Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Ilbranteloth]

So @pemerton already analyzed this and I'm in agreement with what he wrote. But I'll throw a few words of my own into the ring.

While I understand that "provoke the players into action" and "drive play toward conflict" can easily be perceived as "specific direction to drive the story arc", within context of everything else (the rest of the GMing principles, the general play procedures, the specific conflict resolution procedures, the game's Reward Cycle) it really isn't about story specificity. Its about addressing premise. The conceptual difference between the two may be nuanced, but it is absolutely central to proper Story Now GMing.

To play at all in these games is to accept either (a) the tight system premise that is inherent to the game itself (like My Life With Master) or (b) premise that is inherent to (and signaled by) the thematic choices of PC build (D&D 4e, Dungeon World, and the Cortex+ games) or (c) both (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark).

So all the GM is doing in Dogs is their job; (1) create obstacles (Towns) which provoke (hook into premise and demand a response) and (2) functionally and coherently frame conflicts around Dog's inherent premise (and each of the Dogs' inherent premise themselves), (3) escalating them when necessary and sensible (which is most of the time), and (4) respond to the evolving conditions/evolved continuity by framing follow-on conflicts that hook right back into premise until every PC is done for (physically, mentally, or emotionally) or the Town is cleansed. (5) Take a breather as we reflect between towns, the players and the situation evolves, then go right back to (1).

Story specificity isn't a thing in Dogs or Story Now games. Whatever happens...happens. Just address premise and provoke with relevant content. Then react to the players and appreciate the fireworks and fallout.

I know there is this sandbox mental framework impulse that tells a certain segment of longtime AD&D players that serial exploration of setting (with objective temporal and spatial relationships and granular accounting for both) and a broad/varied buffet of premise is fundamentally the only boundary conditions which can maximize player agency.

For them, hard scene framing and "go to the action" (contrast with serial exploration of setting relationships) and focused premise (contrast with a broad/varied buffet of premise) is fundamentally a problem for player agency.

But its just not for these type of games. In fact, smuggling in those sandbox GMing principles (holistically...some Story Now games use certain components) is actually damaging to the player agency (and aesthetic experience) of Story Now games. This is because spending precious play time exploring/investigating premise-neutral setting relationships or spending table time on dramatically-inert situations (either because they are fundamentally so or because the GM has done a poor job of framing) are both negatively impactful to the sum-total amount of agency that players could be expressing around addressing premise/theme in a given session and, just as important, such inconsistent pacing negatively impacts the very precious momentum/tempo that is central to the play experience.

For the players to play at all in a Story Now game and for the game to work at all is to embrace (and expect) that paradigm.

That makes sense, although looking through something like AW there are specific responses to choose from. I get that they are sort of vague and are intended to provide a direction for your response. But I still find them limiting. And as I've mentioned before, part of the problem I have with many of these games is the terminology they use.

But when I'm talking about 100%/80% it's primarily because there are times in the game when I'm not concerned with addressing the premise per se.

When I say that, it's largely because there are lots of premises going on at a given point at time, and I don't see it as my responsibility as DM to direct them towards one or the other most of the time. Sometimes there are time-sensitive things, so that obviously puts some pressure on them.

So let me ask this - My campaign typically has at least a dozen plots going on at once. Usually there are one or two specific to each character - goals they have, others are either group or setting specific, they know of a potential attempt to overthrow the local Lord, or something like that. Others might be a map they acquired that shows the location of a long lost tomb.

So when they are following a particular storyline, my goal is to support that, and based on what I see in Story Now games, a lot of those techniques are in use, although perhaps not as coherently. Between those points, though, it's really up to the PCs to determine what's next. And the PCs may decide to change course in the middle of one story line.

Do Story Now, or perhaps your Story Now games have or support that sort of game?

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the sandbox approach either. At least not as championed by those who swear by a "pure" sandbox. That the DM shouldn't interfere at all in anything that's going on. I tend to use the term living sandbox, although I don't know if that means anything to anybody else. But the point is that the DM has a broad responsibility for the things that are happening in the world as a whole. Whether it's the weather, or impending orc raids, plots and schemes by the many villains and villainous organizations, and local and regional political issues, etc. That doesn't require the DM to detail and catalog all of that sort of things beforehand, although I personally think it makes it easier.

For me I see benefits in both methods (which seem to be the two extremes).

 

[Lanefan]

I disagree, only because from what I can tell [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] runs a game similar to mine, which "includes ethical/moral problems embedded in it and doesn't use Force techniques to produce a specific outcome."

Thanks for that, but you make it sound much more highfalutin' and serious than it really is.

And more often than not their answer to moral/ethical problems pretty much boils down to

Character X: "screw it, let's just kill 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out" immediately followed by Player of Character X: "Pass me a beer, will ya? I'm empty."

Also, I use all kinds of techniques; sometimes by choice, sometimes not. Not everything works every time, as one might expect, but enough things work enough of the time to keep it fun and engage the players enough that they come back next week for more.

I try to avoid what the Forge limits as force techniques as much as possible.

In all honesty, I just try to avoid the Forge as much as possible and leave it at that. IME whenever Forge stuff starts rearing its head in any discussion things quickly and inevitably spiral into arguing about how the Forge defines terms and uses words vs. how everyone else defines and uses them, burying whatever the original discussion might have had going for it.

The moral dilemma presented itself without any need for me to add anything else. I knew there were guards for the prisoners, because I did have a map of the hold, but I didn't expect them to be able to sneak to their present location where the guards would have their backs to them. I really didn't expect them to initially attempt to sneak into the hold for surveillance. They have their morals and know what the norm is in the world itself.

One of the main things I like about the game (and have mentioned before) are these sort of character-building moments.

Really the best part about this character development is how it arose organically out of the run of play. The DM (you, I gather) presented a pre-built situation and scenario and turned the players loose on it; the players in character then threw a curveball at you by being too good at what they did (sneak into the keep), and in the process nicely set the moral dilemma up for themselves. Grand stuff!

By your definition above, I must be running a narrative campaign. I'm OK with that, although really it's more of a hybrid approach, trying to build on the strengths of several styles.

Here obviously you became reactive rather than proactive while they crept into the keep...they acted, and you reacted. And now they've hung themselves on a moral dilemma and while they dither they might unintentionally hand you a chance to become proactive - the guards turning around would be a start.

Lan-"the hybrid approach, equally fuelled by imagination and beer"-efan

 

[pemerton]

I don't understand the mechanic of expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport them. Are you saying this can only happen if the DM has earned some sort of resource to do so. Or to put it a different way, the Crypt Thing, within the world, can't use it's primary ability otherwise?

<snip>

If my Crypt Thing can't use their primary ability because the mystical DM in the sky hasn't earned (or already used) his action points, then that's probably not a game I want to play.

As presented in the Fiend Folio, a crypt thing teleports PCs by using a magical ability. Whether or not a PC is teleported depends on the player's saving throw roll.

In MHRP, trying to teleport a character is inflicting a complication - which is a general mechanic. If a complication is serious enough, the character is out for the rest of the scene. In the encounter I described, the crpyt thing inflicted a d8 (or d10? I can't remember now) Stuck Halfway Through a Portal complication on one of the PCs. But then, before there was a chance to step up that complication or inflict any others, the Doom Pool reached 2d12. And I spent the dice to end the scene, narrating this as the crypt thing having dismissed all the PCs from its presence, teleported to a room on a lower dungeon level.

D&D doesn't have any mechanic of that sort, where the GM can expend a resource to establish and narrate the end of a scene.

As for Cortex Fantasy, the players establishing, via asset creation? I don't quite understand. In D&D the players would ask what the murals show, and the DM would answer. This could be predetermined, could be made up on the fly. In most cases, murals on the wall of a dungeon would likely provide some information of some sort regarding the dungeon, or at least the inhabitants that created them.

For the pillared hall, I established three Scene Distinctions (which is a standard part of scene framing in MHRP): Pillars, Flickering Braziers, and Murals on the Walls that Might be Maps.

While two of the players had their PCs fighting the living statue, the third player declared as his action that he studied the murals to see if they would show him the way through the dungeon (thereby eliminating the d12 Lost in the Dungeon complication). He succeeded - among other things, this established as true-in-the-fiction that the murals had information about the dungeon; it also meant that he was no longer lost, and (mechanically) he was rid of the complication. On his next turn he continued to study them, this time to establish, as an asset, Path to Treasure. That asset was then used by him in his dice pools to persuade the dark elven C/F/MU to take him to the dark elf treasure vaults.

Part of the context for all this was that the Doom Pool was very low, and these sorts of actions (Recovery and Support actions) are generally opposed by the Doom Pool, so it was a propitious time to eliminate complications and establish assets. (Which is also part of my answer to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] upthread - is power-gaming possible in MHRP? Yes it is, and what I've just described is an example.)

 

[pemerton]

Just because I might have had an idea, and even gone so far to write it down, doesn't mean it's right. I, as the DM, and "playing to find out" if it's true. Call it a theory, like in a mystery. Am I right? I'm not ready to declare who did it, where they did it, and with what. I could be wrong.

<snip>

So yes, the DM is the only one that can provide the answers. But that doesn't mean the answers come from the notes.

<snip>

I don't usually have specific answers, unless it's something simple like when they are in a dungeon and I know what creatures/traps/treasures lie in two different directions. Those are times where the notes are more specific (although potentially still malleable). Otherwise I give it my best shot

the GM is free to change things on the fly, no matter what style of game is being played. This is my point.

<snip>

there is no reason that anything in the GM's note must be written in stone.

<snip>

So this Mutability of Backstory is a technique that MAY be applied in any game.

Referring back to the OP:

[size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​

<snip>

By railroading I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)

My interest is in who shapes "outcomes", and thereby gets to establish the stuff of the shared fiction.

"Mutability of Backstory" is not an end in itself. A GM who leaves everything unresolved in his/her mind until the moment of crunch, and then makes up stuff that s/he thinks will be "good for the story", or "fun", or consistent with what s/he believes the trajectory of things to be, is shaping outcomes.

If the GM is doing the same thing to narrate consequences when checks fail, or to frame in such a way as to put pressure on the dramatic needs established by the players, that's (for me) a completely different thing.

Rules that instruct the DM to "drive toward conflict," "go to the action," etc. are giving the DM the instruction to choose what's important to him, based on what he thinks is important to the players and the characters.

I don't agree with this. Let's think about a different context: I want to buy someone a gift, and want to buy something that that person will enjoy. It would be artificial at best to describe that as me buying something that is important to me, based on what I think is important to the recipient of the gift. It is me buying something that that person will like. And there are all sorts of ways of learning what someone likes: implicit cues (eg the shelf full of military history books) and overt ones ("I really like reading about military history!").

Likewise in "story now" RPGing: the players are sending all sorts of signals, overlty and implicitly, that tell the GM what is important. The GM isn't guessing. Think again of [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the brother's hat. This is not something that is important to the GM. This is something that the player, through a particular PC build choice, has signalled as important.

The example was about the NPC villain turning out to be the PC's father, a la Darth Vader. It would seem your expectation for a Story Now approach to have such a revelation be determined by the PCs actions and how they are shaped by the player. That having the NPC claim fatherhood only establishes the claim and nothing more....but I think it certainly establishes the possibility. The player now has to accept or deny the claim, and then play will likely form around such effort.

Now, based on your description, this is likely fine....I would expect such a question of parentage was based on the player declaring that as a point of interest for his character. But my point is that the GM's idea only was what brought the game to that point. Right up until the point where the NPC makes the claim, the fiction was shaping up for exactly that. The GM was steering things in that way. He was pushing a specific idea, forcing a certain conflict.

I'm still missing something.

The player has, in his/her build and play of the PC, put the issue of family/parentage etc into play. (As in my BW game, the player of the mage PC, by writing in a balrog-possessed brother, has put family stuff into play.) So at some stage the GM is going to challenge that - "going where the action is", pushing the players (via their PCs) to fight for what they believe, etc.

The GM might introduce a NPC with the thought that that NPC is propitious for making a claim about parentage. But I'm missing the bit about "steering". The GM is doing that because the player put the whole matter into play. It is the player driving and the GM responding, isn't it?

I'm curious about this first homestead-wise check discussed. You stated you made the check to learn more about why the homesteads were abandoned, succeeded, and the result was narration of backstorumy by the GM. Can you add more detail about the intent/outcome or square this otherwise on how this wasn't learning what was in the GM's notes, ie secret backstory?

Isn't that learning secret backstory, whether it's in notes or otherwise? How does that differ from the player's perspective when a DM has notes about the circumstances, vs. making it up on the spot?

The issue of "making things up on the spot" is orthogonal. Gygax's DMG includes a system for random determination; and surely every GM of a dungeon crawl has on some occasion had to make up some detail that wasn't written down in advance ("What colour is the ceiling?" "What is the height of the table?" etc).

The contrast that I am drawing betweeen RPGing in accordance with the "standard narrativistic model" and by way of "GM's secret backstory" - which is a contrast that came into discussion in this thread solely because I drew it! - is about the basis on which the GM establishes fiction, and the role it plays in the resolution of action declaration.

When I tell my GM that I (as in, my PC) am looking around the homestead, and call for a Homestead-wise check, if I succeed that GM has to tell me more stuff that fits my intent (which is to learn what happened to the homesteaders, etc). If I fail, then the GM has to narrate something that defeats or is contrary to my intent.

I don't know what the GM would have narrated had my check failed, but I know what I would have done in his place: either I would have narrated evidence that these homesteaders were heathens, thereby defeating my assumption that the whole premise of the situation is that they are innocent victims of orcish raiders, and putting my Faithfulness and Fanatical Devotion under pressure; or I would have narrated evidence that members of my own order, the Knights of the Iron Tower, had been involved in perpretration of the raids - which would have rather brutally put pressure directly on my being Sworn to the Order as well as my Fanatical Devotion.

The GM's narration is not to be guided by what is in notes (be they literal or notional, or randomly generated by rolling on a "raided homestead" table). The GM's narration is to be guided by the dictates of intent and task: success means my intent is realised; failure means that it is not.

And in making the check I'm not learning "secret backstory". I'm not exploring the setting (to use Ron Edwards's phrase). I'm generating narration from the GM, with the content of that narration being modulated to success or failure in the sort of manner I've just described.

In a story now campaign, if I (as a player) decided to search for secret doors on every single turn, would it be allowed, and if so, would I find a secret door every time I was successful in my search?

I'm not sure what you mean by "would it be allowed"? As in, is there a rule agaist repeated action declarations?

Action resolution in BW is governed by Let it Ride (Gold, p 32):

One of the most important aspects of ability tests in game play in Burning Wheel is the Let It Ride rule: A player shall test once against an obstacle and shall not roll again until conditions legitimately and drastically change. Neither GM nor player can call for a retest unless those conditions change. Successes from the initial roll count for all applicable situations in play. . . .

If a player failed a test or generated no successes, the result stands. If he was hot and got seven successes, those stand for the duration.​

But the ultimate reason for being cautious in action declaration in BW is that the consequences of failure are undesirable. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] upthread was concerned about players "Scavenging up" diamonds for their PCs, but didn't seem to be thinking through the implications of failing those checks.

Cortex/MHRP doesn't have a rule like Let it Ride, and it also takes a different approach to failure (the GM has to spend a resource for failure to redound upon the acting character), but all action declaration is governed by the established fictional positioning. So if a PC has searched around for secret doors and failed, it is probably not going to make sense to try again in the same spot.

The bottom-line consideration in Cortex/MHRP is that a single dice pool can only include one Asset, so there is no particular benefit to be gained from spending multiple turns, as play cycles through the action order, generating Secret Door assets.

I don't think most GMs have the actual ending to their campaign in mind, no matter how GM driven it may be.

<snip>

If knowing exactly how the game ends....not just the climax it builds to (the PCs hunt down Strahd in his castle), but how that climax is resolved (the PCs are defeated and slain by Strahd)....is a requirement of a "Secret Backstory" game, then I think there are very few such games.

<snip>

I think most games allow for the ultimate success or failure of the PCs to determine the outcome.

So, in your example, I don't see the distinction you are making between the fiction and the table. Is the Dusk War upon us? It's either yes or no in the fiction. It's either yes or no at the table. The players have causal power to shape the fiction in your game (trying to make it so that the Dusk War is not dawning). Players going through the Curse of Strahd adventure also do (by achieving victory against the vampire).

I feel that this has missed the point.

I am not disputing that, in the CoS AP, the PCs can win or lose vs Strahd based on player action declarations.

But that is not establishing a truth about the backstory. And learning whether or not the PCs win is not solving a mystery. "Can we beat this guy?" is not a mystery. Contrast, "Do we know where the Sunsword is that we need to beat this guy?" - that is a mystery.

The point that I am making is that, contra [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s contention, it is possible to have mysteries be central to the unfolding "story" of a game without the GM needing to know the answer in advance. Thus, in this particular example, the mystery - Is this the time of the Dusk War - is being investigated by the PCs. But the answer is not going to be given by the GM, as [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] asserted it must be.

from the player's point of view, there is no fundamental difference between "secret backstory" and "unknown backstory."

Whether the DM knew about the villain being your father before the moment he announced it or not makes no difference whatsoever to the player nor the story.

This is true only if you make very strong assumptions about what matters to the player from his/her point of view.

If you assume that the player cares about nothing other than to learn the content of the fiction, then what you say is true. But if the player also cares what the content of the fiction is - as in, wishes it to be one thing rather than another - then the difference is radical. (This is the proactivity about an emotional thematic issue that Edwards refers to. He is not talking about a PC being proactive. He is talking about a player being proactive.)

If the fiction is unknown but up to be authored, then the player can make action declarations that contribute to establishing it. If the fiction is already settled by the GM behind the scenes, then all the player can do is learn what it is. These are radically different things.

 

[pemerton]

A passive check is a "say yes" if the passive skill is high enough to beat the DC. Otherwise you have to roll the dice. How is this not consistent with "say yes or roll the dice?"

A passive skill also doesn't require an action.

"Say 'yes' or roll the dice" is something that I would regard as a basic principle for my approach to GMing.

Here is Vincent Baker's articulation of it, quoted in the BW Gold rulebook, p 72 (the fundamental rules for BW can be downloaded free):

Every moment of play, roll dice or say "yes."

If nothing is at stake, say "yes" [to the player’s request], whatever they’re doing. Just go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs.

Sooner or later - sooner, because [your game’s] pregnant with crisis - they'll have their characters do something that someone else won't like. Bang! Something's at stake. Start the conflict and roll the dice.

Roll dice, or say "yes."​

Luke Crane then goes on:

Vincent's advice is perfect for Burning Wheel. Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn't know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.

Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn't really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.​

Passive checks are not consistent with this at all: they aren't a device for "saying 'yes'" when nothing is at stake, and they circumvent rolling the dice when something is at stake. They're a form of automatic success against certain obstacles.

in a world where such divination spells exist, how would you handle it in a story now/narrative model?

BW has divination magic - eg the shaman character mentioned in the OP can summon spirits to provide him with information about their environment; my PC can, in theory at least, attempt to receive Guidance (when lost, ask to know the right path, either literally or metaphorically) or Inspiration (receiving a revelation or knowledge - though the rulebook notes that this can be dangerous, as the divinity may reveal that which the priest did not intend to learn). But these are not automatic successes. They require checks (Sprit Binding or Faith checks) and hence can fail, resulting in a failure of intent (eg the spirits or the gods are angered by the incessant supplications of mortals).

Thus they are amenable to "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "fail forward", and other standard techniques of "story now" action resolution.

Thinks like the flat answer below, "you fail to pick the lock." What's wrong with that? Why do I have to introduce another complication? Why not let the players/characters figure out what to do if Plan A failed?

These are giving specific direction to drive the story arc itself. That every game ("always") must follow this direction. But there are times, or some of us, that are interested in telling other kinds of stories. They aren't always about conflict. If the instructions are for creating a tense and intense, ever-escalating conflict driving to a shocking and dramatic final resolution, fine. These are great instructions. But if they are instructions for how to run every RPG game, then no.

Well, as literally presented they are instructions for running DitV. They can be generalised (with appropriate adjustments, eg not all RPGs involve "towns") to other games intended to be run on the "standard narrativistic model". They obviously have no relevance to someone wanting to run a Moldvay Basic-style game, a Classic Traveller game or a WotC/Paizo AP.

On the issue of conflict. There's a fairly widespread view that a story results from some sort of dramatic need on the part of the protagonist meeting some sort of obstacle or complication, with the story itself consisting in the resolution of that conflict (which may involve overcoming it, or falling to it, or the dramatic need itself transforming in the process of confrontation). When I say this view is widespread, I'm not just talking about RPGing. Eg this is what my primary school-aged daughter is taught in her English classes.

The GM advice in games like DitV, BW and other "standard narrativistic model" games is intended to facilitate the creation, in play, of stories in this sense. And the advice itself is written in a certain context. This includes a widespread view in the community of RPGers (eg [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] expressed it upthread) that the only way to reliably achieve story in that sense is by way of railroading. It also includes a fairly widespread view, articulated by [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] (I think) upthread, that the players should have to "work" to find the action or to find opportunities to realise their PCs' goals. (A very common instance of that view in D&D play: that being able to enchant an item first requires undertaking a quest to find the ingredients.)

"Story now"/"standard narrativistic" RPGing was developed and (over the 10 years or so from the mid-to-late-90s through the mid-to-late 2000s) formalised as a deliberate response to, and rebuttal of, those two views. The emphasis place on "framing", for instance, and the attention paid to how this might work in a RPG, is about ensuring that the GM brings the stakes to the players, instead of making it a signifcant part of play to hunt for the stakes. And via techniques such as "say 'yes' or roll the dice", emphasis is instead placed on the resolution of the complication itself - the dramatic moment (whether that be trying to persuade a stranger to accompany you to your home, or trying to light a fire despite the fierce wind, or fightin an orc, or looking around for a vessel in which to catch the precious blood).

The "story now" designers also have their own views about why "mainstream" RPGing has certain recurrent problems. Chief among these reasons, as the "story now" designers see it, is that certain techniques that have their origins in refereed wargames (eg the hex crawl, resource management, aspects of the situation known only to the referee, which s/he will reveal at the appropriate moment in play), which were adapated into early RPGing of the Gygaxian/Moldvay Basic style, have been retained by many RPGs - in a sort of cargo-cult fashion - although they are not very useful for those RPGs given what those RPGs seem to be aiming at. Eg why does a game trying to replicate the tone of LotR need facing rules, or rules for getting lost while charting a wilderness? Rather, it needs rules that will produce dramatic moments ("Amid the din of battle, you suddenly see a troll approaching!"; "Lost in the rocky hills, you notice that Gollum is following you - are you prepared to take him on as a guide?")

Or consider the DW ammunition rules: there is no general amunition tracking, but certain resolution results require the player to choose whether or not they expend enough ammunition to take their best shot means consuming ammunition. So instead of wargame-type rules that simulate consumption of ammunitionm, recovery of ammunition, etc we get rules that force players to make choices - do I take my best shot but use ammunition, do I conserve ammunition by taking the first shot I can even though it's not very good (-1d6 damage), or do I take a better position to get a good shot despite the risks involved? (see the Volley move on DW rulebook p 60).

If you like wargame-style RPGing, hexcrawling, simulating ammunition loss and recovery, etc then presumably DW is not the game for you. But it - and other PtBA games, and "standard narrativistic model" games, etc - are counterexamples to the claims (i) that you can't reliably get stor out of RPGing other than by way of railroading, and (ii) that the only way to get a rich, verisimilitudinous shared world is via GM world-building.
[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] makes similar points in this post:

spending precious play time exploring/investigating premise-neutral setting relationships or spending table time on dramatically-inert situations (either because they are fundamentally so or because the GM has done a poor job of framing) are both negatively impactful to the sum-total amount of agency that players could be expressing around addressing premise/theme in a given session and, just as important, such inconsistent pacing negatively impacts the very precious momentum/tempo that is central to the play experience.

The "action" may be anything, but the rules (especially the specific subset in this discussion) are driving toward conflict. I don't think they are considering burning the garlic conflict.

That's because, in and of itself, burning the garlic isn't conflict. What's at stake?

But trying to cook a meal that will provide sustenance and succor to one's comrades - that's a conflict, and absolutely it's one sort of thing these games have in mind. In the Adventure Burner the example of cooking is used (from memory) at least twice, once to illustrate the signficance of "linked tests" (ie a form of augment - eg a cooking success for the evening meal boosts the next day's endurance checks), and once to illustrate award of artha for being the workhorse of the session.

And in (I think) the Revised Character Burner, one example of an Instinct is "Always have the ingredients for noodle soup on my person".

I don't think most Story Now games are mission based, but I think they take a lot of their narrativistic model from those types of movies and shows. Whereas something like LotR and even Game of Thrones, features a lot of in-between stuff, exploring the characters themselves within the world and the setting.

<snip>

As far as convincing the wizard to mend the armor? Why do you need to persuade them?

The reason I need to persuade her is because she is angry at me for the way we left the homestead. So she is not, per se, going to mend the armour.

I sent my GM an email about this yesterday evening - he is going to have to script for the wizard (because obviously I can't do two simultaneous blind declarations) but I will want to set out her motivations and what she wants.

The bigger issue here is that I've decided to bring two characters into play, using the rules for having a companion, and the two characters have different motivations and different outlooks: as I posted upthread, one is a Disciplined, Fanatically Devoted, Faithful Knight of a Holy Military Order whos Beliefs include that Aramina will need protection; the other is a wizard with a Fiery Temper whose Beliefs include that she doesn't need Thurgon's pity. But they also interconnect in various ways: Thurgon has an Instinct to always keep the campfire alight while camping, and Aramina has a spell (Sparkshower) that needs a lit fire as a component; Thurgon has armour that will need repair, and Aramina has mending skill; etc. Thurgon trying to persuade Aramina to mend her armour will allow some of the elements of the characters, their contrasts and connections, to emerge and develop.

I think it's likely that Thurgon will be able to persuade her: he has a higher Will and is trained in Command, whereas she has no social skills. But it is also likely that he will have to compromise as part of the outcome, and so there is the potential for interesting developments in that respect also.

This is an example of how Burning Wheel handles what you call the "in-between stuff".

I think D&D has had different attempts over the years to address such mundane aspects of life such as those to be codified in rules. In many cases I feel that they don't need to be fixed within the rules, but I agree they should be a focus of the game.

<snip>

Just because somebody is a good cook, doesn't mean it's going to be part of the game. Like I probably won't introduce a scene where they have to prepare a meal for the king, although if the opportunity does arise for them to use it to serve NPCs, great. On the other hand, the rest of the party will rather quickly insist that amongst their supplies there are sufficient resources for the gourmet to ply their craft. Giving them time to visit the market to purchase spices, complaining about the poor food when they can't prepare it, etc. NPCs that do join them on the road will also remember their cooking skills, and it becomes part of the campaign naturally, without having to force it with rules. If the cook is the best fighter in the group, and they happen to be separated for a while, it's probably more likely that they'll be greeted back with a comment about how they'll have something decent to eat now, rather than anything about their fighting ability. They can survive a battle without his sword, but have to suffer daily with bad food without him.

Re the first two sentences of this quote: why is it not going to be part of the game? I mean, in my case, I built a PC with cooking skill, so I intend to make it part of the game. What would stop that happening? That is, if someone in your game built a PC who is a good cook, what would stop them making that part of the game?

As to the rest of the quote: that is all about colour, but it has no teeth. I mean, the players have their PCs talk about the cooking, and so on, but it doesn't actually matter to the resolution of anything. Whereas (i) I don't really want to roleplay shopping for ingredients (I get enough of that in real life), and (ii) I want my PC's cooking to be more than just colour. I want it to matter to outcomes. Which is what I am planning to make it do!

many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict.

A DitV player gets to choose whether or not to de-escalate the conflict. There is no rule against capitulation!

Of course, capitulation might be seen to have its own costs (eg it might be shameful). This is related to what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] was talking about upthread with reference to "conceptual violence", "walled off gardens" and related notions. A key premise of "story now"-type games it that the players' conception of his/her PC is not sacrosanct. For instance, if the player thinks his/her PC is virtuous, the GM is not breaking any rule by framing the PC into a situation which makes it hard for that character to retain his/her virtue. In fact, if the GM didn't do such a thing then the GM would not be doing his/her job properly!

There is an approach to RPGing which - at least judging from these boards - seems to be fairly common. On this approach, the main function of the PC sheet is to establish character concept (so it doesn't matter, eg, if the Grappler feat is mechanically rather weak - the point of having that feat on my PC sheet is to show that my PC likes to wrestle, and is good at it). And the main job of the GM is to provide regular opportunities for each player to show off his/her character concept. On this approach to RPGing the relevance of the "story now" technique of the GM pushing the players hard into conflict is ZERO. This sort of RPGing isn't about conflict, or "story" in the dramatic sense, at all. It's about character concepts and spotlight balance. It's what Edwards calls "exploration of character" with a dash of "exploration of situation" and perhaps some "exploration of setting". (Such an approach to RPGing is not only quite different from "story now", it's also quite different from the approach to RPGing presented in Moldvay Basic or in Gygax's AD&D books.)

Someone who thinks of RPGing mostly in these terms may not enjoy DitV, or PtbA, or BW, or other games that take a different approach to the effect that play might have on a character.

My question was really whether your check could force a specific action/reaction from another PC. Something that is generally frowned upon in game design, and actively hated by many players.

I don't agree that it's "generally frowned upon". For instance, nothing in any version of D&D except perhaps 4e prevents one PC using a Charm or Fear spell to force a specific action or reaction from another PC.

And I've already posted an example, some way upthread, of this being part of the game mentioned in the OP: after the discovery of the arrows, the wizard-assassin persuaded the mage PC to abandon his goal of saving his brother from possession. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has also discussed this, expressing his dislike of resolution systems that insulate PCs from this sort of thing. Apart from anything else, it's a burden on verisimilitude that everyone has an emotional and an instinctual nature except the PCs.

the [standard narrativistic] model seems to limit the options of the DM.

Yes. That's the point of any set of rules or guideline - in so far as they set out to tell someone what to do, and how to do it, they impose limits. Thus, the advice in Moldvay Basic limits the GM - eg it rules out the GM declaring, when the PCs enter the first room, "You all die from a sudden gout of fire!" or "You see a pile of 10,000 gp lying on the floor - now you're all rich!"

Now perhaps you think it's obvious that "only a bad GM" would declare that everyone dies from a gout of fire, and so that's not a "real" limit. But it's equally obvious, in "narrativistic" RPGing, that "only a bad GM" would want to frame scenes or narrate consequences that don't speak to the dramatic/thematic focus of play (as established by PC build and actual play), and so that's not a "real" limit either.

I don't think BW is designed for that sort of approach, where the same characters complete a story over your tens of sessions, then continue another story while retaining the setting elements that have now been defined in the prior game. I could be wrong.

Well, with respect, you are wrong. In the Adventure Burner (since re-packaged as the Codex) Luke Crane discusses at least two examples of starting a new campaign that picks up on the situation that had been left over from an earlier campaign.

I'm not sure what you mean by an Instinct to interpose yourself

It's a mechanical element of a BW PC. From the Gold rulebook, pp 56, 63:

What an Instinct does is set a condition and a reaction to that condition for the character. And this reaction/behavior of the character is sacrosanct: So long as the conditions are met, the action is done. The player doesn’t even have to announce it. It either happens behind the scenes or instantly, without hesitation. . . .

Fate points are earned for playing Instincts when such play gets the character in trouble or creates a difficult or awkward situation.

A character with the Instinct “Draw my sword at the first sign of trouble” is at court pleading his case. Suddenly, in walks his nemesis! The player doesn’t have to draw his sword. He can resist the Instinct because it’s going to cause trouble. But if he plays it out, he gets a fate point.​

Are you saying that opposed checks wouldn't work smoothly, or that D&D doesn't have them?

I'm saying that D&D doesn't handle the situation described - can my PC get to the horse and untie it before the orcs surround Aramina? - very smoothly. For instance, it uses fixed movement rates which therefore establish definite time requirements to move from A to B, but doesn't establish definite time requirements to untie a horse. And suppose you do it as opposed DEX checks (and is sprinting DEX or STR?), what is the adjustment to the DEX check if (say) the orcs have move 20 or move 40 rather than move 30?

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying that it is not going to handle it very smoothly.

I also gave an example (in regards to the scavenging check) that showed in D&D it would have been a slightly different set of checks to achieve the same fictional result.

As I've posted multiple times upthread, the fact that a given fictional result is, or can be, achieved, tells us almost nothing about the roleplaying experience.

Another way the same fictional result might be achieved is if I sat down and the GM related a story to me about the adventures of Thurgon and Aramina - but that doesn't mean that there is any meaningful resemblance between the experience I had on the weekend and the epxerience of being told a story by the GM.

in none of the descriptions you or others have given have really illustrated anything you can do in one of those games that I can't do in D&D.

Yet you yourself have pointed out that the processes of resolution in D&D would be very different! No contested Speed checks for positioning; no Command check to get Aramina to run to the horse; the social mechanics are completely different; no Instinct mechanics; spells are automatic successes; there's no easy way to make cookery skill matter to play; etc, etc.

Those are all actual differences. (Whether or not they matter to you, or anyone else, is obviously a further question.)

 

[Manbearcat]

Originally Posted by Ilbranteloth View Post
many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict.

A DitV player gets to choose whether or not to de-escalate the conflict. There is no rule against capitulation!

Just want to address this right quick before I head out (rather than full read-through I've been forced to skim due to time-crunch).

Not only is there no rule against capitulation, but Dogs conflict resolution mechanics are specifically about letting the players decide if they want to escalate (eg from "just talking" to "physical, but not fighting" or worse) or capitulate (Give in Dogs parlance). And, of course, its dice mechanics and procedures handle the resolution and fallout (to the participants and the fictional positioning) of what is happening right now when escalation or capitulation aren't in play.

So player decisions are all centered around (a) how they want to approach a situation and (b) how much are they willing to do/put up to see the thing done (escalation or capitulation).

 

[pemerton]

my assertion was originally based off of what I believed illusionism to be, and by definition anytime a choice is given without at least two predetermined potential outcomes, it meets that definition that I outlined. I'm not sure if that's what others were referring to.

Well generally when I refer to "illusionism" I'm referring to the phenomenon described at the Forge using that terminology.

I don't really understand your definition at all. By your definition, anytime a GM frames a scene so as to engage the PCs, but hasn't decided in advance at least two ways the scene will resolve, it's illusionism. Which means, for instance, that all "story now" RPGing is illusionistic, because no "story now" play involves determining outcomes in advance - the GM frames and then the players declare actions for their PCs, and until those actions are declared it doesn't make any sense to even speculate about outcomes.

Indeed, the whole language of "giving a choice" assumes a degree of GM control over the game that is not consistent with the "standard narrativistic model". When RPGing in that fashion, the GM frames a scene that is thematically laden, given the manifest concerns of the PCs (and thus their players). But what the choice is made in response, and what that choice puts at stake, is up to the player. The GM doesn't "give a choice".

Manbearcat's example of the brother's hat is a good one - framing that scene doesn't "give the player a choice"; it invites the player to declare some action for his PC, driven by the presence of the hat in the brothel foyer. This is made clear by Manbearcat's subsequent description of what happened, and the broader resolution system within which it took place.

In this situation, the relevant player went a sort of soft version of Unforgiven (when William Money shoots the owner of the whorehouse/tavern) on the owner/operator.

<snip>

The conflict eschews "just talking" (Acuity + Heart dice pool) and goes straight to "physical, but not fighting" (Body + Heart dice pool) with the Dog in question picking up the big registry of customer transactions (filled with unrecognizable, fake names) and throwing it through the foyer window. When a man comes through a door and begins to protest, the Dog confirms he's the owner. He then flings the hat at him violently and tells him to bring the man who owns it to the foyer right now.

<snip>

The players think the best dramatic stakes are "did the brother wear the hat into the brothel...or someone else?" In this case, they Give (lose) and the brother comes out...the owner Gives and someone else has the brother's hat.

They win and the man is sufficiently intimidated. He leads them to the door and, as the owner goes to knock, the door explodes open and boom...Follow-On Conflict which I frame, escalating the present situation but respecting their win.

<snip>

So its not the brother. But its an enemy of the Dogs' mortal adversary in this Town (the rancher who is the manifestation of the territorial dispute and the primary purveyor of Sin).

Not only is there no rule against capitulation, but Dogs conflict resolution mechanics are specifically about letting the players decide if they want to escalate (eg from "just talking" to "physical, but not fighting" or worse) or capitulate (Give in Dogs parlance). And, of course, its dice mechanics and procedures handle the resolution and fallout (to the participants and the fictional positioning) of what is happening right now when escalation or capitulation aren't in play.

So player decisions are all centered around (a) how they want to approach a situation and (b) how much are they willing to do/put up to see the thing done (escalation or capitulation).

The GM presents the situation (= frames the scene0; the GM doesn't "give a choice". The players choose how to engage the situation, and what they want to put at stake in light of what the GM has put into play in framing the scene. They do this by declaring actions for their PCs.

It is the resolution of those action declarations - which obviously aren't known by the GM in advance - which then leads to outcomes. Which, a fortiori, can't be know by the GM in advance, let alone preauthored.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Referring back to the OP:

My interest is in who shapes "outcomes", and thereby gets to establish the stuff of the shared fiction.

"Mutability of Backstory" is not an end in itself. A GM who leaves everything unresolved in his/her mind until the moment of crunch, and then makes up stuff that s/he thinks will be "good for the story", or "fun", or consistent with what s/he believes the trajectory of things to be, is shaping outcomes.

If the GM is doing the same thing to narrate consequences when checks fail, or to frame in such a way as to put pressure on the dramatic needs established by the players, that's (for me) a completely different thing.

My point is that the GM who has only had a notion that the NPC may be the PC's father has shaped the outcome to fit a specific possibility. This is prior to the "moment of crunch" as you call it....the GM has shaped the fiction so that the NPC could be the PC's father. Even if at the moment of crunch, the GM decides not to follow through....that doesn't change the fact that he has been shaping things to fit that outcome, realized or not.

As I said, this may be minor in many cases, but I'm sure it could also be significant, depending on the circumstances of play and the fiction that's been established.

I'm still missing something.

The player has, in his/her build and play of the PC, put the issue of family/parentage etc into play. (As in my BW game, the player of the mage PC, by writing in a balrog-possessed brother, has put family stuff into play.) So at some stage the GM is going to challenge that - "going where the action is", pushing the players (via their PCs) to fight for what they believe, etc.

The GM might introduce a NPC with the thought that that NPC is propitious for making a claim about parentage. But I'm missing the bit about "steering". The GM is doing that because the player put the whole matter into play. It is the player driving and the GM responding, isn't it?

Sure. But is the GM shaping the outcome to fit a specific preconceived narrative? The player introduced the interest in who the PC's father might be. Then the GM came up with an NPC and then determined shaped things so that it was possible for that NPC to be the father.

I feel like what you've described here actually fits your definition of railroad from the OP. Yes, there is some player input....but that doesn't change the fact that the GM is shaping things in regard to the specific NPC and putting that NPC forth as the father. Or at the very least, putting forth that this NPC is possibly the father.

Does the player having some input remove that requirement that you've proscribed to railroading, in your opinion? Is it not railroading if the GM is steering things toward a preconceived narrative with which the player has had some input?

I feel that this has missed the point.

I am not disputing that, in the CoS AP, the PCs can win or lose vs Strahd based on player action declarations.

But that is not establishing a truth about the backstory. And learning whether or not the PCs win is not solving a mystery. "Can we beat this guy?" is not a mystery. Contrast, "Do we know where the Sunsword is that we need to beat this guy?" - that is a mystery.

The point that I am making is that, contra [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s contention, it is possible to have mysteries be central to the unfolding "story" of a game without the GM needing to know the answer in advance. Thus, in this particular example, the mystery - Is this the time of the Dusk War - is being investigated by the PCs. But the answer is not going to be given by the GM, as [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] asserted it must be.

I think perhaps you've snipped a bit too much of my post in your quote....it's lost a lot of context as a result. I wasn't questioning the ability of your playstyle to allow for mysteries. I was instead addressing your statement that players in a Story Now game have causal power to affect the outcome, and that players in a Secret Backstory game have no such power.

Which is incorrect.

You made a point about the GM having already determined the outcome of the game in a Secret Backstory type game. I refute that as a requirement of such a game. The players are still striving to have a causal effect on the outcome of the game. In this case, they're trying to defeat Strahd and determine the fate of those in Barovia. In your game, the PCs are working to deny that the Dusk War is upon them. In one game, if the PCs succeed, Strahd is defeated, and if they fail, Strahd wins. In your game, if the PCs succeed, then the Dusk War is not dawning, and if they fail, then it is.

Causal power is had by both groups of players. It's more a question of degree. Your game allows for more instances of such throughout the game, whereas the Curse of Strahd adventure has probably a handful of meaningful decisions like that for the players to make, and the significance of many of them is likely less.

But again...this is where I think you have mistaken a game having mechanics that support a play style you like to equal a game that lacks such mechanics specifically not allowing for elements of that playstyle.

To use an example, Call of Cthulhu famously has rules that govern the horrific events of the game and the impact these events have on the sanity of the PCs. By Contrast, Mutants and Masterminds does not have such mechanics. Does this mean that M&M cannot be used to play a more horror-based game? Does this mean that the GM of M&M cannot either use his judgment to impose a horrific atmosphere on the game, or that he cannot come up with some mechanics that do support that theme?

 

[Ovinomancer]

The issue of "making things up on the spot" is orthogonal. Gygax's DMG includes a system for random determination; and surely every GM of a dungeon crawl has on some occasion had to make up some detail that wasn't written down in advance ("What colour is the ceiling?" "What is the height of the table?" etc).

The contrast that I am drawing betweeen RPGing in accordance with the "standard narrativistic model" and by way of "GM's secret backstory" - which is a contrast that came into discussion in this thread solely because I drew it! - is about the basis on which the GM establishes fiction, and the role it plays in the resolution of action declaration.

When I tell my GM that I (as in, my PC) am looking around the homestead, and call for a Homestead-wise check, if I succeed that GM has to tell me more stuff that fits my intent (which is to learn what happened to the homesteaders, etc). If I fail, then the GM has to narrate something that defeats or is contrary to my intent.

I don't know what the GM would have narrated had my check failed, but I know what I would have done in his place: either I would have narrated evidence that these homesteaders were heathens, thereby defeating my assumption that the whole premise of the situation is that they are innocent victims of orcish raiders, and putting my Faithfulness and Fanatical Devotion under pressure; or I would have narrated evidence that members of my own order, the Knights of the Iron Tower, had been involved in perpretration of the raids - which would have rather brutally put pressure directly on my being Sworn to the Order as well as my Fanatical Devotion.

The GM's narration is not to be guided by what is in notes (be they literal or notional, or randomly generated by rolling on a "raided homestead" table). The GM's narration is to be guided by the dictates of intent and task: success means my intent is realised; failure means that it is not.

And in making the check I'm not learning "secret backstory". I'm not exploring the setting (to use Ron Edwards's phrase). I'm generating narration from the GM, with the content of that narration being modulated to success or failure in the sort of manner I've just described.

You shifted from discussing the play example you presented to discussing how you would do things if you were running, which wasn't the point of the question -- ie, I did not ask for an explanation of how you would run things. That's not what happened, so it's relevance to the situation is moot. In fact, when you failed the scavenging check, the GM did not choose to present a complication in the vein you provided, he instead provided orcs. It stands to reason that if you failed the homestead-wise check, the result would also have been orcs.

Which goes straight back to my statements about Illusionism in Story Now games. The DM, in the capacity of narrating failure, can introduce the thematic elements and resolutions he wants to -- in this case, orcs. In your description, he further pushed this by framing the elf scene as the elves trying to get you to hunt orcs. Strangely, even though you failed your check, you still seem to have gotten your intent -- to ignore the orcs and return to your home. The elf accompanying you was collateral damage you were willing to sacrifice to forge a different path. The DM could have easily narrated your failure as the elf informing you that such a request was impossible -- this band of orcs burnt your home to the ground and scattered your order just last week. That both frustrates your intent and frames the result in terms of your beliefs while still also being about the story the GM wants to tell. That you managed, through experience, to evade this by declaring a check and then getting the result you wanted anyway is beside the point. A determined and skilled GM can manipulate even Story Now games to be about what he wants while, at the same time, hiding this from the players. Is it harder to do? Yes, the mechanics are adverse to such things. Impossible? Not even remotely.

But, to get back to the scenario, I'm still not convinced there's an actual difference between requesting the DM to give you more backstory and exploring the setting. Perhaps this was just a poor framing, but you didn't put forward any stakes when you declared your roll other than the desire for the GM to tell you more information. I was under the impression that you should have declared an intent for the roll more along the lines of 'I make a check to confirm that the homesteaders were chased from their homes by some evil against my faith' rather than 'I make a check to find out what happened here.' The results on failure for the first (or even success) are radically different, and more in-line with your post facto 'I wouldas' than what you presented (which is why I asked for clarification, as I had though you left something exactly like that out, turns out you didn't). The just asking has backstory as a success and... no backstory as a failure? I mean, if you find something that indicates the homesteaders were heathens, that's still backstory telling you what happened. Without the marker of what you think the story is, it's hard to frustrate that intent effectively without an equally blank 'you can't tell.' Again, the lack of actual stakes in that roll strike me as very odd.

In a later post, you mention that the other PC isn't a PC, but a companion of yours under your control. But you built this companion to explicitly support your main character, with only a few points of contrast -- mainly that she has some different motivations that may come in conflict with your PC motivations. I bring this up to ask why, when you state that you will have to make a check against your companion because she is angry with you for leaving the homesteads unresolved, this didn't come up when you declared the intent to leave the homestead area? Should not the companion have forced a check at that point, to prevent the leaving? I thought that you were supposed to call for checks when something happens that someone else doesn't like, but it seems that this contest was left for when you want your armor fixed and she's angry with you rather than at the point you made her angry with you.

And, again, discussing personal play accounts isn't my preference, as, inevitably, questions or criticism (especially the sharp kind) is taken personally rather than furthering the discussion, but you continue to insist.

 

[pemerton]

Which goes straight back to my statements about Illusionism in Story Now games. The DM, in the capacity of narrating failure, can introduce the thematic elements and resolutions he wants to -- in this case, orcs.

I still don't understand what you think the illusion is here. The GM introduced orcs into the situation. That is framing. The orcs are already upon the homestead before the characters notice them. That's complication for the failed check. In the actual moment of narration, the complication and the framing were rolled together - that's an example of an application of the DW principle "never speak the name of your move", which is not part of the BW rules but is something that Luke Crane discusses (not under that label) in the Adventure Burner/Codex.

But what are you conjecturing was hidden or covert?

In your description, he further pushed this by framing the elf scene as the elves trying to get you to hunt orcs. Strangely, even though you failed your check, you still seem to have gotten your intent -- to ignore the orcs and return to your home.

I don't understand.

(1) The elf didn't try to persuade me to hunt orcs. The elf gave me some information about an orc wielding a shield. Had the elf tried to persuade me to go and recover the shield, that might have been quite interesting, and I probably would have lost. But that wasn't what happened. And, in the fiction, I don't think the elf cares whether or not I recover the shield. As the Duel of Wits established, the elves of Celene don't care about the fate of the arms of the Iron Tower.

(2) I attempted to persuade the elf to return with me to my ancestral estate, in an attempt to shore up my family's standing and give my brother (the ruling count) some backbone. I failed. The elf didn't come with me. Indeed, my failure was so total that I didn't even get a compromise (which might have been eg the elf sending his second to accompany me, or the elf promising to send an envoy in due course).

(3) I'm not returning home. The session ended with me travelling NW along the Ulek side of frontier. My home is to the south.

The elf accompanying you was collateral damage you were willing to sacrifice to forge a different path.

I don't understand what you mean by this. What "collateral damage" are you talking about? And what "different path"?

I wanted to persuade a noble elf to come with me to my home, in pursuit of my Belief that "Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more!" As per the rulebook's instructions to players to use the mechanics, I called for a Duel of Wits. (If you want to read the Duel of Wits rules, they're downloadable for free here.) My body of argument was 7 (6 Will plus 1 success on a Will check for untrained Persuasion); the elf's was 11 (7 Will plus 4 successes on a Persuasion of 6). My scripting in the first exchange was Avoid the Topic/Rebut/Point, and in the second was Avoid the Topic/Feint/Rebut. The GM, for the NPC, scripted (from memory) Point/Point/Rebut and then Rebut/Dismiss/I don't think we made it to the third volley of the second exchange, so I don't know what the elf had scripted for it.

In any event, I failed the Duel of Wits. In the first volley my avoid defended against the point, but in the second volley my rebuttal was less than total and I didn't get a success on my "attack" pool. In the third volley the elf rebutted my point (rolling 3 trained dice against my 6 untrained dice). In the first volley of the second exchang my Avoid did little against the "attack" pool of the elf's rebuttal (from memory, only 1 success on 6 Will dice) and then the elf's dismissal - by way of the Ugly Truth that the concerns and lives of mortals matter little, even naught, relative to the lives and concerns of elvenkind (my GM is a big fan of Ugly Truth, always using it as a player) - brought the matter to a close.

Because of my failure, the elf is not coming with me. And the elf got his intent: he is returning to Celene with his dead comrade, paying no heed to my mortal concerns. My failure to put any dint in his body of argument means that no compromise was required from him.

The DM could have easily narrated your failure as the elf informing you that such a request was impossible -- this band of orcs burnt your home to the ground and scattered your order just last week. That both frustrates your intent and frames the result in terms of your beliefs while still also being about the story the GM wants to tell.

It would also be bad GMing.

Upthread I posted this bit of the BW Gold rulebook (p 34). In fact, I think I've posted it twice now:

Beliefs are meant to be challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. If your character has a Belief, "I guard the prince's life with my own," and the prince is slain before your eyes in the climax of the scenario, that’s your chance to play out a tortured and dramatic scene and really go ballistic.

Conversely, if the prince is killed right out of the gate, the character is drained of purpose. Note that the player stated he wanted to defend the prince in play, not avenge him. Killing the prince in the first session sucks the life out of the character. He really has no reason to participate any longer. But if the prince dies in the grand climax, c'est la vie. The protector must then roll with the punches and react to this new change. Even better, if the prince dies due to the actions or failures of his own guardian - now that’s good stuff.

Another example: We once had a character with the Belief: "I will one day restore my wife’s life." His wife had died, and he kept her body around, trying to figure out a way to bring her back. Well, mid-way through the game, the GM magically restored his wife to the land of the living. I’ve never seen a more crushed player. He didn't know what do! He had stated that the quest and the struggle was the goal, not the end result. "One day!" he said. But the GM insisted, and the whole scenario and character were ruined for the player.​

Given that I have a Belief that harm and infamy will before my ancestral home (Auxol) no more, establishing in the first session that my home has been destroyed would be terrible GMing.

A determined and skilled GM can manipulate even Story Now games to be about what he wants while, at the same time, hiding this from the players.

How would the bad GMing that you describe be hidden from me as a player? The GM telling me that my home is destroyed, and hence - in effect - that half my PC's raison d'etre is over (as well as the Belief I have spent PC build resources on a relationship with my mother and an affiliation with my family) would not be hidden. It would be extremely overt.

you didn't put forward any stakes when you declared your roll other than the desire for the GM to tell you more information. I was under the impression that you should have declared an intent for the roll more along the lines of 'I make a check to confirm that the homesteaders were chased from their homes by some evil against my faith' rather than 'I make a check to find out what happened here.'

The GM framed the characters into this ruined homestead. I don't know what he had in mind, but I think he was anticipating a cooking check to make lunch. (As part of the set-up he described the rations we were carrying with us, which - in PC build terms - were a GM gift to the PCs, as I did not pay for them out of PC build resources.)

I declared that I was looking around, and called for the Homestead-wise check. I don't remember my exact motivation, but I think at least in part it was what I thought my PC would do! I don't recall the exact words that were spoken, either. The stakes weren't stated overtly - they were implicit. As I said upthread, there was an unstated but quite evident assumed premise to the whole scene, that the homestead had been raided by orcs - given that we'd just spent half-an-hour or so discussing the set up in the Pomarj, looking at the map and discussing towns, fortifications, the location of my ancestral estate, etc, and what parts of the frontier had fallen to orc raids (including the town on the river that is the campaign's version of the ruins of Osgiliath).

If the GM had been uncertain about the stakes, he could and should have called for clarification as to intent. He didn't, and so I take it that he thought it was clear enough.

The just asking has backstory as a success and... no backstory as a failure? I mean, if you find something that indicates the homesteaders were heathens, that's still backstory telling you what happened. Without the marker of what you think the story is, it's hard to frustrate that intent effectively without an equally blank 'you can't tell.' Again, the lack of actual stakes in that roll strike me as very odd.

when you failed the scavenging check, the GM did not choose to present a complication in the vein you provided, he instead provided orcs. It stands to reason that if you failed the homestead-wise check, the result would also have been orcs.

I don't really follow this. I mean, I've told you what happened. I've told you what stakes were implicit. I've told you how I would have narrated failure were I the GM. You have conjectured what you think the failure narration would have been - that is, that instead of the additional framing I'm looking for in declaring the check (and would get on a success), orcs attack.

Given that I have given my view as what would count as a failure which frustrates my intent (learning unwelcome truths) and given that you have given your view as to what the failure might have been that frustrated my intent (before I can learn anything useful, orcs attack), I don't understand why you say that "it's hard to frustrate that intent effectively without an equally blank 'you can't tell.'"

why, when you state that you will have to make a check against your companion because she is angry with you for leaving the homesteads unresolved, this didn't come up when you declared the intent to leave the homestead area? Should not the companion have forced a check at that point, to prevent the leaving? I thought that you were supposed to call for checks when something happens that someone else doesn't like, but it seems that this contest was left for when you want your armor fixed and she's angry with you rather than at the point you made her angry with you.

The answer to this is fairly easy - she's a character under my control! I'm allowed to play her as grumbling and angry but doing what she's told to when it comes to leaving the place where she was just attacked by orcs and where there might still be a few orcish stragglers hanging about. As [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I said in the context of DitV, capitulation is always an option.

I could have played it up to try and get her a Persona point for embodiment, but I didn't - partly because it didn't seem a big enough deal, partly because the session was coming to an end and so we were wrapping things up.

Once we get to some place to rest for the night, I am planning for a Duel of Wits. I think I know what Aramina wants in return for mending the armour. In the Adventure Burner/Codex, Luke Crane discusses the tactic of asking for more than what you really want with a DoW, so that when you compromise you can give up the bits that were the "more" while getting to keep all that you really wanted. This is legitimate, but he goes on to warn players to be careful, in case they end up getting more than they bargained for! In thinking about how Aramina is going to shape her request from Thurgon, I'm already feeling the force of that warning.