Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[pemerton]

if the GM didn't agree with it there would be a roll to determine whether it did or did not take place.

"Say 'yes' or roll the dice' is not about whether or not the GM "agrees" with something. It's about stakes, pacing, dramatic momentum.

If the GM "said 'yes'" every time, then the game would not really be a game at all. It would be something like a version of what Gygax derided as Monty Haul play - ie some sort of strange fantasy wish-fulfillment thing.

I'm pretty sure I quoted from p 72 of BW Gold upthread:

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.​

Roll the dice when something is at stake; "say 'yes'" when nothing is at stake - the free roleplaying is colour, framing, etc; don't declare failure by way of fiat.

I think it's reasonably clear as a basic framework. The practical issue is having a good sense of what counts as something being at stake, or not - as I posted in post 164 upthread, to which you replied (and which I therefore assume you read):

I regard distinguishing between what is mere framing, and what is an outcome, as a very important domain of GM judgement. If you get it wrong, in either direction, then play will suffer.

For instance, suppose that - following the initial set up of the Cortex viking game - I ask the players, "So, what do you do?" rather than frame them into their trek to the north where they crest a ridge and see a steading, what is going to happen? The players will be confused - what was the point of all that set-up if we're not now going to cut to the action? I send mixed signals - I suggest that there is potentially something else of significance in the neighbourhood of their PCs that has no connection to the stuff we just spent 10 or 15 minutes working through. Why would I want to do that?

Conversely, if I treat not only the trek and the cresting of the valley as framing, but go further and tell them "So you enter the steading, and the action opens with you discussing matters at a feast with the giant chieftain", then there is the danger that I have mistaken an outcome for framing. For instance, one of the PCs in the game is a sneaky type who can influence animals and change into a wolf. By framing that PC into open negotiations with the giant, and prevent the player from expressing those aspects of his PC in the way that he actually did - namely, by sneaking into the Steading, finding a giant ox in the barn, and then trying to trade that ox for a favour from the giants (relying on the fact that giants are notoriously stupid and so won't recognise their own ox).

That's not to say that the boundary between what is framing and what is outcome is always clear-cut. There may be a zone of reasonable choices by the GM, and those judgement calls - in conjunction with the players' own concerns, motivations etc which are both elicited and responded to by the GM's framing - will influence what events unfold in the game.

 

[Jester David]

If the players are free to depart from what has been planned, then where does the tightness/cohesion come from?

Just having the choice is often enough. While the players know they can eschew the plans at any time, that doesn't mean they want to.

After all, some players are happier with a little structure and rails. They just want to sit in the roller coaster and enjoy the ride.

And some DMs are just poor at improv. So their players know they'll have a better experience - that they'll have more fun - if they take the hook and stick to the plot. They can choose to vary if they wish - and usually will if it just makes more sense - but unless pushed to leave the rails they'll stick to the plot.

A skilled DM can hide the rails. If they can anticipate their player's actions and choices, they can plan the most likely paths. The players are on the rails the entire time and don't know it.

In previous campaigns I tended to write more structured and planned adventures. But I based them on the player's plans. They tell me they're doing "X" at the end of the session, so I plan for that. Basically writing a mini-module tied to the player's plans and ambitions.
(Usually. In my current campaign I'm improvising more and reacting to the players rather than planning as much.)

Conversely, if the players are expected to, or for whatever reason do, go along with the planning, such that the pre-scripted tightnes/cohesiveness is realised in play, then it seems a case of the GM determining the principal events of the campaign.

Yes. And?
The DM is a player too. They have stories they want to tell. They know what's going on in the world more than the PCs. The NPCs have character arcs and goals.

Additionally, the DM is often the person most invested in the game. They're often the one interested enough to buy the rulebooks and learn the rules. They're the most likely to spend time thinking about the game between sessions.
So, just by the very nature of devoting more brain power to the game, they'll think of more stories.

Why would any of this matter? Only, as far as I can tell, if it somehow bears upon the PCs (and thereby the players in their engagement with the game). In which case it can be handled either as an element of framing or as a consequence of resolution.

Because actions have consequences. Because the actions of the PCs never happen in a vacuum. Things ripple outward and cause big changes. The assassination of a Duke of a small nation can caused one of the bloodiest wars in history.
Because the unexpected happens. It rains at the wrong time. Winter comes early. There's a plague. Everyone's life is full of times where the unexpected completely derailed plans.

It matters because it makes the world feel real. It's larger and more cohesive, with places and people that don't cease to exist when the players aren't watching. Things change and progress. It's not static. It's a living, breathing world. It's not a videogame where the rest of the world pauses when the players are in another zone.

This is either more framing (and mostly colour in the context of that framing), or else is open to the same analysis as the assassination of the Marquis: if the players, via their PCs, are invested in the nation or the church then just changing them like this is a form of offscreen failure.

In many ways it can feel like an offscreen failure. They did something and succeeded, but then there are negative repercussions from their course of action.
I like that personally. I like that a lot. Players shouldn't expect to murderhobo through the world without consequences. If they blunder through the world not thinking about what happens next then they deserve some consequences. If they kill the green dragon that rules the forest they've removed the alpha predator from the region and there should be a spike in the wolves and deer populations. That's life.

Mid to high level PCs are big fish swimming through a small pond, and their passing causes ripples.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And provided that the table drifts away from traditional D&D, see below.

Or runs screaming from it, as the case may be.

5e does try to handle more styles than just those that long-time DMs had managed to hack traditional D&D into supporting. It does that mainly by Empowering the DM to drive the game in play, to rule in favor of the style he's chosen in play, and to add to or even re-write the game with formal house rules if he feels the need.

Lan-"remember, Neutral Greedy is the 10th alignment"-efan

I think it's the first alignment.

 

[Lanefan]

If this conflict is to be a primary premise which is to be addressed in play * , then yes, the GM subordinating the autonomy of actual play results (where the other participants and system have the say they're supposed to have) is 100 % a moment of GM Force application. This might be enough to tip the scales so the other participants feel the game is a railroad. If its not, further deployment of this kind of Force will surely produce a tipping point.


* Addressed meaning:

1) situation framed
2) PCs advocating for their themes/interested by declaring actions
3) resolution mechanics consulted in-line with the game's procedures
4) scene evolved post-resolution in-line with the game's principles
5) rinse/repeat until all relevent questions are answered
6) tally the fallout and advance to the next action

Except the original intention (in my example) was that the war wouldn't see actual play at all, but merely serve as a part of the backstory defining the game world the characters are in. The players drag the action over to the budding war whether the DM likes it or not; I certainly don't see it as out of line that the DM has happen what was always going to happen anyway.

On a broader scale: there's actual plot, and there's red herrings. Players have every right to chase red herrings to the ends of the world if they want to, but there's no right of expectation that just because they chase a particular red herring it become any more significant than it ever was in the grand scheme of things. Here, I'm taking [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s Dusk War and framing it as a red herring by way of an example of what I mean. Not to say a DM can't work what was a red herring into the main plot if she wants to, but there's nothing at all saying she has to.

And yes, at some point sooner or later the characters (and by extension the players) are probably going to find out they've been chasing a red herring. A kind (and by the definition of many here, somewhat railroady) DM might gently try to steer them away from the red herring before they waste too much time on it; others wouldn't.

And the existence of red herrings is rarely the DM's fault; as it's almost always the result of the players taking some random off-the-cuff bit of game world info or flavour and latching on to it as being way more important than it really is - in this example, the Dusk War. Once this happens the DM has a not-always-pretty choice: somehow steer them away from the red herring, or run the red herring knowing that a) it will probably lead to disappointment for the characters/players in the end and b) it might lead - or even force - the DM into running things she's not interested in running.

Lanefan

 

[TwoSix]

It matters because it makes the world feel real. It's larger and more cohesive, with places and people that don't cease to exist when the players aren't watching. Things change and progress. It's not static. It's a living, breathing world. It's not a videogame where the rest of the world pauses when the players are in another zone.

I always find this analogy amusing; most modern video games are online, and therefore far more persistent (and real) than any world that exists purely in the imagination of a group of 4-8 people.

 

[Lanefan]

3) The players and the game generally establish the themes/premise. The players build their PCs which are laden with thematic interests. They "hook" the GM rather than the inverse (a primary GMing principle of these games is that "the action" is always about what the players have signaled they care about). The system then has various feedbacks that come into play when their thematic interests are at stake/made manifest.

4) The GM's job is to (a) frame conflicts that the players have signaled their PCs care about/are interested in, (b) interpose relevant obstacles/antagonists between the PCs and their goals, (c) advocate for their obstacles/antagonists while the PCs advocate for their protagonists, (d) stridently observe the rules of the game/GMing principles, (e) coherently evolve the fiction after the conflict resolution mechanics, the players, and the GM have all had their say (and the situation has been resolved), then (e) rinse/repeat.

Reading this perhaps a bit harshly, this puts the DM in the role of little more than a free-thinking processing unit which could these days be done by a computer; which brings to mind [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION]'s question of why have a DM at all.

Reading a bit less harshly, it still seems it's the DM getting railroaded by the system here in that she's only supposed to react; and further, only react to what the players (via their characters, I assume) "have signaled they care about". Fine for the players, thankless for the DM.

It is in no way a setting for the PCs to be chew scenery in

It isn't?

Well, there goes my diet...

More seriously, though: why not? The one thing this sort of game sounds like it might have going for it is the opportunity to go over the top with characterizations and acting. It's wandering toward improv anyway, as elements invented by the players are worked in if they don't conflict with established story, so why not cut loose?

Lan-"it's an acquired taste, scenery, but once you've chewed some you'll wonder how you ever did without it"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

which brings to mind Jester David's question of why have a DM at all.

The role of DM is multi-faceted. 5e puts the DM /in/ the core resolution system even at it's most basic: he's indispensable. That's a foundation on which it builds up both a system and a culture of DM Empowerment. It's effing brilliant, if partially cribbed from the way things just happened back in the day.

But, even if you took the DM out of the resolution system, and dis-empowered him, the other facets would still be needed. You need someone to develop the world, decide how it reacts, to, as the indie set seem wont to say, 'frame scenes' and the like.

In theory, those functions could be parceled out among the players, and it practice, some games have done just that.

Reading a bit less harshly, it still seems it's the DM getting railroaded by the system here in that she's only supposed to react; and further, only react to what the players (via their characters, I assume) "have signaled they care about". Fine for the players, thankless for the DM.

Oh, DMing's almost always thankless. Still can be fun, though.

Lan-"it's an acquired taste, scenery, but once you've chewed some you'll wonder how you ever did without it"-efan

Lol!

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Lanefan]

The role of DM is multi-faceted. 5e puts the DM /in/ the core resolution system even at it's most basic: he's indispensable. That's a foundation on which it builds up both a system and a culture of DM Empowerment. It's effing brilliant, if partially cribbed from the way things just happened back in the day.

Absolutely. But [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (who can [and doubtless will ] correct me if I'm wrong) has brought up a slew of other systems that tend to see the DM as more reactionary than proactionary...which might be fine for those systems but is a departure from what I see as traditional D&D.

But, even if you took the DM out of the resolution system, and dis-empowered him, the other facets would still be needed. You need someone to develop the world, decide how it reacts, to, as the indie set seem wont to say, 'frame scenes' and the like.

In theory, those functions could be parceled out among the players, and it practice, some games have done just that.

If the game is run in a pre-fab setting e.g. Greyhawk then most of that also becomes needless. Only the "scene framing" remains, and the table as a whole can do that.

Oh, DMing's almost always thankless. Still can be fun, though.

And that fun, sometimes, comes from seeing one's plots play out into a story...or something like that - the likelihood of the end story bearing much resemblance to the original intended plot is usually a bit less than zero, but that's players for ya!

Lanefan

 

[Jacob Marley]

Well you said the chance of failure was about 1%...so I think dispensing with the dice in such a case makes sense. There is as little drama as possible when the chance to fail is 1%.

So given that, I don't really see your approach as much different than what can be accomplished by DM Fiat. I think the question really comes down to the DM. Whichever approach they use, they can promote choice or limit choice.

Think of the example in the context of a whole campaign. While a 1% chance may appear as an automatic, it does not take too long before those chances add up to where you have a meaningful likelihood of failure. For example, 20 automatic "yes" answers changed to 99% chance of success means the likelihood of failure during those 20 instances is approximately 18%. That number, in my experience, is meaningful. In my experience as a player, knowing that statistic does increase the drama of any given roll. It's also important to note that just because the roll is 1% for my character, it may be higher (or lower) for another character. Moving from a 1% chance of failure to 3% chance of failure means that within those 20 instances the likelihood of failure increases to 46%.