up with situations that were "worth anyone's time". Obviously the basic system elements suggest some starting points - hijackers on a starship is a standard one - but they wear thin quickly; and while Book 1 is called [I]Characters and Combat[/I], I think that interpersonal combat is actually not one of the most engaging aspects of Traveller play. Questions of consequences (which is what the OP asks about), of when to say "yes" and when to push conflict hard, of what sort of control to exercise over scene-framing (which will feed into the fictional positioning that informs action declarations) - these can all be seen as ways of trying to ensure that the situations the GM is framing (assuming a fairly conventional allocation of responsibilities at the table) are "worth anyone's time". [/QUOTE]
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