Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Crimson Longinus]

Here’s where I’m at.

One: Creating fiction in response to each other is trivial. The player does something and the GM makes up whatever. Rinse and repeat.

Two: Constraints are what makes role-playing fun. So if you prep an adventure with fictional stuff, you have your constraints. This is broadly the trad model.

Three: Constraints, trajectory and purpose work together to allow us to play the fiction and find out what happens. The constraints are the thing that give rise to the imagined causality of role-play, as if the fiction has a life of it’s own. The trajectory is the mutual thing, we as a group want to find out. A question(s) we want the answer to.

Four: if there is no or very minimal myth, then the constraints AND trajectory must come from elsewhere. Usually formal structure and mechanics.

Yes! This is exactly where I was getting at! Like if we don't want the game just be the GM leading the players along a story, then there must be some constraints. In trad approach they come largely from the prep. If the prep say says that there is trap in the treasure chest and there is a key in the flower pot then that's where they are. But if that is not predetermined, then it is better if there is something more concrete than the GM just makes it up on the spot. Like that of course can work and some of it always is present, but all of the game is just that and it applies to important decision points as well, then it can get pretty GM-storytimey. And personally as GM prefer to have more constraints and structure. So then we need some sort of mechanics, that tell the GM when to say that good or bad stuff happens, even if they invented the specific nature of it on the spot.

However, one of my issues with many implementations of such is that the acausality of consequences leads to weird incentives where the player and character decision spaces diverge. Like for example if the presence of a trap on a thing can be generated as consequence for poor investigation roll or some such, then a poor investigator should never examine things first, as their inaptitude has a high chance quantum collapsing the situation into unfavourable one, even though from the perspective of the characters this makes no sense.

And this is probably me overthinking things, and if this sort of thing happens just occasionally it might not be that noticeable in actual play, but I am the sort of person who is rather perceptive about such structures so it bugs me somewhat.

 

[Joerg Baumgartner]

As a GM, I am telling the start of a story at the very least, the "what went on before". Even when the game sets off in medias res (i.e. a combat encounter), there is a previous story for the players to find out (unless being ambushed or similar is just a Tuesday encounter for your murder hobos).

 

[zakael19]

So the question ‘what integral design elements support that?’ is very broad. I’m not a fan of either Blades or low myth PbtA. Blades tends to work when the GM is being very attentive to the consequences and currency. I’ve seen this work but because it’s popular it’s held up as an exemplar when in fact it requires a specific skill set.

I'm not sure what you mean here re: "attentive to consequences and currency."

Like if we don't want the game just be the GM leading the players along a story, then there must be some constraints. In trad approach they come largely from the prep. If the prep say says that there is trap in the treasure chest and there is a key in the flower pot then that's where they are. But if that is not predetermined, then it is better if there is something more concrete than the GM just makes it up on the spot. Like that of course can work and some of it always is present, but all of the game is just that and it applies to important decision points as well, then it can get pretty GM-storytimey. And personally as GM prefer to have more constraints and structure. So then we need some sort of mechanics, that tell the GM when to say that good or bad stuff happens, even if they invented the specific nature of it on the spot.

The way I've worked around this is to have strong player-goals that we're driving play towards. Then when I frame a situation out, the players can make action statements that push the scene towards what they're looking for, and when I need to set stakes I do so before a roll and we reframe after.

I ran low prep/myth (but not no-myth, I need some scaffolding to hang my GM hat on and get excited about or I fizzle out) Tales of the Valiant like that - using a Skill Challenge structure to frame out the conflicts en-route to goals. Worked great: obtained players goals; framed scenes; roll dice; resolved.

Risks were framed before any rolls were made as well. No "causality" issues, because we simply weren't doing stuff like "I roll perception to see if there's a trap" but instead me going like, "yeah, you see a chest right where you were told it would be - surely the Gem of Zulimar you're seeking is in there! But there's a fiendish set of runes all about, clearly some sort of trap. What do you do?"

 

[thefutilist]

I'm not sure what you mean here re: "attentive to consequences and currency."

The GM needs to frame the player into decisions that are consequential for the mechanics. I’m bad at explaining how to do this because it’s not of particular interest to me. I’m only dimly aware of why Blades is fun and that’s only because I’ve played Dungeon World with a Blades GM and had that kind of ‘aha’ moment as to what the system is doing. You’re using all these currencies but for the currencies to matter there has to be something solid (akin to myth) for them to grind up against. Take this with a pinch of salt though and feel free to disregard anything I say about Blades, it’s not my wheelhouse and when I actually ran it I didn't understand it at all.

 

[zakael19]

Take this with a pinch of salt though and feel free to disregard anything I say about Blades, it’s not my wheelhouse and when I actually ran it I didn't understand it at all.

How I feel looking at anything Luke Crane had a hand in.