Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Jester David]

Well, Gygax is no longer with us, so we can't ask him. But here is what you quoted him as saying:

The use of a predetermined outcome should be only to set up an interesting and challenging scenario​

So he talks about using an outcome as a set-up. As I said, I think he has in mind something like the Dungeon of the Slave Lords. Other examples would be Ghost Tower of Inverness (PCs as suicide squad) or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (from memory, the PCs are shipwrecked).

I doubt he's talking about a start of a module. But rather having a set outcome in one adventure to have a future adventure, a future story.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I doubt he's talking about a start of a module. But rather having a set outcome in one adventure to have a future adventure, a future story.

I took it as a reference to letting the players' decisions determine the course of the game...unless you have an idea that sets up something challenging or interesting.

 

[Jester David]

I took it as a reference to letting the players' decisions determine the course of the game...unless you have an idea that sets up something challenging or interesting.

That's how I read it.

 

[Manbearcat]

To the DW example I can say little as I don't know the system. I see what mechanics you're using to achieve what results but what's unclear is whether any of those mechanical resolutions could have been replaced with simple DM fiat and narration. It seems little to no advance GM prep went into the scene as you say right off it was all off the cuff - but was it a pre-mapped part of the dungeon to in theory be explored later or did it not exist at all until the Elf fell in?

It didn't exist at all (that is, it wasn't an established part of the fiction/play conversation) until the Elf fell in. The snowbridge-covered crevasse didn't exist until the Scout roll was failed on the Undertake a Perilous Journey move.

Earthmaw did exist as a result of action resolution in a prior scene (as I noted in the initial post I linked you). The players were heading across the dangerous frozen wilderness to resupply and beseech the Hobgoblin King for aid and audience with the Blizzard/White Dragon Averandox that claimed the highlands as its domain.

So while the rest of the group made it to Earthmaw proper after getting out of the crevasse pickle, the elf splashed down in a freezing underground river that led to Earthmaw's garbage basement. This course was fraught with serious peril (exposure/monsters/being thrust right into the middle of the "Aliens" trope siege of Earthmaw) and threatened to put a serious monkey-wrench in future parley with the Hobgoblin King.

So...he did make to Earthmaw...just not how he had intended (and with serious complications/obstacles to deal with/ovrercome). This is classic Fail Forward.

If you're wondering "why isn't this Fail Forward an instance of GM Force(?)", then this would be a perfect point to have a conversation about the nuance of GMing techniques, GMing principles, and play procedures. If you do get why it isn't, then good deal!

And, one question: the Elf knew the Aboleth had 6 h.p. before shooting at it. Is it standard practice in DW that an opponent's hit points are known information to the players/characters? (also, if yes do the opponents get the same benefit in knowing the hit points of the PCs?)

Games like DW are good with, and actively encourage, stuff that is pretty much just mechanical markers that are indirect proxies for other stuff (HP are whatever the hell they are...Adventuring Gear, Ammo, Bag of Books, etc are just a number (typically 1 - 4) to reflect an abstract resource) to be made transparent. Strike(!), 13th Age, and 4e is the same way although 4e is a bit more "do whatever you want but here is the advantage of doing it this way" about it.

Beyond that, just on a personal note, I have long...long...long since made system artifacts like HP that just serve as mechanical markers transparent to my players. (1) It decreases table handling time in action/scene resolution and (2) the PC would understand in the game exactly whatever it is supposed to mean in the fiction. So I want my players to be oriented in that same way/occupy that same head-space. Otherwise, they're filtering their OODA Loop through me in a side conversation game of "how do I extract this information that my character would have but I, the player, can only engage with these system artifacts".

Basically...D&D gave us the elegant mechanical marker of HPs to deal with (along with turn-based combat rounds and initiative, action economy, Armor Class, etc etc). The machinery is what it is. System architecture to orient players (not PCs) and more easily facilitate action resolution. It isn't the fiction and it can't translate directly to the fiction. So don't try to obfuscate its functionality. It will fight you and it will slow things down.

Happily, Dungeon World doesn't have loads and loads of HPs! It doesn't have Initiative! It doesn't have Action Economy! It doesn't have AC! It has fiction. It has elegant action resolution mechanics. It has very clear play procedures. It has tightly integrated reward cycles and resources. It has a coherent agenda and principles.

With the B/X example I'm on more familiar ground. I get the sense you've added a bit more to the DM prep side on this one in pointing out he's got three pre-done adventures in the can ready to go - why would the same not be true in the DW example?

If that would have been a B/X scenario, then there would have been much more prep. B/X requires multiple fully prepped (mapped + stocked + keyed + Wandering Monsters) dungeons of varying levels/settings/themes. Players figure out where they want to go in the Town phase of play and off we go.

Dungeon World prep is not just extremely lighter, but in its own lightness it is different than B/X prep. Torchbearer is basically an indie, much more complex version of B/X with much more thematic meat on its bone.

Beyond that, the DM in this scenario is relying on hard-coded mechanics far more than I ever would and thus making his own job a lot harder...with one exception: I'd think the wall-straddling move by the Elf needs some sort of check (roll under Dex?) to pull off quietly and-or gracefully. But the rest of it I'd have flow more organically, not worrying about Exploration Turns or any of that and probably deciding by DM judgement* that the Goblin coming onto the scene would take one look and run for its life. * - unless the Elf immediately did something unexpected like surrender, or itself flee.

Well, that is B/X for you. Its actually extremely easy to GM. The mechanics are elegant, intuitive, and extremely light-weight and coherent compared to AD&D. Its basically Exploration Turns + Rest + Encounters + Monster Reactions + Combat + Pursuit and Evasion + Wandering Monsters and the little subtle nuances therein. A GM who has run it more than once will be able to run it simply (and the rulebooks are beautifully put together and easily referencable...though you likely won't need to).

The B/X version of action resolution for something like your describing is different than AD&D (where you're rolling below Dex/NWPs). B/X handles that stuff with 1d6 and typically with a 1 (or sometimes 1 and 2) and you've got success.

I think (maybe?) I noted that in my post, but I went with the other adjudication (just say yes and have it affect surprise round. I did that because the Elf has so many advantages in that situation (is in the dark...sees in the dark...has infravision), is a dextrous character, and that is what they do.

If you feel like there should be a 17% or 33 % chance that something could go wrong there, then obviously you would go with the alternate adjudication.

As for running the caught Goblin through, isn't there a roll to hit involved in both systems? The other Goblins' reactions might be quite different if the Elf somehow manages to miss. (it's unclear what sort of level this Elf is)

Dungeon World has a melee move for if you're actively engaged in an exchange with a worthy opponent. No exchange/worthy opponent and/or the fiction presents the situation that you should just deal your damage (or be afforded the choice to straight kill your adversary), then that is what you do.

B/X does have a roll to hit, but this goblin would not engage in combat (due to morale 2 or below), so its irrelevant. If that were an actual B/X game, he's either just going to die or he is going to potentially turn into an issue for the PC where pursuit triggers a Wandering Monster check and the prior Aboleth (or a new one...or both...or maybe a hobgoblin overseer with guards or something) becomes a lurking threat again.

By themselves, these little, pathetic goblin laborers aren't even the slightest threat to a level 3 Elven Arcane Duelist (or he may have been 4 at that point...can't recall) or level 3 B/X Elf (2 first level spells and 1 second).

I'd probably play the Parlay sequence much as you did only more organically, without the dice rolls and with a bit of attention to the Elf's Charisma (some Elves ooze Charisma out of every pore).

Well, again, that is just the play procedures of the system and the GM-side action resolution mechanics that would have to be consulted. The actual fiction and the conversation at the table wouldn't entail that kind of stuff (except where it needs to for player clarity).

One other thing I'd be doing in both systems that you don't mention in either is quietly either rolling or fiat-ing what the Aboleth is up to and where it has gone. Maybe it scares another Goblin somewhere else and distant screams are heard. Maybe it moves in behind the Elf (intentionally or otherwise), such that if the Elf tries to leave the way he came in he'll run onto it. Or maybe it just goes to sleep somewhere and digests its lunch.

In B/X, time passed (due to Exploration Turns) triggering the Wandering Monster clock would do the heavy lifting in what you describe above.

In DW, I'd be thinking about the Aboleth while we play (it did come back into play later...as well as several others during the parley with the Hobgoblin King!). The overhead for a DW GM with what you're talking about is when and how to use that Aboleth. There are two ways:

* "Soft Move": This can be the initial framing of a situation or a 7-9 result on a player move where I do something like "reveal an unwelcome truth", "show signs of an approaching threat", "grant an opportunity with a cost", or "put someone in a spot" It doesn't have immediate, irrevocable consequences. However, if the players don't respond to/deal with the situation then they've presented me a golden opportunity for a "Hard Move."

Lets go back to Aliens. Think of the trope where someone sees either signs of acid burning through fuselage/structure or they see signs of slimy goop and what looks like something just molted. The Elf could have easily come across signs of either (this happened later in the DW game), except its nasty mucous haze rather than acid.

* "Hard Move": This happens when the player(s) ignores or doesn't appropriately deal with my soft move. Or it can be triggered by a player move that results in a 6 or less. Now I might decide to "use a monster/danger/location move", "deal damage", "use up their resources", etc. The lurking Aboleth jumps on them from above, disorienting them with their mucous haze or burgeoning mind magic, and attempts to devour them!

Now, back to the main topic: is any of this railroading? In either system I don't think so...it all looks like normal run of play to me; or at least I have to assume it is for DW.

Would it be railroading were it simple DM fiat/judgement that the Goblin shows up and flees for dramatic or story effect rather than the result of a random roll? Again I don't think so: particularly in B/X the player wouldn't - or shouldn't - know the difference anyway: all he knows is that a Goblin has just showed up. He doesn't know the mechanics (or lack thereof) behind that Goblin's arrival...all he can do (both in and out of character) is react to what's presented in whatever way makes sense to the character.

Lan-"Goblin: the other red meat"-efan

In light of my response, do you have any thoughts about any of those instances being GM Force?

"...an instance of play where (a) the GM suspends/subordinates the action resolution mechanics to impose their preferred outcome or (b) undermines the impact on play of a/the player(s) thematically/strategically/tactically significant choices (these choices could be at build-stage or during play)."

Just for quick clarity, a GM "saying yes" to a player proposal can never be a case of GM Force, even if the GM thinks the direction that play will go as a result of the player's proposal is thematically coherent or interesting. GM Force is about the mesh of system agency, player agency, and the trajectory of play being subordinate to GM fiat.

 

[billd91]

Where to me that A3-to-A4 changeover is one of the more blatant early examples of bad-form railroading.

They're scripted to lose the fight at the end of A3 (no matter what they try to do their only real choice is to either fight and lose or surrender and lose) and they're scripted to wake up in jail at the start of A4. The wake-up-in-jail bit is a cool sort of railroad and can lead to some excellent stuff after; but the must-lose-the-fight bit is pure bad railroad. Flee? Not an option. Sneak past? Not an option. Actually win the fight? Not supposed to be an option, though I believe there's passing mention of it being a possibility.

I guess that's where scene-framing becomes railroading: when you can't ignore or get around or escape the scene that's framed.

Lan-"if every picture tells a story, what does an empty frame have to say"-efan

Yeah, it's a classic railroad that rubs a lot players the wrong way. That said, it's also a classic AD&D adventure that plays out even better under 3e than it did under 1e.

 

[pemerton]

we're trying to assign definitions to subjective experiences and wondering why others may not value such terms in the same way.

From the OP:

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.)

<snip>

Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.

But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.

On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.

I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!

I didn't try to assign any definitions. I used a word, made it clear how I was using it, and noted that other posters might use it differently. I then gave some examples (one actual, one hypothetical) of GM judgement calls, explained how I thought they related to railroading as I characterised, and invited discussion.

That's all.

I suspect any contention you've encountered is due to your use of "railroading." While it may not be a loaded word for you nor myself, I think others get triggered by it since it's often been used as a derogatory label.

Maybe, although I think people who are happy to toss around phrases like "Quantum Roleplaying", "Schroedinger's brother", etc might be expected to take it as well as they dish it out - I mean, clearly those aren't meant to be descriptions of endearment!

Or to look at it another way, which I think responds to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s plea for analysis: I've explained how I think that the process of authoring fiction at the table is distinct from the ingame process whereby events in the fiction cause one another, and hence how I take it to be possible that something is the case in the fiction although no one has written it yet, and hence no one can know it until the writing takes place.

Similarly, other posters are free to explain what it is that they value in player input into the shared fiction, and what it is that they prefer the GM to control (including by way of judgement call). Given that those values are probably different from mine, in some cases at least, it naturally follows that they'll have a different (often narrower) conception of what counts as a railroad.

Because the number of people who change their preferences due to internet discussion, while not necessarily zero, is fairly small, I don't think attempts to argue why one's preferences are sensible ones (eg that they are truer to D&D tradition) are likely to get very far. I think that actual accounts of techniques, or pointing out in particular episodes of play where (say) player and GM influence were felt and how they interacted to yield some outcome that mattered to the participants at the table, is likely to be more fruitful. As a general rule you don't have to like something to be able to understand and analyse it.

 

[pemerton]

I posit your definition of railroading is, simply put, far too broad.

Too broad for what?

I think it does a reasonable job of conveying my preferences in RPGing. No one in this thread seems all that confused about them!

 

[pemerton]

Please define the term "category error". I'm not sure what you mean by it, as opposed to any other type of error.

An error that arises from treating something as being an instance of a type that it is not.

For instance, anthropomorphic explanations (say, explaining gravitational forces as "The two masses want to move towards one another) involve category errors. People (and other animals) have wants, as a result of which they move towards one another; but masses per se do not. The concept of desire has no work to do in explaining planetary motion, or why the apple (supposedly) fell on Newton's head.

Asking what colour the taste of an apple is (if asked literally and not by way of metaphor) is a category error, as colour pertains to visible sensation, not taste sensation.

And describing something as neither true nor false in the fiction at a certain time within the fiction (eg the time when the PC looks for the mace) because at that time in the real world the answer hasn't been authored yet is a category error, as it attributes a property of the real world (is the moment at which a piece of fiction is authored) to the fictional world - whereas, in the fictional world, events arent authored at all, but arise through the (fictional, imagined) causal processes that govern the gameworld (eg people become evil because of poor parenting, or exposure to maddening radiation in temples of Tharizdun, or whatever other causal process operates in a given setting).

magic item identification

But isn't magic item identification by trial and error almost the textbook example of a puzzle (not for the PCs, but for the players). Eg:

Player: I pull on the boots.

GM: Your steps feel somewhat lighter.

Player: OK, they're either Boots of Levitation or Boots of Striding and Springing. I try to jump over the treasure chest!​

I think the resemblance to 20 questions - a classic puzzle-solving game - is pretty evident.

it's not usually the player's place to impose their will on the fiction in any great degree, but instead to react and deal with what is already there.

So much depend on what the "already there" refers to. Is it the 12 deities imprisoned beneath the ruins of Castle Greyhawk, which Robilar unleashed? That's absolutely a player imposing his will on the fiction.

Is the "already there" a whole series of "character arcs" for NPCs, towns and regions, etc, that the GM has mapped out? Then to me it seems like the player is primarily contributing some colour to a pre-determined series of events.

This is why I will pilfer situations from modules - set-ups that are just waiting for the players (via their PCs) to "set them in motion" - but am not interested in a module's prescripted sequence of events and metaplot.

the presence of a "self-moving" plot would make it less appealing to me.

It's like a version of the "freeze-frame" room in a dungeon: you don't need it to change because (i) when the players first encounter it, it doesn't matter that the fiction was authored by the GM some time ago and hasn't been touched since, and (ii) onece the players encounter it, they will generate changes.

<snip>

life goes on. This to me seems goes-without-saying blindingly obvious if one's intent is to run a living breathing game world, and by no means whatsoever is it railroading in any accepted sense of the word I've ever heard of - other than what you've posted here.

But, when the PCs leave said room does it (have to) become static again? I think that's the crux here, particularly when you replace "room" with "town" or "region" or anything else.

Maybe, maybe not. As is often the case, a lot turns on details.

If stuff happened that matters to the game, in the sense of engaging or involving stuff that is core to the PCs (and hence their players), then the situation might continue to be important. It would inform framing; inform the narration of consequences for failure. But none of that requires the GM to give the town its own "character arc"!

Here's an example of play (from my main 4e game) that shows how I handled the return of the PCs to the underdark, and the lands of the duergar and the drow after killing Lolth and sealing the Abyss; I've put it in sblocks for length.:

[sblock]

The PCs (and players) then pondered how to get to Thanatos, on the 333rd layer of the Abyss. The invoker/wizard remembered that they had an Aspect of Orcus trapped back in the duergar hold that had been invaded by demons, and thought that it might have information about a secret way in.

The PCs therefore teleported to Phaevorul (the nearest portal that they knew) and travelled through the Underdark to the duergar hold. This provided a chance to introduce a bit of colour illustrating the effects that their godslaying had had upon the world: with Torog dead the Underdark had reverted to roiling chaos, and in combination with the death of Lolth dead this meant that the drow civilisation had virtually collapsed.

In the small skill challenge to travel to the duergar hold and deal with the Aspect:

* The wizard/invoker maintained the PCs' phantom steeds (with a +40-something Arcana bonus this was an auto-success that didn't need to be rolled for);

* The player of the ranger-cleric made a successful Dungeoneering check, aided by the dwarf, to steer a path through the now everchanging, roiling Underdark;

* The sorcerer made a successful Diplomacy check (he had retrained Insight to Diplomacy and succeeded against a Hard DC) to persuade the wandering and raving drow that now was the time to return to the surface and dance once more under the stars, as they had with their elven kin in the times of old;

* Once they arrived at the duergar hold, the paladin made a successful Diplomacy check to persuade the duergar to let them gain access to the trapped Aspect of Orcus so that they could take the fight to the Abyss;

* The duergar - who had always felt comfortable dealing with a fellow bearer of diabolic taint (the paladin is a tiefling) - explained that Asmodeus was now calling upon them to join him in an assault upon the Abyss, and sought advice as to what they should do;

* The paladin cautioned them against becoming bound to devils, instancing the downfall of the tieflings as an indicator of the possible costs and pointing to the fact that the drown were now freed from Lolth's yoke - I asked, to clarify, whether he was trying to persuade the duergar not to go along with Asmodeus, and he said yes, so I called for the Diplomacy check against a Hard DC;

* The invoker/wizard indicated that he would help, and made a successful check as he cautioned the duergar against being manipulated by Asmodeus into being his fodder in a futile war; but together with the paladin player's rather dismal roll this wasn't quite enough (from memory, 6 (roll) +32 (skill) +2 (aid another) for 40 rather than 41);

* There was then a brief discussion in which I reminded the player of the invoker/wizard of some backstory he had forgotten, namely, that the reason Levistus and Bane had let him be resurrected (back in mid-Paragon) was on the condition that he help prevent Asmodeus invading the Abyss and thereby risking a spread of chaos;

* Back in the game rather than the metagame, the PC could tell that his imp was itching to speak;

* So the player spent his action point to let his imp speak to the duergar, thereby giving an extra bonus to make the roll succeed - mechanically, this was the imp granting its +4 Diplomacy bonus vs devils and their friends (from the invoker/wizard PC's variant Devil's Pawn theme) to the paladin; and in the fiction, the imp explained to the duergar that it was Levistus who, of the archdevils, had the backs of mortals, and they should not let themselves be tricked by Asmodeus into a foolish sacrifice;

* The players weren't entirely sure that switching the duergar from Asmodeus to Levistus was maximum progress - the dwarf fighter/cleric was mumbling "What about Moradin?" somewhere in the background; but at least Asmodeus will not have his duergar army when he assaults the Plain of One Thousand Portals;

* Attention now turned to the Aspect of Orcus - it had been trapped by channelling power from Vecna, and the player of the invoker/wizard had already pointed out that Vecna would be alerted if the PCs tried to steal secrets from it; now, a successful Religion check (made easily against a Hard DC, with a +40 bonus) allowed the invoker/wizard to make contact with Vecna and ask him to rip information of a secret entrance into Thanatos from the mind of the Aspect;

* Vecna indicated a willingness to do so, but only on conditions - that the trapped Aspect of Vecna (whom the invoker/wizard and the paladin had bound drawing upon the power of the Raven Queen) be released;

* The invoker/wizard would only do this if the paladin agreed, and the latter was not keen; I told the players that with a successful Insight check vs a Hard DC the invoker/wizard could read the secret from Vecna without needing to be overtly told - so the PC said to Vecna "We'll find another way" and then rolled the check, which missed by 1, but then he activated his Memory of One Thousand Lifetimes and rolled a 6, which was enough for a success and, he hoped, enough to mean that Vecna may not know that his mind had been read;

* With the secret entrance into Everlost, Orcus's palace of bones on Thanatos, now acquired, all that was required was to cast the Planar Portal to teleport there: I read out to the players the description of Thanatos and the palace from the MotP, and they were glad they hadn't tried for a frontal assault; this also described Thanatos as being "inhospitable even by the standards of the Abyss", and so - although the PCs had Endure Primordial Elements up - I called for the 8th check of the skill challenge - a group Endurance vs Medium DC (ie 31);

* The dwarf has a +34 bonus, and so the player of the dwarf asked if he could try to shelter someone else - I said he could grant a +2 in return for facing a Hard DC (41), which he did - and he succeeded; the paladin also succeeded, as did the ranger-cleric once the bonus from the dwarf was factored in; the sorcerer failed by with an Easy success, so I docked him a healing surge; the invoker/wizard failed with a result below an Easy success, and so I rolled damage for him - about a healing surge's worth.​

The session ended there

[/sblock]​

We also can't expect the world to stay still over there while we take care of this mission over here.

But the world can "unfold" - contributing the occasional bit of colour, perhaps appearing in some framing - without contradicting the players' achievements or negating the significance of their choices (including their choice of "this mission" as the thing that they care about).

I see it as well within the DM's purview to drop all sorts of surprises on the characters...some good, some bad. Where it becomes railroading is when such is done out of spite (I've seen this) or to force the party to stay on mission rather than do something else.

Until you tell me how the surprise relates to the outcomes of play, I can't tell you whether or not I would regard it as railroading. Which goes back to the example of the assassination of the Marquis.

If this undoes an apparent victory by the players, then in my view it is railroading, because it's the GM overriding the result(s) of the players' declared and resolved actions, in order to shape the shared fiction in some particular direction.

But if it doesn't, then maybe it's just framing.

With the vampire example, though, I find it hard (not impossible, but hard) to imagine very many cases where the revelation that the sponsor/mentor is really a vampire (an evil undead) would be mere framing. Mostly I would expect the players (and their PCs) to be invested in their sponsor/mentor, and hence would feel that this is a turning of the tables which would be fine as a consequence of some appropriate failure, but objectionable (at my table) as a mere framing device.

what if a player narrates something that contradicts that...even something as simple as the guy admiring his reflection in a mirror.

How does a player get to narrate that a NPC vampire is admiring his reflection in a mirror?

<stuff about the example of the baron's raise of taxes making the townsfolk dejected and sullen?

it's still the DM doing something off-screen that has effects on-screen - so is it framing, railroad, or neither?

I've answered this, and you even quoted my answer:

If the adventure the PCs have just returned from is one in which they won a social conflict with the baron over the level of taxation, then probably yes - it's just fiating a failure over the top of the players' success.

If the state of the village and the wellbeing of the villagers is something the players (via their PCs) have a clear commitment to, then it doesn't look like railroading but rather framing: it's setting up the situation with which, presumably, the PCs are going to engage. (By pushing the baron to lower taxes.)

If the village is just somewhere the PCs are passing through, then it seems to be simply colour, and nothing of any significance is going to turn on it.

That seems pretty clear to me.

Also, the GM hasn't actually "done anything" off-screen. The GM tells the players the townsfolk look miserable and sullen. If the players (and their PCs) ignore this, then nothing of any consequence has happened either on-screen or off. If a PC asks "Lo, good burghers - what troubles you?" and they reply "The baron hath raised our taxes", then the backstory is established but it's still not the case that the GM did anything off-screen. The baron did (raised taxes). The GM didn't.

Just as it is often helpful to distinguish the player from the PC, so it is equally useful not to confuse the actions of the GM (eg saying something at the table) with the actions of NPCs and other inhabitants of the gameworld. The GM's action exert real causal power in the real world; the actions of NPCs have imaginary causal power in an imaginary world. When we're talking about playing the game, we're mostly interested in the former sorts of actions, I think.

I - the GM - did not know either. The likelihood of the brother having been evil all along was not established as an element of the fiction until I narrated the failure of the attempt to find the mace in the ruin.

I didn't realize this was an element introduced on the fly.

And that makes it an even bigger problem that it already was! Why?

Because now every interaction that has ever happened with the brother in previous play has just been invalidated. He was evil all along, it seems, but any previous interactions with him didn't have that sitting there as part of his backstory and-or personality (known only to you-as-GM as he is, I believe, an NPC) and thus couldn't be a part of driving what he did or said. In other words, the internal consistency of that character just took one hell of a beating.

<snip>

when a GM is at the helm and knows the surprises ahead of time she can filter what happens in the game (outside what the players do with their own characters) through those unknown elements and thus keep things somewhat consistent.

Well, first, as a side point, I can assure you that it was not a problem at all, either big or small.

Second, there was no previous interaction with the brother in play: only as part of the backstory of two of the PCs (the brother PC had not seen him since his possession; the wizard-assassin PC had been tutored by him subsequent to his possession, and had had some bad experiences in the course of that, leading to her resolution to kill him, flay him and send his soul to . . . [a bad place]).

Third, to the extent that the brother PC's memories of and affection for his brother were invalidated, that's the whole point! That's what makes it a failure. (And that's why I find the notion that "fail forward" means "no real failure" or nothing more than "success with complication" completely misses the point.) As I posted in reply to [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] (post 314):

The PC has chosen to return (for the first time in 14 years) to the site where he last saw his brother; the tower they had to abandon when it was assaulted by orcs; the place where, in trying to fight off those orcs, the brother tried to summon a mighty storm of magical lightning and instead opened up a conduit to hell and was possessed by a balrog.

Having returned, the PC hopes to find the item he was working on, seeking to enchant, when the orcs attacked.

That is not a low stakes situation. It's a high stakes one. The player chose to put all this to the test; and failed.​

If the player wanted to remain safe with his PC's nostalgic memories of his brother, he shouldn't have tried to reclaim his past legacies. But he took the risk. That's the point of the game! (The motto for Burning Wheel is "Fight for what you believe!" The player (and PC) believed that by recovering the lost mace, he could advance his attempt to redeem his brother. But he lost the fight. That's what happens when you fail a check.)

Fourth, I don't know what inconsistencies you are talking about. I'm not aware of any, and have not posted about any in this thread. (Because there were none.)

I've already quoted Paul Czege twice in thread; maybe third time's the charm:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​

Managing backstory and maintaining the consistency of the fiction is of course an important GM function. (Though not a sole GM function: players can remember backstory too, and point out that some new element someone wants to introduce would conflict with the established fiction.) But you don't need to write everything in advance to maintain consistency (as the example of Charles Dickens and his two endings to Great Expectations illustrates).

You're saying the arrows represent a failure; I'd say they represent a success of a sort: it's confirmed that the brother was bent all along.

It's no sort of success. The PC (and player) want to redeem the brother. The mace is envisaged as some sort of means to that end (I can't remember the details anymore). Instead, evidence that the brother may be irredeemable is found. That is failure.

(If the goal of play was to solve the mystery of the brother, then learning stuff about him would be a success. But that was not the goal. And up until the moment of revelation, there was no "mystery of the brother" - the PCs who had any opinion of the brother at all both assumed that he had been corrupted by possession.

Again, for emphasis: solving puzzles is not a very big aspect of play at my table.)

if this had been known all along there could have been some consistency; and possibilities for roleplay that are now lost: maybe the evil brother let something slip at some point, for example

Thinking in terms of clues is taking things back to a puzzle game. But I'm not mostly playing for puzzles.

Great Expectations has a puzzle element ("Who is Pip's benefactor?") but the main point of the story isn't to guess the answer to the puzzle. It has a second puzzle, too - what is Estella's real relationship to Pip - and Dickens wrote two answers to that one!

In the real world, solving real mysteries, one of the ways that clues work is that there is an actual answer to the question, and the clues are somehow caused by that reality (or perhaps have a cause in common with it). In a fiction, though, it is all authored. Whatever clues are provided are done so as a device by the author; they have no autonomy or independent connection to the fictional situation. So, was the now-decapitated mage's tutoring of his younger brother an act of kindness, or a prelude to some epic moment of exploitation? It can be read either way. That's the nature of clues in fiction.

As to "possibilities for roleplay now lost"; well, possibilities for roleplay were certainly created, and plenty of roleplaying was happening before the discovery also - we weren't just sitting around not knowing what to do with ourselves at the table! - and so I'm not really seeing any cost here.

It can be done provided nobody cares too much about the validity of or consistency with what has gone before.

You keep saying this. But I have NO IDEA what you are basing it on. What inconsistency do you think you've spotted?

I'm not so much confused that other approaches exist, but I am confused as to how they are able to function while maintaining consistency

Maintaining consistency is not all that hard, because most things that happen are consistent with most other things. The peasants being unhappy can be the result of anything from a raise in taxes to the despoiling of a local shrine to a saint. The baron's refusal to allow mirrors in his house could be because he's a vampire, or because he regards them as symbols of the sun god (whom he hates) or because they remind him of his late wife, who loved make-up. (I think it's worth keeping in mind that no one actually understands all the causal processes that explain the events that happen in the real world. So there's certainly no need, in order to run a game in a fictional world, to understand or manage all its causal processes.)

I've read a lot of posters over the year who posit that running a player-driven game will produce inconsistency, but it's not actually something I've experienced. (I explained upthread to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] what some of the actual challenges are: in Burning Wheel, framing (and I would say this can be a challenge in 4e also); in MHRP, adjudicating consequences (and in 4e this can be an issue for skill challenges, but is not an issue for combat resolution).)

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No. It is literally, objectively true that the brother's past moral status was authored, and thereby became an element of the shared fiction, at that moment of play. But that is not a causal event in the game.

In any objective linear-time causal reality, every element is settled in sequential order, with past elements resolving before later elements. That's part of the definition. If this is not the case, then you are not playing in an objective linear-time causal reality.

This is not the case in the example you are citing, and thus, the characters do not exist in an objective linear-time causal reality. Your characters are just characters in a story, which is governed by narrative convention. There is no underlying model.

As a general proposition, it's not true that the time sequence of authoring a fiction must correspond to the time sequence of events within the fiction. This general proposition applies also to RPGs.

An RPG is not authored fiction. You're not all sitting around a table, bidding over narrative control to see who gets to author any given element of some story that you're collectively telling. The backstory and setting may be authored as fiction would, but once the actual game begins, it is just a process of determining how things progress from that premise. The contents of the chest on the seventh floor of the dungeon, hidden behind the throne, are set in stone before the PCs ever enter that room (if they ever do).

At least, that's the case if you're trying to model any sort of objective linear-time causal reality, as the method of play is described in various editions of the rulebooks. It may not be the case in very old editions, and even 4E would make much more sense if you assumed it was intentionally deviating from that style.

 

[pemerton]

In any objective linear-time causal reality, every element is settled in sequential order

Which it was. Something-or-other made the brother evil; this made him a fit object for possession; hence he became possessed, once his failed spell casting opened the magical channel to make this possible.

This is not the case in the example you are citing

Again, you seem to be confused between the time sequence in the imaginary world, and the time sequence in the real world. As any number of examples reveal (including the Great Expectations one that I mentioned), the time sequence of authorship of episodes in the real world, and the time sequence of events in an imaginary world that are depicted or recounted in those episodes, are not in general correlated.

An RPG is not authored fiction.

I've got shelves full of setting books, and (virtual) pages of actual play reports, that disagree with you here. I can (and have) pointed to the moments in play where certain imaginary events becomes elements of the shared fiction.

You're not all sitting around a table, bidding over narrative control to see who gets to author any given element of some story that you're collectively telling.

Correct. That doesn't sound like a RPG to me. For instance, it doesn't have the element of "PC inhabitation" that is pretty central to most RPGing.

But that is not the only way to collectively author a fiction. (As the actual practice of RPGing shows.)

The backstory and setting may be authored as fiction would, but once the actual game begins, it is just a process of determining how things progress from that premise. The contents of the chest on the seventh floor of the dungeon, hidden behind the throne, are set in stone before the PCs ever enter that room (if they ever do).

That's not true as a general proposition. For instance, it was very common in the early days of D&D play for the referee to roll the treasure after the encounter was resolved. (The original Empire of the Petal Throne rulebook canvasses this sort of procedure, for instance.)

In the AD&D books Gygax encourages the referee to roll in advance, but not in order to preserve "linear-time causal reality" but in order to eliminate head-scratchers like "Why didn't the orcs use the sword +1 that was just rolled up?"

The technique of starting a campaign small, with a single village or dungeon or whatever, and then constructing the gameworld - both geographically and historically - around that continues to be pretty standard, I think, and clearly that does not conform to your stated account of how RPGing works.

Finding out what unfolds from a given starting point is one way of RPGing, but has never been the only way and I'm not even sure it has ever been the dominant way.