Is D&D an illusion?

[Beginning of the End]

EW made a comment that if the D&D used illusionism (in this case, regarding your ability to fail) then it wasn't a game (to him?). Technically, the dictionary says it's a game, but that's not what this thread is about.

this thread is about whether what the GM decides to do in the game is all illusion or not. barring the fact that this is a game of pretend and its all in our head.

As you discovered with the word "game", if you keep broadening the definition of a word, eventually that word loses all practical meaning and utility.

Similarly, the word illusionism was created to describe a situation in which the GM is railroading players by offering a false choice. With that definition, it's a useful term for distinguishing one form of gameplay. If you broaden that definition to include everything a GM does, then you're robbing the word of any practical meaning.

Conflating the term "illusionism" with "illusion" is also confusing at best and pointless at worst.

To sum up: No, I don't believe that the GM's creative input into the game should always be classified as illusionism/railroading.

With that being said: I once watched a player walk out of a game because the GM had the bad guys take the PCs prisoner instead of summarily executing them. The player felt that the GM was taking it easy on them and it broke their SOD and interest in the game. Given that I've watched the same GM ruthlessly TPK parties who get in over their heads, I suspect that the GM was telling the truth: It made sense for the bad guy to question them and then, having gotten their answers, to turn them to his own advantage. (Which, tangentially, worked perfectly: The bad guy got everything he wanted; the players go absolutely nothing they wanted. It was more utterly devastating than any TPK I've ever taken part in. Three years later, the other players are still vowing vengeance on that NPC.)

Which I offer only as an example of the danger of assuming that a GM being anything less than a ruthless murder machine is somehow "fudging" things.

 

[Corathon]

You're right of course, that no one is completely unbiased. That's not necessarily a bad thing. My choices and my biases make it my world instead of something generic.

That said, I try to play fair. I don't (and can't) think of everything ahead of time, so I react based on what the NPCs are and what the characters do. If I'm in doubt about how some NPC will react to a PC, I let the dice decide (modifed by the appropriate modifiers). Even if something is decided ahead of time e.g. "the wolves are starving and attack if they can catch one or two characters alone" the players may be able to change it by casting speak with animals and/or giving the wolves some food, or by a show of force that scares off the pack, etc

Likewise I try to choose the consequences of failure based on what is most logical or "realistic" rather than arbitrarily. So if you are defeated by intelligent foes they may take you prisoner and then ransom or enslave you - or sacrifice you to their spider goddess. If you're defeated by crocodiles they'll likely just eat you.

As a player, I want there to be a possibility of death and even TPK, but the risks of other kind of failure (loss of status, loss of wealth or magic, crippling, energy drain etc) are also motivators.

So, I disagree withyour "D&D is an illusion" thesis.

 

[Argyle King]

Margins typically give you relative (and subjective) degree of success or failure, but usually don't give you the details, and the details matter.

A rules-agnostic example, which I hope to be demonstrative. You're character is a double agent, in dangerous negotiations with a Person In Power. If you fail miserably in your attempt, does the PiP have his guards rush you immediately to take you prisoner for eventual execution, or does he send assassins to kill you some time next month?

The difference is not in the mechanic, but in the GM's head, and is crucial to determining how the game unfolds.

This is where -IMO- playing the part of the character comes in. The character has motivations and goals, so the GM has an idea of what the best and worst outcomes are. How far a margin is from those two poles should give an idea of what happens next. I suppose you're right in that this does require judgement, but it's shouldn't be a blindly made call. I would also view it as a strength of the GM's chair to not be completely tied down to completely preset conditions in the same way that a video game's programing might be.

If you're a GM who prefers more prepared results, there's no reason you can't list the various thresholds of success. For example, let's say I am preparing a skill challenge in which the PCs are negotiating with the king for help and decide that complete success with no failure means he provides the PCs with a platoon of his guards, a magic item, and some gold. We'll say 6 successes are required.

I can then also list that no success and all failure means the PCs get nothing; the king says he is unable to help them. Next on the list -If the PCs get at least two successes before failing, the king expresses his regret that he cannot aid them, but does provide the purse of gold and wishes them well. If the PCs get at least 4 successes before failure, they get the gold and the item... etc.

Does this mean the GM still has input on the results? Yes, but it's not completely arbitrary. There should be some idea of what the opportunities and consequences are already. Also, as mentioned, I personally prefer to set those poles in accordance with the whims of the character the PCs are interacting with (if they are interacting with someone else) rather than base them solely on my own mind. If the challenge is one in which there is no interaction with another character, I should still have an idea based on the surrounding world.

While this *does* mean there are judgement calls at times, I would hardly call that bias in the context of the OP. At least not any more than I would call physics bias for not allowing elephants to fly (sans Dumbo.) If I truthfully really have no idea at all how to handle something, there have been times when I've been honest with the players at the table and asked for a group consensus.

Getting back to margins - I think it depends upon which game you're playing if I would say the margins usually don't give you the details. There are games in which a rapid fire attack with a machine gun uses margin of success to determine how many rounds hit their target. The target may then dodge; their margin of success determines how many rounds they successfully dodged.

That being said, I will admit to probably not having as much variety in my gaming library as some of the other posters here on Enworld. It's my experience that 'some of the time' the margin does not give details, but I openly admit to the possibility of my answer being different if my gaming tastes were also different and exposed to other games than what I currently play.

 

[Janx]

had a busy day yesterday, looks like y'all did fine without me....

Pem's right, that certain rule sets can more rigidly guide the outcomes, thus reducing DM fickleness (or whatever its called). This was the same concept that Combat kind of has. While there's wigggle room there, as well, it's pretty concrete that if I hit you and you are out of HP, you are dead. The outcome is built into the mechanic mostly.

Other stuff, not as much. if you commit a crime, the GM decides if anybody saw it that you didn't know about. There's not really a dice roll for that, I just made it up.

As always, this comes down to GM trust and GM delivering a product that his players want.

BotE mentioned the tail of the GM capturing, not executing and the pissy player. That's a great example. It takes EW's "you didn't let me fail" and demonstrates in this case, the player didn't trust the GM, and the GM's chosen result was both rational and instigated a lot more game material than a simple TPK would have.

This example seems to be one where 'rules' don't cover. The NPC either kills the party or something else happens. it was a judgement call.

This judgement call is where player opinion seems to clash with GM opinion.

Barring cases of crappy GMing, is the consensus:
The GM has a right to decide what he feels makes sense as an outcome
It is advised that the GM consider what happens next from the NPCs perspective, rather than a narrator's perspective (though for a story-driven GM, perhaps a merged perspective would be fine).

If these are true, then "you didn't let me fail" as an argument may be invalidated. The GM is trying to run a good game, and he decides what he decides. In a way, he decides which failures are show stoppers.

Coming back to original thread title, "you didn't let me fail" is a charge that the DM is running an illusion. If the consensus says that's BS because of the GMs rights to do stuff outlined above, then there is no such thing as an "illusion" in the context of basic what happens next decisions.

 

[CuRoi]

No, no it doesn't become immaterial. In fact, it becomes *more* material.

You see, you guys are arguing about what the GM and game are supposed to be - that's a theoretical discussion, quite immaterial. If you do what I'm talking about, you can get to the far more material discussion of practical techniques to get what you want out of the game.

Well, it looks like some great discussion has ocurred and I have been unable to sit down long enough to post a decent response! I'll try to not rehash anything you guys have touched on too much, but answer a few specific questions. I'll concede up front that as mostly a lurker, there is a vocabulary and definition of certain terms which are used here that I don't have a firm grasp on yet so this most likely contributes to crossing wires.

Not sure I see how discussing what a DM/Game is or is not supposed to be is irrelevant to whether a DnD game is illusion that is dependent on the DM. Sure, it is a discussion a bit closer to theory than practical matters, but I still don't see it as an non-constructive avenue.

I was inspired enough to look back through the 4 DMGs I've got and try to see how the books framed the role. Honestly, I don't see in any case from AD&D to 4e that the DM is described as anything short of a teller of the story.

That said, there are printed guides on DMing. It seems a lot less theoretical that we should at least know the basics of what a DM is "supposed to be". Sure, there will be variations to one degree or another. And sure, each guide does have a slightly different spin of course.

The topic of "illusion" on part of the DM is handled a touch differently in each guide from what I can see but they all have a common thread. Some flat out tell you it's ok to fudge rolls (infrequently). Some skip that and tell you precisely how to be a good "storyteller" by controlling pacing, dealing with unique challenges not covered in whatever pre-game prep you have done, etc. However, none describe the DM as a detached, neutral entity that just rolls dice and adjudicates rules (thus the opening for a discussion on "illusion"). From what I can see, all encourage you to tell a story of some sort and the books provide specific guidance on how to do it.

I'm sorry, but D&D isn't that special. As I understand the term "completely collaborative story-telling game", very few things fit the bill. In this sense, D&D, World of Darkness, Mutants and Masterminds, Deadlands, Star Wars, Old School Hack - whatever you play, you're probably playing something designed on the same basic D&D scheme of player and GM interaction. So, GM works quite well.

Like I said, it was splitting hairs perhaps. But as an example. If someone says they play round-robin style where players each take broad control of things, describe the events and then players vote on the described outcome, I'd call that completely collaborative where the DM has little investment/control of the "story" (barring my presumably flawed definition of story). In fact in games like that, the idea of a "GM" is really defined in a completely different manner.

Most DnD games I have seen/been a part of, usually require the players to rely on the DM's input either before or after they make decisions. That input can be from the DM's head or from a pre-printed source, and often from dice rolls, but however you look at it, the DM is sort of filtering it through their knowledge of the rules, their assumptions about the setting, and their interpretations of events. At least that is how I am interpreting the idea of "illusion" in the OP.

I didn't mean to say you couldn't do something like a completely collaborative story with DnD. But IMO the rules implicit in DnD make this pretty tricky to pull off (and I'd never try it - I'd just go to a more open system for that). Just things like the level/power curve alone means the players simply can't affect or interact with certain parts of the campaign/plot/story/adventure as easily as they may want to until certain conditions are met - conditions largely controlled by the DM.

 

[CuRoi]

In this comment, you are running together situational authority, content authority and plot authority. If you run those things together, then it becomes harder to understand how a game works which keeps them separate.

I won't argue here, this is precisely what I am talking about when I say there is a vocabulary in use here I am just not used to. So I appreciate the definitions up thread - you've provided something similar before, so apologies if you are re-hashing this

At any rate, the statement was meant to be a bit difficult to understand regarding that type of game which I was describing - a game where a DM claims no "authority" over the story apart from dice roller. You can argue the primacy of the parts, and I suppose my main contention is that the DM has the biggest "authority" burden in any game where a DM is a necessary component to the game at all.

At the very least, as you say, in a sandbox game the DM provides content authority which, if I am understanding it correctly, frames all of their actions and provides the space that they are exploring. That seems pretty crucial to any story unfolding. True, player action is also vital in that regard as well.

But, A DM that just rolls dice and reads rulebooks, seems unnecessary and hardly worth an entire DMG devoted to it IMO. My players can read and roll dice Story telling whether it be relaying results of actions, defining an engaging setting, etc. seems integral to the role. As such, the possibility of "Illusion" being introduced seems given - nobody is perfect.

Of course you can be sceptical all you like, but I always find it more interesting to try and understand how others approach the game.

Did I ever imply a lack of interest in understanding? Not sure where that is coming from. But yes, still sceptical of a DM being completely divorced from the story and who just rolls dice and reads rule books for the same reason you are sceptical of "player control over situation and content" - already deleted your quote so I think that's how you put it.

We can then look at what features of what systems possess those tools, or the tools that would support other approaches.

As stated, I don't think DnD possesses the tools to pull off the aforementioned player primacy or (over content/situation as you put it). Too many systems in the rules support and demand DM "calls" and DM control over -some- aspect of the power level/content/plot etc. etc.

We've talked a bit about this before I think and we hit an impasse based on things like players running roughshod with this authority concept (like divinations, teleportation, etc. etc. I might be recalling incorrectly so apologies if I am wrong.) I think I am just on a different page entirely because I really don't mind that sort of thing like a lot of DMs and it may point to my separation with these authority concepts or an odd interpretation of them perhaps?

Anyway, I appreciate the discussion and apologize for my lack of involvment after generating several well-reasoned responses to my previus posts. Just not enough time lately!

 

[pemerton]

A DM that just rolls dice and reads rulebooks, seems unnecessary and hardly worth an entire DMG devoted to it IMO.

<snip>

still sceptical of a DM being completely divorced from the story and who just rolls dice and reads rule books

To me at least, that sounds like crappy, crappy GMing. But the alternatives to that sort of "wargame refereeing" are not limited to the GM taking control of the plot.

in a sandbox game the DM provides content authority which, if I am understanding it correctly, frames all of their actions and provides the space that they are exploring. That seems pretty crucial to any story unfolding. True, player action is also vital in that regard as well.

Agreed! Completely agreed! With both the second and third sentences. Which is why I think it is not obvious that the GM is more central to plotting than are the players.

I suppose my main contention is that the DM has the biggest "authority" burden in any game where a DM is a necessary component to the game at all.

In a sandbox the GM has the bulk of authority over content - because it is the GM who builds the world for the PCs to explore. The players typically have a reasonable degree of authority over the situation - because, being a sandbox, they can have their PCs explore it at leisure. But if the GM (whether by premeditation, or by random rolls) confronts the PCs with situations as they explore - "You are walking down the street when you see your brother being attacked by three muggers - what do you do?" - then obviously the player authority over situation has been rather diluted. Too much of this sort of thing and my personal feeling is that we no longer have a sandbox at all, but given that I'm not much of a sandboxer I'll leave it at that.

Whoever generated it, how does the situation in this sandbox resolve? Let's say - by application of the action resolution mechanics. And where these require the exercise of judgement, who gets to decide? The players? The GM? The players, but with the GM having a veto power? The whole table, by vote or by consensus?

Until we have answers to how the game is played - and even in D&D, this can vary pretty wildly from table to table - and until we know how, for a given group, they assign significance to fictional elements - then we can't tell who has the bulk of the real authority. For example, if the GM gets to build 95% of content, but no one else gives a toss about the first 90% of it, then the GM's authority here doesn't seem to matter very much. Or to flip the example around - if the players have a lot of freedom over backstory, but it is the GM who frames situations and in framing those situations the GM never brings that backstory into play (and a lot of adventure path play I think might look like this) then the players' content authority over backstory was irrelevant to anything.

I'll agree that the GM is important. And I'll agree that, in a traditional game, the GM is more important than any single player in the following sense - if a player is just coasting and rolling the dice, the GM can pick up the slack for that player and everyone else can still have a good time with some engaging fiction, whereas if the GM is just coasting and rolling the dice then the game will probably grind to a halt - or at least degenerate from RPG to tactical skirmish or board game. But I won't say that, in general, the GM has the biggest burden.

Here is a quote that I have in mind in saying this:

Let's start with roleplaying's GM (referee, Storyteller or whatever). This is usually the person who works out the plot, the world and everything that isn't the players'. To a greater or lesser degree, she is above the other players in importance, depending on the group's temperament. In a Story Entertainment, she is just another player. Distinctly different, but no more and no less than any other player. The terms GM and referee fail to convey this spirit of equality. The term Storyteller suggests that the players are passive listeners of her tale. So here's another term for this participant - one that invokes the spirit of Story Entertainments - Fifth Business.

Fifth Business is a term that originates from European opera companies. A character from Robertson Davies' novel, The Fifth Business, describes the' term this way:

You cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business. You must have a Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death, if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without the Fifth Business!​

This certainly sounds a lot like a GM, but it also makes it clear that he's part of the show, not the show itself.

Let's call the players the Leads. They're not players in the GM's game. They're participants in a story. The Fifth Business has a lot more work to do than do the Leads, changing costumes and shaping the story while it's in progress. But the Leads are equal to the Fifth Business. The Leads must react to the characters, incidents and information that the Fifth Business offers, just as players must react to what the GM offers in a roleplaying game. But the Fifth Business must always be on his toes and react to what the Leads offer.

Why?

Because in a Story Entertainment the story doesn't belong to the Fifth Business. The Fifth Business can't decide what the plot is going to be and then run the players through it like mice in a maze. The Leads determine the direction of the story when they create their characters.​

There is no need to get distracted by the aggressive terminology, of "Story Entertainment" and "Fifth Business" - Christopher Kubasik is here clearly talking about one way of thinking about how a GM can run an RPG. It's an approach that, in my view, is entirely viable within D&D. (Kubasik himself, later in his essay, talks about running a Pendragon game this way.)

Story telling whether it be relaying results of actions, defining an engaging setting, etc. seems integral to the role.

If by "story telling" you mean something like "introducing fictional elements that make for engaging situation" then I agree completely. And this is what Kubasik is talking about with his notion of "The Fifth Business". But that leaves it an open question where the unfolding plot comes from. Of course the fictional elements that the GM puts into play will matter. But will they be determinative? Or, even, the most important? This is where different playstyles make a big difference, in my view.

I don't think DnD possesses the tools to pull off the aforementioned player primacy or (over content/situation as you put it). Too many systems in the rules support and demand DM "calls" and DM control over -some- aspect of the power level/content/plot etc. etc.

I think this depends a lot both on edition, and approach. And you'd have to tell me something about the systems that you have in mind.

But in 4e, the game assumes that players control PC build, that by building their PCs the players can bring various sorts of thematic material into the game (see the race descriptions, class descriptions, etc), and that this sort of thematic material will affect how encounters unfold (see the monster descriptions in the MM, for example). The GM can choose to build encounters, and resolve them, in complete disregard of how the players have built their PCs. But nothing in the mechanics creates pressure to do so.

I believe that 2nd ed AD&D actively encouraged the GM to take control over the game's plot, including by suspending the action resolution mechanics at (in)convenient moments. But 4e doesn't have the same sort of advice (at least, not until Essentials - which in my personal view takes some retrograde steps in this regard).

4e has other features as well, such as strong encouragement for player-defined Quests, which seem to support player-driven plot, and GMing in a style closer to that described by Kubasik.

As such, the possibility of "Illusion" being introduced seems given - nobody is perfect.

I agree illusionism is possible. Some groups even seem to like it. I'm just saying that it's not mandatory. That it is possible to run and play an RPG in which the players' influence over the unfolding plot is not illusory but real. The quote from Kubasik illustrates one way of doing it. I know it can be done, because I do something like that in my own game.

that certain rule sets can more rigidly guide the outcomes, thus reducing DM fickleness (or whatever its called). This was the same concept that Combat kind of has.

That wasn't really my main point. My main point was that (i) if the rules of the game, or the mutual understanding at a table of how the game is to be played, require the GM to respect player choices about themes and/or relationships and/or content (eg players are allowed to define Quests for their PCs), and (ii) if the rules of the game require the GM to respect the outcome of the action resolution mechanics (so eg if the players engage in a skill challenge with the goal of having some NPCs agree to a bargain with the PCs, and win, then the GM is obliged to have the NPCs keep to the bargain - just like monsters dropped to zero hp stay dead and don't jump up again next round at the arbitrary whim of the GM), then (iii) the GM is not in sole or even principal control of the plot of the game.

it's pretty concrete that if I hit you and you are out of HP, you are dead. The outcome is built into the mechanic mostly.

Other stuff, not as much. if you commit a crime, the GM decides if anybody saw it that you didn't know about.

This depends entirely on the action resolution mechanics. Suppose that my PC's commission of the crime is resolved via a skill challenge. And one of my PC's goals in the challenge is to avoid detection. And I do not fail a skill check in the entire course of that challenge. Then it is not up to the GM to decide if I was spotted. The game rules have settled the matter.

As always, this comes down to GM trust and GM delivering a product that his players want.

<snip>

Barring cases of crappy GMing, is the consensus:
The GM has a right to decide what he feels makes sense as an outcome
It is advised that the GM consider what happens next from the NPCs perspective, rather than a narrator's perspective (though for a story-driven GM, perhaps a merged perspective would be fine).

I am not part of any such consensus.

In post 46 upthread I explained why I find calls to "trust the GM" unsatisfactory.

I don't think the GM has a right to decide what s/he feels makes sense as an outcome. I think the players have a right to set goals for their PCs, and to engage the action resolution mechanics to achieve those goals. And if this produces outcomes that the GM didn't expect or didn't plan for, that is the GM's problem to deal with!

I also don't find the GM reasoning from the NPC's perspective very helpful, myself. I prefer to reason from my perspective as GM. What will drive the game forward? The NPC's perspective is one part of this, because poor verisimilitude will hurt the game and so NPCs should be reasonably coherent as personalities. But that is a long way from saying that I want to reason from the NPC's perspective.

Have I quoted Paul Czege yet in this thread?

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. . . the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.​

Anyway, I think rather than a consensus on how to GM - which is unreaslistic, given people want to play different sorts of games - maybe we can try for a consensus on what sorts of techniques and tools will support what sorts of desired play experiences.