And what if the massaging and nudging has nothing to do with achieving pre-planned outcomes, and everything to do with sheparding and enhancing the narrative that emerges to the tastes and preferences of the players?
Then I want to know why we're using a broken game that doesn't do that already!
(Or even - why are we rolling dice at all, if we already know what we want and are going to nudge and massage to get there anyway?)
In response to your first question, how can a game be designed by a third party to take into account the specific tastes and preferences of the players at your table? As I see it, one of the key advantages of having a DM is the ability to tailor the game to the table.
Your second question makes me think you missed the part where I described the massaging and nudging as "[having] nothing to do with achieving pre-planned outcomes". If you did miss it, I can't emphasize it enough: it's a key part of the question I asked you. If you didn't miss it, then I don't at all understand your second question: if there are no pre-planned outcomes, the dice would seem to be extremely relevant to determining what the outcomes are.
I don't think so.
...
My point is that there is no "main plot" vs "side plot" here. There's just the stuff that is happening in the game.
Ok cool--I was misunderstanding what you were saying. Thank you for clarifying.
Can you say more about "secret backstory" that informs action resolution but isn't set in stone until revealed?
Happy to.
When I DM I have certain elements of the setting already in mind. For one thing, I use a persistant campaign world, so, at a minimum, the events of previous campaigns are established lore. (New players, of course, will not know this lore.) On top of that, I usually come up with elements of the starting setting for a new campaign, including geography, culture, NPCs the party might come into contact with (both specifically-placed and generic), events likely to occur in the near future, plots the PCs may be interested in, etc. Based on this thread, it is my understanding that you consider all of that to be "secret backstory". I will use that backstory to inform action resolution: if , e.g., a player asks a local to find out what inns are in town, I will answer with the details I already have (possibly filtered through the opinions of the NPC sharing the information).
However, until I share it, the details are flexible. If, at the time the player asks, they're looking for a specific variety of inn, I might well change one of the pre-planned inns (or add one) to provide some or all of what the player is looking for. I will only do this if the following conditons are met:
- I think having the type of inn the PC is looking for will make the game more enjoyable for the players as a group.
- It's just (or almost) as plausible for that type of inn to be present instead of, or in addition to, the ones I had planned.
- I can make the change invisibly.
If what the PC is looking for is plausible but unlikely, I might announce probabilities and then roll percentile dice to determine if it is present. (What I will
never do is make the presence of the desired type of inn depend on player's check to gather information.)
If instead what the player is looking for is already on my list, I'm not going to remove it from the list to frustrate the player. Exception: if the player is trying to take the game in a direction the other players are trying to avoid and wouldn't enjoy, then I
might remove it from the list, depending heavily on the specifics at the table at the time. For example, if the player of a racist PC is looking for an inn catering to Elven patrons specifically to go make trouble in order to hog the spotlight,
then I might remove an Elven inn from a premade list (and have an OOC talk with the player after the game). Otherwise, I don't make changes to try to thwart the PCs.
Here's an example. As far as I know it's not at all what you've got in mind, but it would fall under the phrase you use:
A PC casts a spell to charm the king's chamberlain. The GM decides (unilaterally) that the chamberlain has a ring of immunity to mind control, and so tells the player "Your spell doesn't work."
That is a case of "secret backstory" not being set in stone until revealed. I would normally consider that, though, to be an instance of what (in the OP) I called railroading. A possible exception might be if it is an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has called "refereeing" - but personally I would expect a "referee" GM to make that sort of decision in advance of actually resolving the episode where the PC confronts the chamberlain, so that the players have a chance to learn about the chamberlain's anti-magic ring (eg by scrying, spying, collecting rumours etc).
I would also consider that railroading, but since I don't make changes to the "secret backstory" to thwart the PCs, your example can't arise under my style.
If the presence of the ring was pre-planned, instead I'd make a big deal of the fact that the spell failed, give a vivid description of what the failure felt like to the caster and how unusual it was (or how familiar if the PC had encountered such rings before), and let the players decide if they want to further investigate the cause and/or the significance of the fact that the chamberlain has such a ring.
