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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5656891" data-attributes="member: 42582">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.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.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 href="http://www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/itoolkit2.html" target="_blank">a quote</a> 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.) 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 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.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 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.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.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.</blockquote>

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