Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Campbell]

When it comes to writing yourself out of the game this is an area where having unity of interest is critical. In Blades in the Dark our interests are settled on the crew and its effort to make an impact on the Underworld of Duskvol, rather than any particular character. Individual characters get to pursue their own outside interests during down time or free play over crew interests, and this might lead to conflict. This can also be consequential. While my character, Candros Slane, used his downtime actions and Coin to pursue his missing wife last session he was not clearing Heat, pursuing alliances, or gathering assets However, we all come together for our scores where we mostly work as a team. I mean the fiction and various xp triggers mean we often will approach situations with different methods in mind and have different approaches to risk taking. That's part of the fun though. In game conflict despite overwhelming unity of purpose.

There are always going to be bounds on the fiction we are exploring. Many Powered By The Apocalypse games have ways to move your character away from the locus of play, and getting there can be part of the point. Consider this advancement from Masks:

When you become a paragon of the city, it means you’re no longer a “young” hero—you’re a peer of the biggest heroes in the city, and you aren’t a Masks character anymore. The GM should treat your character as one of the biggest heroes in the city, but play them as an NPC.

When we are playing Masks our interest is on how these young heroes mature into full fledged members of the superhero community, how they come to see themselves, and how they come together as a team. Once a character basically grows up we do not play them any longer because they are not part of the fiction we all agreed to be interested in when we signed on to play Masks. The mechanisms, principles, and agenda of play are no longer suited to following their fiction. We let them go.

I feel the same can be said for a D&D game. We are interested in adventurers who boldly go into the dark corners of the world, kill or trick monsters, and take their stuff. If we are not really interested in those things we are probably playing the wrong game. All the mechanisms, procedures, and content are tuned to that.

That's not saying I do not see the value in games where we are not so wedded to the group concept. Quite the opposite. Part of what draws me to games like Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Burning Wheel, the way we used to play Vampire, and Sorcerer is that we just get to follow these characters around. Players get to decide who their characters allies and enemies are, including each other. One of my best experiences with Apocalypse World revolved around two different factions of player characters vying for political control of their hardhold. I got to sit back a good deal of the time and just enjoy seeing that play out, occasionally spicing things up when my fronts demanded attention. It was filled with the sort of shifting, temporary alliances seen on shows like Deadwood.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

When it comes to writing yourself out of the game this is an area where having unity of interest is critical.

I really enjoyed watching one of our player's trying to kill off their own character (during a frantic aerial battle far far above the clouds) while the relatively new DM of the session did their best to, 'help' the player. The DM wasn't the 'play it true' type and their nudging became increasingly obvious. The character wasn't trying to jump to their doom but they did insist upon choosing to continue upping the odds in the hope of eventual dramatic failure. The DM became increasingly desperate. The player ever more frustrated. I should have probably stepped in and said something but...

Hilarious!!!

All because they didn't talk it over before the session. A good lesson learnt tho for everyone at the table.

 

[Campbell]

Yes.

Being free to write yourself out of the game isn't a way of being free to drive the game in your preferred direction. It's a clear limit on that!

Because I am nothing if not adamant I am going to take this post as an oppurtunity to say that I do not want players driving the game. Ideally, the game does hard work of the driving. In my preferred forms of gameplay players strictly advocate for their characters and do not try to seize control of anything. This is why I do not enjoy Fate. Fate is a game that is tuned to distribute control over narrative outcomes using an economy that is not overly concerned about the fiction, only our influence upon it. Compels are pretty much systemized bits of control over "the story". We do things like plan arcs for our characters, rather than let things flow naturally from the fiction. This sort of detached approach to character and the fiction makes it almost impossible for me to enjoy play in the moment. We are playing for the fiction - not in it. I do not like it when GMs do this. I also do not like it when players do this in roughly the same measure.

I mean I totally get the distinction you are trying to make it here. I just would not make that exact same distinction. I am not really sure if this is a meaningful difference of opinion between us or more a matter of framing. I think even when intent is a thing in play we should be careful to focus on character intent over player intent if that makes any sense.

 

[pemerton]

The entire game is fraught with limits.

OK, so now you're agreeing with me that in [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s games there are important limits on the shared fiction that are being driven by the GM.

There are always going to be bounds on the fiction we are exploring.

Sure. But if they're established unilaterally by the GM, that makes it a GM-driven game, doesn't it?

Eg there is nothing inherent to D&D, or other generic fantasy RPGing, that precludes a PC becoming a magistrate (a paladin level title is "justiciar"; fighters becomes lords and barons; etc). Or becoming leader of the mercenaries' guild. Etc.

This is why I think that examples of looking for Porsche sports cars in Waterdeep don't really help us understand the dynamics of contribution to authorship of the shared fiction. Everyone agreeing to play D&D, or AW, or MHRP, or whatever, is making a collective choice about genre. (Of course marginal questions may remain and need to be settled during play - does our D&D have swashbucklers as well as mediaeval knights? Or even non-marginal question - does our D&D include androids and space ships? But I don't think the existence of these questions defeats the general claim. Nor do I think there is any universal presumption that the GM gets to settle them unilaterally.)

The GM deciding that the options on offer are orcs, lizardmen, mercenaries or the dak tower, though - so that pursuing other goals is tantamount to retiring the character - is something different. It's not a collective choice of genre. It's a unilateral stipulation of shared fiction. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, but it's pretty clear what the thing is.

 

[Lanefan]

But the question of whether [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] will give more options isn't a question about interpreting some bit of fiction (ie it's not a question of literary criticism). It's a question of what Lanefan is prepared to do at his table (ie it is, broadly, a question of anthropology). Lanefan already told us a couple of things about his table - if you leave the party, or become a magsitrate, then the PC is retired. For all you know, any PC who sets out to become King of the Northern Barbarians (assuming such things even exist in Lanefan's world) likewise has to be retired.

Unless said wanna-be King convinces the party to go along with him and help him defeat his rivals for the throne.

In fact, I've something close to this very situation going on in my game right now. A while ago a PC really lucked out on a (variant) Deck of Many Things, pulling both a Keep and a major title (Duke) to go with it. Long story about his duchy and all the headaches he's having to go through to get it rebooted (it hasn't existed since a very long time ago); relevant here is that he's twice now had the party help clear the area out...when he wasn't even there! (he's a Dwarf, his duchy is Dwarven, and he was down south sorting out the bureaucracy while the party bashed some heads for him back at home-to-be)

That said, he's pretty much retired from active adventuring until he gets this all sorted out...or until he has something that needs doing that's beyond his own abilities and can convince a party to help out.

The fact that you can speculate about what Lanefan may or may not do at his table is of little relevance to establishing what actually happens and is permitted at his table.

Which, in all fairness, neither of you fully know.

Please note, however, that even in the example provided there was a shout-out to other options: the party could choose to ignore all the hooks provided and instead go elsewhere (I think I put it as something like "move on to the next town" or similar).

 

[Lanefan]

I assume that this is a joke, because it's in your signature sign-off.

Only partly.

But just for clarity - none of the campaigns I'm currently running involves wandering monster checks.

So what if any mechanic did you use to determine if, when, how, and by what the party was interrupted or threatened during their 18-month quasi-rest in a ruined tower?

I mean come on, it's a ruined tower - if nothing else there had to be at least one or two adventuring parties wander through during that time, looking for the loots and some heads to bust!

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

But that is completely orthogonal to "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it"! The change doesn't need to be narrated until the player looks at it again - as in your phrase the players notice the first situation again.

But it has still changed notwithstanding, whether it ever gets looked at again or not. And that's the key thing...the DM needs to know what those changes are so as to be able to easily and smoothly respond when and if a PC does look at it again.

Also, careful on semantics here: some might be interpreting "doesn't change unless a PC looks at it" to mean "can only change while a PC is looking at it"; a big difference.

Lan-"peek-a-boo"-efan

 

[pemerton]

I think even when intent is a thing in play we should be careful to focus on character intent over player intent if that makes any sense.

Intent is a very complex thing.

In the famous example from Davidson, I (i) move by finger, (ii) flick the lightswitch, (iii) illuminate the room, (iv) startle the burglar.

(i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) are the same action, under different descriptions. Under some descriptions (eg (ii), (iii)) I intend the action. I may not even advert to the action under (i) - it's "instinctual". And I did not intend (iv) - it's inadvertent.

Linguistic intention is also complex: I say to you, "Don't be late for the tram", intending to caution you not to be late for the train. Also intending to utter "Don't be later for the train", but producing the malapropism (by way of "a slip of the tongue", we might say) instead - which I also, in some sense, intended (as in: whatever a "slip of the tongue" might be, it wasn't an involuntary action). If your interest in what I've said is in my capacity as an adviser, you will disregard my malapropism (assuming that you recognise it) and hasten to the train; if your interest in what I've said includes disobedience or ridiculing me (eg you're my teen-aged child), then you will take me at my word and feign confusion, or cheerfully miss the train, or whatever.

In law, this is the problem of "scrivener's error" or "drafting errors". There are different theories of what a court is doing when it corrects such errors (some hold that this is fidelity to what was said, because they identify what was said with some but not other intentions; others think this is a change to what was said in order to conform with some other intention that was not literally communicated by the words).

A player making an action declaration intends all sorts of things (differentiated by different descriptions), and the action also probably falls under unintended and/or unthought of descriptions too. There is the intention to play the game; the intention to depict the PC in a certain way (eg as brave); the intention to establish a certain fictional fact about the PC (eg the PC is charging the baddies); the intention to establish various intentions for the PC; etc. If the PC is 1st level and the baddies have 3 HD each, then charging to certain death may also be a true description of the action, but not necessarily one under which it was intended!

Some of these elements of action declaration are perhaps best treated as "scrivener's errors": the GM clarifies with the player that the player thought the baddies were kobolds when in fact they're bugbears (maybe the player was away from the table when the full description of the scene was given). Takebacks are bad for momentum, of course, but sometimes anything else would be unfair.

Sometimes there is at least one of the players' intentions that corresponds to a mental state in the PC - the player intends his/her PC to be brave; the PC intends to be brave. But not always. If the player says, "I think that my cleric friend, who is devoted to healing the oppressed, might visit this jail - I make a Circles check!" there is no intention at all on the part of the PC. The PC's mental state, rather, is one of hope. But the player has many intentions - to have the cleric visit the prison; to engender an opportunity for his PC to escape from prison; to score a Circles check and therefore improve the PC's Circles rating; etc. The player's intention that the cleric visit the prison is an intention that has the content of the shared fiction as its object. The player's intention that an opportunity for escape be engendered isn't quite this, but - at least in BW play - is the most important for narrating failure. Because it states an achievement or a goal for the PC. Even though the PC does not, him-/herself, have any intention that corresponds to that. (Just a hope.)

If the check fails, I see my job as GM being both to dash the PC's hope, and to respond in a way that takes the player's intention vis-a-vis PC goal/achievement seriously - ie to present a failure consequence that shows that I noticed that the player had that intention, and I cared about it, but now the game rules require me to introduce some additional material into the shared fiction as a result of which the player's intention is not going to come to fruition, at least as things presently stand. That's how we make PCs (and thereby players) fight for what they believe.

I do not want players driving the game. Ideally, the game does hard work of the driving. In my preferred forms of gameplay players strictly advocate for their characters and do not try to seize control of anything.

For the reasons I've just given, I'm not sure I can embrace this distinction. Sometimes advocating for your character means forming an intention that something good happen to your character, even though that it is not something that your character him-/herself could intend (eg because it depends on the choices of an NPC, as in my example; as in some examples of acquiring goods; as in some examples of searching, where the PC can hope but not intend to find something whose presence in the location is not under his/her control).

Those are the intentions that, in these circumstances, drive the game. Because if the action that is declared as a result of that intention - eg the Circle check, the Scavenging check - succeeds, the content of the fiction changes in the way the player wanted (thereby delivering what the PC hoped for). If the check fails, then the intention still drives the game, because the GM, in narrating failure, is obliged to honour the player's intention even in the denial of its realisation.

This is why, in framing a check in BW, sometimes we spend some time working out exactly what it is that the player intends the check to achieve, if successful. The idea that the player would say "I look for an inn" but the GM wouldn't know why is completely foreign to this style of play.

 

[Lanefan]

...mentioned me 4 times in the same post...I guess that's a call to action...

In applying this metaphor to RPGing, who are "the other kids"?

If they're other players in a shared world, then what we have is something like the sort of interpersonal and interparty competitive play that seems to have been part of how Gygax ran the game (as best I understand it). I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has elements of this too.

Or would like to; difficult to run multiple parties (which is what I prefer) when one only has one night a week for DMing.

But if the "other kids" are purely imaginary beings whose actions and outcomes are being narrated by the GM, then we're clearly (self-evidently, I would say) talking about a GM-driven approach to establishing the content of the shared fiction.

In your world, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], are there no other adventuring parties out there? I don't mean ones that actually get played, I mean off-screen ones that might take on an adventure the played party ignores with consequences of such adventuring (if relevant) made apparent later to the PCs; and-or ones that might literally or figuratively compete with the PCs for the same resources e.g. two parties are after the same McGuffin at the same time. (in your example, what if the dark naga had several charmed operatives all out seeking blood, each unknown to the others, with all the reward going to whoever got back with some first?)

But the one that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] describes seems to be. He's not talking about running DW-style fronts.

Fronts to me are weather phenomena; in which context I know much, much more about them than in this one.

I've not used the notions of "DM-centric" or "Player-centric", and I'm not sure what you mean by that. I've talked about who is the driver of the content of the shared fiction.

OK, so I will. From all I can tell, both your system and style are very player-centric...far more so than I'd prefer even if I was a player. And you're not alone - player-centricism (now there's a new word for ya!) has been more and more of a thing in many RPGs as time has gone on.

The fact that the players get to choose whether their PC seek out the orcs or the lizardment doesn't really change that.

And here lies my disconnect. The DM can't put them there as potential adventures; the players can't put them there as potential adventures (true if the DM is <rightfully> given purview over the content of the game world), and my problem is I can't think of anyone else who can.

If you think I'm mistaken about Lanefan's game, by all means explain to me what I've misunderstood.

The only way I could do that would be to haul you to Victoria and sit you down here for a few sessions.

Lan-"if someone could tell me how to get occluded fronts into Dungeon World I might understand it better"-efan

 

[pemerton]

Billd91 is exactly right.

<snip>

Nothing I have seen indicates that the players cannot make their own choices and pursue their own goals.

There seems to be some sort of extreme disconnect here. I want to try and close the gap.

For my part, I am talking about the capacity of the players to contribute to outcomes in the shared fiction: the stuff that is taking place at the table.

This has (I think, at least in general), two components: action declaration for the player's PC; and resolution of those declared actions.

You two seem to be focusing on the action declaration: nothing stops the player declaring "I set off to the north to take over the barbarian tribes there."

I am focusing on the resolution. If the GM's response to that action declaration is "OK, your PC is now an NPC and all that northern barbarian stuff is going to take place off-screen" then the player did not get to shape the shared fiction in any meaningful way. There was no shared fiction to which the player contributed by the play of his/her PC, in which the PC endeavoured to become king of the northern barbarians. From the player's point of view, it was a game-ending move. (The fact that s/he might rejoin the game with a [-]new hand[/-] - sorry, new PC - doesn't matter for present purposes.)