Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[pemerton]

he word "story" can have (at least) two meanings. It can refer to any narrated sequence of events. Or, it can mean a story in something like the literary sense - dramatic need, rising action, complication, climax etc.

Yes, and in this sort of milieu - discussing campaigns and their stories - I only use the first definition: a narrated sequence* of events; though the narration is occurring in a different manner (ongoing and continual) than this rather generic definition probably expects.

<snip>

The second definition might apply randomly now and then within a game, but if it comes up all the time in a game that's a red flag that there's some hard railroading going on in order to make it so; whether over the short term (a single encounter) or long term (a whole campaign).

I can tell you - in fact, I can promise you - that there are RPGs going on all over the world in which story in the second sense is happening regularly, not randomly, and there is no railroading going on.

That's what the "standard narrativistic model" is for. To deliver story, in the second sense, without railroading.

And I can tell you, from experience, that it works: it delivers exactly what is written on the tin. Story now.

 

[pemerton]

Passwall doesn't care if there's a secret door there - it just makes an obvious way through by temporarily changing the architecture - where the Architecture check is based on what's been constructed into the building as noted on the DM's map (or bloody well should be - this idea of Schroedingers Secret Door just doesn't fly with me).

My point, though, is that if the use of Passwall to get through walls doesn't cause anti-climax or problematic "negation" of challenges, then finding a secret door via an Architecture check is not likely to cause those problems.

Can, in your system, an existing secret door simply be missed on a search? It's not about an absence of anything, it's about the presence of it being flat-out missed by the searcher (with or without possible consequences then or later).

I'll repost my earlier reply to you on this point:

Here's one way: the PCs learn (eg from a friend; from a blueprint) that a secret door is present in a certain place. They try to find it, and fail. Later on enemies come through the door.

 

[pemerton]

that ability to change things...having the notion or plan for the skulker to be a member of the Cult of the Dragon, but then changing that to have him instead be a Thayan wizard...that's the illusion.

Now, I said this was similar to Illusionism as the specific term you mean it to be. It's not identical to it. But I would think that any time the GM has idea A in place, and then it becomes idea B later on...that's a but of GM trickery.

Sure, I get the concern about Illusionism in that sense.

What I am saying is that the mutability of backstory and story elements is along the lines of Illusionism (not that it must be Illusionism, although it can be) in the sense that it allows the GM leeway to go in multiple directions based on what the GM decides is best for the game by working in an area unknown to the players. I know that such leeway need not be about blocking the players' actions in some way.

I'm not ascribing any negativity to this technique....I think it's fine, generally (as always, table expectations and desires play a role here). I just see a similarity in the GM having the ability to decide things on the fly. Whether that happens to be what's at the end of the left fork in a tunnel, or the affiliations and goals of an NPC....the GM is free to alter what is true until some point of commitment.

Further to this.

Here is The Forge's definition of illusionism - and in case the relevance of this definition is contested, well, that's where the term comes from:

A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features.​

Here is the definition that I wrote when composing this post, before Googling up the above:

Illusionism refers to a GMing technique (or maybe a family of techniques) whereby the GM covertly manipulates the resolution mechanics and/or the fiction to ensure that certain outcomes occur within the shared fiction, regardless of the players' action declaration.​

So I'm pretty confident that my understanding is on the same page as that of The Forge.

Now, in the example of the GM not establishing, as part of the fiction, the motivation of an NPC until some appropriate moment of framing or adjudication: how is that illusionism, or anything like it? No control is being asserted over outcomes. Nothing is being done covertly. All the GM is doing is either framing - which is overt - or narrating a consequence in accordance with the procedures of the game in question - which is overt.

What is the supposed resemblance?

 

[pemerton]

Where my assertion is that for this to have any weight at all, and for it to be consistently acted on and roleplayed by you the DM, you yourself must - must! - know the answer to "Why?" as soon as the mystery is presented.

<snip>

you need to know the answers right now, because...

...when that reason emerges it has to be consistent with what has gone before; and the only way to ensure that is to have the backstory nailed in place beforehand.

This just isn't true.

Chris Claremont, in X-Men 150, tells us that Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, whose motivation for wanting to rule the world is connected to protecting mutants from the sorts of threats that had killed his family in Europe.

This establishing of motivation didn't have to be known or planned as soon as Magneto was introduced as a character. In fact, it's inevitable in serial fiction that elements of the fiction, including character backstories and motivations, will be authored and elaborated after the initial introduction of the character. (Consider also the first time Wolverine pops his claws without wearing his costume, and another X-Man (Nightcrawler? - I don't have the issue in front of me) says "They're a part of you?!")

This actual play report from over six years ago describes, in some detail, how I ran an exploration scenario without pre-authoring:

After all the sandbox/railroading threads over the past several weeks, in my most recent session I decided to try running an exploration-heavy scenario to see how it played.

<snip>

I learned that while sandboxing might rely heavily upon exploration, exploration can be done without sandboxing. Most of the interesting details of the exploration were worked out by me on the fly, whether as needed or even in response to player actions

Here are some of the details of the mystery that were established by me as part of the process of actually play:

This scenario involves a manor that once belonged to the most powerful wizard of a fallen empire, but has been abandoned for the past 1000 years, since the fall of that empire. The idea of the scenario is that the PCs will explore the manor and discover that the wizard went mad and killed all his apprentices, before then disappearing. The PCs will also learn some cultural and religous facts about the ancient empire, their sun worship and their burial practices. They will also have to battle the undead guardian spiders that are patrolling the manor, and hiding inside an ogre's skull on a pedestal in the laboratory.

I made the following tweaks to the scenario, so that it would fit my campaign world:

*The manor dates from the Nerathian empire (100 years ago rather than 1000 years ago) and the time period of the scenario is only a few years after the fall of Nerath;

*The manor became abandoned when the pending fall of Nerath to gnoll invaders (the downstream consequences of which have been a bit part of the campaign to date) led its wizard owner to go mad with the strain and kill his apprentices;

*The guardian spiders were mostly not undead but a Bloodweb spider swarm (this tied nicely into the spider-filled tunnels under the ruins that the PCs had already dealt with - the Large spider they killed in the gameworld "present" was the sole survivor of the many swarms of Tiny spiders they would encounter in the gameworld past);

*The religion of the dead mage was a particular cult combining worship of Bahamut (god of the east wind and also of the dragonborn - it is an already established fact of the campaign that the dragonborn empire had been in this region some time prior to Nerath), Kord, Pelor and Ioun - so a type of mystical sun, weather and strength worship;

*That the burial practices of the cult had the intention of trying to avoid the dead being dealt with by the Raven Queen, instead going directly to Mount Celestia or Hestavar as exalted (the party has a cleric, a paladin and a lapsed initiate of the Raven Queen, so this was likely to be an interesting point for the players);

*That the spiders in the skull were undead spiders as the module stipulated;

*That the last work the wizard who owned the manor had been undertaking before he went mad was to try to find a way of harnessing the power of the Raven Queen without compromising the principles of his cult, in order to create more powerful defences by which Nerath might resist the invading gnolls - he snapped when his most religiously devout apprentice learned what he was doing and accused him of treachery.

The first two of these tweaks I worked out in advance. The rest I worked out during the course of play, as they became relevant to the exploration that the players/PCs were engaged in.

As I said, it's simply not true that this sort of thing can't be done without knowing in advance what is going on. As you can see from the above, the relevant theological motivations - burial practices, and then magical experiments that were the precursors to wizardly madness - were authored in the course of play.

So your claims of must and the only way are simply false. They are refuted by actual experience.

You say you're good at sniffing out whether a DM is using pre-planned notes or not

No, I said I can tell if the game speaks to the dramatic needs I have established for my character, or not. And that that cannot be done while sticking to pre-planned notes.

What I don't understand is how you can keep it all consistent.

A combination of memory, notes and a robust sense on the part of both GM and players of the shared fiction.

He knows why he's there, and why he's leaving at that particular moment...and if he knows that means you must know as, being an NPC, he's you.

That's a bad argument. He also knows (presumably) whether he is left or right handed; whether he prefers the sexual company of men, women, both, or neither; etc - but I don't know any of those things.

I don't need to know anything at all about someone's motivations to narrate them flying out of a fortress on a flying carpet.

You keep going on about something being "mere colour" as if it means something. It doesn't.

It does to me. I don't enjoy RPGing for the colour. I enjoy it for the play, which means engaging with the fiction. Which means that the fiction has to be more than mere colour.

 

[Lanefan]

My point, though, is that if the use of Passwall to get through walls doesn't cause anti-climax or problematic "negation" of challenges, then finding a secret door via an Architecture check is not likely to cause those problems.

Where mine is...well, are...that a) Passwall is a decent-level spell and thus by no means available to everyone (and even if it is, how often is it prepped?) whereas the ability to simply look for something is always-on for anyone; b) the use of Passwall leaves a rather obvious hole in the wall for a while (going by 1e, 5e probably made it shorter); and c) philosophically, having a secret door suddenly become part of the building where no secret door was before just because someone looks for it (yes, Schroedinger's Door) simply doesn't fly. The building is what it is before the PCs get to it, secret doors and all.

I can even give a real-life example of this. A few blocks down the road from where I live is a mostly-derelict building, quite close to the street, that now and then homeless people use (illegally) for shelter. I walked past it every day for 15+ years on my way to work. One day when I was walking past it a guy just ahead of me ducked around its corner, and as I got to the same corner and looked the way he went I saw what I'd always taken to be just a part of the wall sliding shut; and no sign of the guy. "Cool", I thought, "a real-life secret door!"

I didn't know it was there until seeing this. Obviously, however, it was.

Were I a character in a game world that secret door would have always been on the DM's map (though of course I-as-character wouldn't know this or even what a DM was) even though I-as-character had never bothered to search for it. Had I for some reason bothered to search before seeing it in use, however, the act of my searching would not have brought it into existence; and I could easily have failed to find it even though it was in fact right there.

Which leads directly to...

I'll repost my earlier reply to you on this point:

Here's one way: the PCs learn (eg from a friend; from a blueprint) that a secret door is present in a certain place. They try to find it, and fail. Later on enemies come through the door.

And I'll repost my question, for the third (fourth?) time, and put it in several different ways; and maybe this time you'll answer it instead of deflecting* it:
* - your deflection above gives them prior knowledge of where to look.

Can, in your system, an existing secret door simply be missed on a search? It's not about an absence of anything, it's about the presence of it being flat-out missed by the searcher (with or without possible consequences then or later).

Can, in your system, characters search for and fail to find an existing secret door they have no prior knowledge of? As a character, can I search a wall and fail (without any other ramifications at the time) to find a secret door when in fact there is one present? Or does my failure bake in to the fiction that there is no door there to be found by anyone even if that wall happens for whatever reason to be a very logical spot where a secret door would be?

Put another way, can the following scenario occur:

Day 1: for whatever reason we search for secret doors in hallway A, finding nothing (not because there's nothing to find but because we had a moment of incompetence and failed in our search; in fact there's a secret door halfway down the north side) and then carry on exploring elsewhere
Day 2: we find the Sword of Swordiness; we're now happy rich adventurers
Day 3: we happen to go through hallway A again only this time when we're halfway along it the Sword of Swordiness pulls sharply toward the north wall as it has found the secret door we missed on day 1; thus both revealing to us that it has an always-on "Detect Secret Doors" ability and making us happier richer adventurers as said secret door led to a treasure vault.

The reason I ask is this. When searching for something like a secret door that you have no prior knowledge of there's several possible outcomes:

1. The search is successful and you find a door.
2. The search is unsuccessful in and of itself but you find a door anyway e.g. when the monsters on the other side hear you and attack.
3. The search is unsuccessful because there is no door there to find.
4. The search is unsuccessful because, while there's actually a door there to be found, you simply missed it; and a subsequent search by someone else might still find it (or e.g. you might come back a few hours later and see it standing ajar).

I want to know if all these outcomes are possible in your system; particularly #4.

Lan-"every time I walk by that building now I wonder to myself whether that secret door still works or whether it's been nailed shut"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

This just isn't true.

Chris Claremont, in X-Men 150, tells us that Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, whose motivation for wanting to rule the world is connected to protecting mutants from the sorts of threats that had killed his family in Europe.

This establishing of motivation didn't have to be known or planned as soon as Magneto was introduced as a character. In fact, it's inevitable in serial fiction that elements of the fiction, including character backstories and motivations, will be authored and elaborated after the initial introduction of the character. (Consider also the first time Wolverine pops his claws without wearing his costume, and another X-Man (Nightcrawler? - I don't have the issue in front of me) says "They're a part of you?!")

I'll have to take your word for the comics references; I only know the movies.

It does to me. I don't enjoy RPGing for the colour. I enjoy it for the play, which means engaging with the fiction. Which means that the fiction has to be more than mere colour.

Well, to me the colour, the fiction, and the play are all intertwined parts (along with others) of the whole; which is the overall game which in turn is what I engage with. On another level, the colour and the fiction are pretty much the same thing: the colour is the fiction, and the fiction is all colour.

Or, put another way, you seem to be saying fiction = relevant and colour = irrelevant where to me it's all equally relevant.

I may or may not get to your play example tonight - it's getting mighty late here.

Lan-"to me the name 'Claremont' - though highly relevant - has nothing to do with comics: it's the name of my high school"-efan

 

[pemerton]

I disagree that the model was specifically a reaction against that sort of railroading play. The model, as far as I can tell, was specifically a reaction against shared-authorship in several forms.

<snip>

He states quite clearly what he thinks the problem is, and it has nothing to do with railroading

That's the problem, for narrativistic play, of a certain sort of shared narration. But it's not the reason for inventing RPGs that follow the "standard narrativistic model".

There is no need to speculate on this matter. Eero Tuovinen is not inventing the "standard narrativistic model". He is describing (in a post written in 2010) an approach to RPGing that was first expressly theorised at The Forge (see eg this essay from 2003), and he is referring to the way in which

games like Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, some varieties of Heroquest, The Shadow of Yesterday, Mountain Witch, Primetime Adventures and more games than I care to name all work​

Sorcerer is from 2002. It is designed by Ron Edwards, the author of the Forge essay I linked to. It is one of the earliest published expositions of the "standard narrativistic model". Ron Edwards does not make a secret of why he wanted to design this sort of game - he objected to the railroad-style play that was rampant in the late 80s and 90s RPG scene, with games like Vampire as the standard bearers.

DitV is from 2004. Its designer, Vincent Baker, also designed Apocalypse World. DitV is a fairly early and very highly regarded RPG design intended to generate story without railroading, in virtue of its combination of framing principles and resolution system.

HeroQuest is a successor game to HeroWars, which was designed by Robin Laws and first published in 2000. The latest edition I know of - HeroQuest revised - is from 2009. Both the HeroWars Narrator's Guide and the HQ revised book have excellent advice for running a game without secret backstory as an element in adjudication, and for how to manage "closed scene" resolution.

The earliest RPG I know of which presents a version of the "standard narrativistic model" is Maelstrom Storytelling (1997) - it is one of the "more games" that Eero Tuovinen does not care to name. You can download a version of the core mechanic for free from DriveThruRPG. Here is Ron Edwards's description of that system, in the essay I linked to above (it opens with a quote from the Maelstrom rulebook):

From Maelstrom (Hubris Games, 1997, author is Christian Aldridge):

Narrative Tools

... The whole premise of role-playing is the freedom the players have to take their characters in whatever direction they want. It is important to maintain this free will, and not lead the players with a heavy hand down a course only the narrator controls. Though the narrator may tell a good story, it loses the rich creative spirit of role-playing if the players have little say in what happens.​

Putting aside the synecdoche ("the whole premise," etc), two key features show up in this passage as well as in the whole of the Maelstrom game text. (1) No mention is made whatever of seeming to grant player control - it's real freedom he's talking about. (2) The freedom is specifically over what the character thinks is right and decides to do: the goal he or she brings into the current imaginary situation. The GM ("narrator" in this case) cannot wield any authority over what the characters are supposed to want, which therefore extends to a similar lack of authority over how any conflict during play is supposed to turn out.​

Part of the significance of this passage is that it also shows that the "standard narrativistic model" is not at all hostile to "shared authorship" as such. The player has freedom to decide what the character thinks is right and decides to do. The GM cannot wield authority over what the characters are supposed to want, which therefore means the GM has no authority over how conflicts are supposed to turn out.

Eero Tuovinen makes the same point in describing the "standard narrativistic model" (I have bolded the key phrases):

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character.​

The players, not the GM, establish concrete characters and character needs. Thus, when the GM "goes where the action is", the GM is following hooks provided by the players.

In BW character building, elements of backstory that players can establish include significant components of the setting (eg, just confining myself to the events in the OP, the existence of the sorcerous cabal and of the balrog-possessed mage were both established by a player in building his PC).

Eero Tuovinen is objecting only to one particular aspect of shared narration, namely, the one he describes when he says that narrativistic RPGing

works, but only as long as you do not require the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice. If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character, not ask the player whether he’s OK with it . . .

I don’t find it convincing how lightly many GMs seem to give away their backstory authority even when playing games that absolutely rely on the GM’s ability to drive home hard choices by using these same powers.​

It is the GM's job to frame scenes, introduce complications, and narrate consequences. Eero Tuovinen is arguing that, given this, certain techniques don't fit with the model he is describing. But avoiding those techniques isn't the rationale of the model.

I stated: "That the "holy grail of RPG design" is that the player's viewpoint is that the entire game is based around "nothing by choices made in playing his character."

How can I misquote somebody I've copied and pasted?

I don't know how, but you've done it again. Here is the quote:

The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design . . .​

The holy grail, as he puts it, is that (i) the player helps create an amazing story, and does so (ii) with nothing but choices made in playing his/her PC. The reason this is able to happen is that, prior to play, the player establishes a PC with clear dramatic needs, and that, once play begins, the GM frames scenes and establishes consequences in a manner that "goes where the action is" ie in accordance with dramatic needs.

I'm not confused about the model. It informs basically all of my RPGing.

that's exactly the same thing you just said, and what I have been describing all along, that the players create the story by playing his/her PC. Not by authoring the backstory (secret or otherwise), and not by authoring the setting.

No. You are missing or ignoring the bits where (to quote) "the players [establish] concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes" and that these player-authored dramatic needs are what the GM follows in framing scenes.

You are also not addressing the various possibilities in action declaration. For instance, declaring "I look for a vessel!" or "I search for a secret door!" is the player playing his/her PC. How do we determine, though, whether or not that attempt succeeds? If the GM simply narrates failure on the basis of secret backstory ("Sorry, there's no vessel"; "You search, but find no secret doors") then how is that an instance of (to quote) the "process [of] choices lead[ing] to consequences which lead to further choices"? Or of the GM "going where the action is"?

That is not to assert that the BW/MHRP approach is the only way to handle these sorts of action declarations. DW does it differently. So does HeroWars/Quest. But no game that is interested in providing an experience that resemble Eero Tuovinen's "holy grail" is going to advocate that the GM simply draw a map and key in advance of play, and then respond to those sorts of action declarations simply by reading off those notes. Whatever sort of play experience that is going to provide, it is not an instance of Eero Tuovinen's "holy grail"!

Making the DM responsible to "frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications." You are giving them more control over the story, or to put it a different way, taking control of the story away from the players.

Once again you seem to have missed or ignored the fact that the players are the one's who establish those dramatic needs. But - for the very reason you have been quoting and apparently agreeing with, namely, that it is not satisfying for the player to frame his/her own conflict - it is not the players' but the GM's job to put these needs under pressure by framing scenes.

To use a metaphor, one could say that the players provide the material - the thematic content, the dramatic needs - but the GM provides the form - the concrete scene that puts those needs and that theme to the test.

If the GM does not do that, then either the players have to frame their own scenes or there won't be any scenes. If the players frame their own scenes with a free hand, then you get the very problem that Eero Tuovinen is describing. And if - as in classic dungeoncrawling D&D - they frame their own scenes using whatever material the GM has provided them with (and notice how that is an exact reversal of roles from the "standard narrativistic model"), then they have every incentive to minimise the pressure in those scenes (eg by searching for and disarming traps, sneaking about, avoiding needless conflict, etc). Which, whether or not it makes for fun play, does not generate story at all.

To me, framing a scene means that there is a start and finish to the scene - the frames.

<snip>

whenever you hand over control to stop and start the scenes in order to frame them for dramatic purposes, you are also handing over control of the story to the DM

I think it is important to be clear on what Tuovinen means. He is not pioneering the terminology of "scene framing" in the RPG context. By "framing a scene" he means something in the neighbourhood of the "boxed text" in a module. Here is how Marvel Heroic RP describes the process (pp 33-35):

As the Watcher

GM: , framing every Scene is your responsibility . . . A Scene ends when the central conflict or situation is resolved; this means you need to have a sense of what the Scene is about as you frame it. . . . If you’re the Watcher, you get things started by establishing who is present in a Scene and where. This is called framing the Scene, and it’s your chief responsibility in the game . . . Once you frame a Scene as the Watcher, it’s time to present the challenge to the players. . . . As a player, you now have the core situation - or at least the implication of one - laid out in front of you for this Scene. It’s time to drop into character, think about what your hero would do in this situation, and perhaps talk it over with the other players.

GM: Tuovinen is including "presenting the challenge" in his account of "framing the scene" - and you can see how, in the MHRP text, after the description of the GM's role in framing (including presenting the challenge) we then get the player-side description of the "standard narrativistic model": the player drops into character and responds to the situation that has been presented by the GM. How the scene resolves is not up to the GM. That's a function of the players' action declarations for their PCs, and the outcomes of those action declarations in accordance with the resolution mechanics. To quote Tuovinen, The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules.​ None of these games includes a rule that just allows the GM to decide how things turn out! By skipping everything between scene 1 and scene 2, along with the specific framing of scene 2, the DM took control of the story away from the PCs. By PCs do you mean players? In any event, from your description it is very hard for me to form any clear judgements, because eg I don't know anything about how scene 2 relates to dramatic needs established by the players, nor how its framing follows from consequences generated by the resolution of actions declared in scene 1. For instance, in my 4e game the PCs were tricked by a group of undead spirits into coming close (the spirits were disguised as refugees huddled around a campfire), and then the undead - who had been conjured by a goblin shaman - attacked the PCs and defeated them. The PCs regained consciousness in a goblin prison cell. That is not "taking control of the story away from the players" - rather, it is "establishing consequences as determined by the game's rules" - in this case, the rules dealing with what happens when a character is reduced to 0 hp. Marvel Heroic RP has a rule whereby the GM can spend 2d12 from the Doom Pool to end a scene and narrate a resolution consistent with the current state of things. I did this in my first session: so the PCs who had mostly beaten up the bad guys at the Smithsonian got finish their mopping up off-screen; but in the aerial struggle between War Machine and Titanium Man, I narrated that War Machine, encased in energy rings by Titanium Man, fell to the ground somewhere in Florida, while Titanium Man was able to fly back to his secret base in Khazakstan. Again, that is "establishing consequences as determined by the game's rules". The players now do their best to take steps to ensure that the Doom Pool doesn't build up to 2d12, so that they can avoid this happening again. This relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s notion of "Walled Off Gardens". The idea of "consequences as determined by the game's rules" generally opens upon the possibility that the players (and their PCs) won't get what they want. The flip side of that is that the GM gets to narrate stuff that is adverse to those wants. Exactly how this is handled will vary from system to system, but it might include waking up in a goblin prison, or being defeated by Titanium Man who escapes back to Khazakstan. the general guideline is to frame scenes around the action. This concept is largely what 4e recommended as well. <snip> that's not the way everybody wants to play. We find the stuff between "the action" to be where the real meat of the story often exists. The character development occurs in the scenarios like the angry owlbear where they learned something about themselves which altered the direction of the rest of the campaign. I think you are misunderstanding the use of the word "action". Eero Tuovinen does not say that scenes should be framed around the action. He says the following: One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to . . . frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is)​ The GM's job is to frame scenes around dramatic needs. This is then glossed by way of a slogan: "go where the action is". When, in my BW game, I told the player that he (as his PC) could see his brother across the crowd at the Hardby docks - for the first time in around 16 years, since they fled their tower that was under attack from orcs - that was going where the action is ie framing in accordance with dramatic need. As far as the owlbear moment is concerned - if that is the sort of character development you want in your game, then I don't understand why you would wait until a random encounter brings it about. So whereas you seem to think you're drawing some sort of contrast between the "standard narrativistic model" and your owlbear experience, in fact the whole point of the model is to generate that sort of experience consistently throughout play. That's why Luke Crane, in the BW books that I've quoted upthread, talks about characters changing in unexpected ways. Because things will happen that will provoke choices, including hard choices, and the way the consequences of those choices unfold will change the players' understanding of who his/her PC is.

 

[pemerton]

you seem to be saying fiction = relevant and colour = irrelevant where to me it's all equally relevant.

I'm saying that I play RPGs for the play. Which is predominantly action declaration and resolution. Which is about engaging the fiction - as framing, as fictional positioning, as consequence.

Mere colour is part of this - there's nothing wrong with mentioning the sunny sky or the stony walls from time-to-time - but it's nowhere near the heart of the game for me. Because it doesn't bear upon the play that I have described. If it did, then it wouldn't be mere colour.

 

[pemerton]

Can, in your system, characters search for and fail to find an existing secret door they have no prior knowledge of? As a character, can I search a wall and fail (without any other ramifications at the time) to find a secret door when in fact there is one present?

Yes. I'll repost that too:

suppose that a player declares a Perception check to look for a secret door at a dead end. And s/he declares that s/he (in character) is searching carefully (so as to get a bonus die). And the check fails, meaning that the GM is licensed to introduce a significant time-based complication: so the GM might narrate, "As you are carefully tapping the wall, listening for hollow places, you hear boots coming along the corridor - it sounds like the iron-shod boots of goblins! And then the wall in front of you opens - there is a secret door, with goblins on the other side of it. It looks like you're just in time for a rendezvous of forces!"

There is a door; the search failed to reveal it; subsequently goblins come through it. In the example I posted the timeframe was minutes. But the same thing could take place in a time frame of hours or days or weeks if that was what made sense in the fiction (eg the search is for a secret door in the Valley of the Kings).

When searching for something like a secret door that you have no prior knowledge of there's several possible outcomes:
1. The search is successful and you find a door.
2. The search is unsuccessful in and of itself but you find a door anyway e.g. when the monsters on the other side hear you and attack.
3. The search is unsuccessful because there is no door there to find.
4. The search is unsuccessful because, while there's actually a door there to be found, you simply missed it; and a subsequent search by someone else might still find it (or e.g. you might come back a few hours later and see it standing ajar).

I want to know if all these outcomes are possible in your system; particularly #4.

These are all descriptions of events in the fiction. But you seem to be also equating them with certain resolution procedures, eg that the occurrence of (4) in the fiction depends upon the GM having a note (mental, actual) that there is a secret door there, and that note is made prior to the action declaration to look for the door.

That dependence may be important to you, but it is not a general feature of RPGing.

Also, 4 is no different from 2: the structure is the same, except that in 2 you seem to envisage the passage of moments, but in 4 the passage of hours.

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro: I'll ask again, how do you think the number of words required by a prayer is estahblished?

The player creates the prayer... and that determines it's number of words.

And I find it very bizarre that you seem to be contesting the designers' own published elaboration of their rules: 'The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table". What do you think that is about?

Again nowhere does it say the player must speak this prayer outloud as his character. I could just as easily, if the table agrees, state "My character Bethren says the prayer of the Weeping Moon beseeching divine alertness during the hours of the night" (Italicized portion is the prayer which is roughly 16 syllables)... The point is it's left (intentionally I believe) ambiguous about whether the player actually has to speak the prayer out loud or if he just needs to create it (saying it within the fiction) and state his action.

Faith is not the only BW mechanic that requires the player to speak appropriate words. There is the Elven Spell-song Rhyme of Rules, and the Human Courtier lifepath trait Rapier Wit.

Hey I'm still open to b eing convinced... show me a passage form the book where the player is called on to speak (as opposed to the character) and I'm ready to concede. So far you haven't done that so I stay convinced it's the character that must speak the prayer (in the game fiction) vs. the player.