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

[RenleyRenfield]

I think this is a really interesting discussion! I am thinking about just this issue in my own game design at the moment. I describe my game as "play to find out" so I had to think about it a lot.

In general, how I run a game depends on what I'm running, in terms of both the system and scenario. I ran Curse of Strahd when it first came out. I introduced the group to Strahd right away. He said "I am having dinner this Saturday at my castle, please be there." And the players asked what day it was: it was Monday. That gave them a definite time before they were going to "my dinner with Strahd." (And then someone pointed out that in the Realms, weeks had 10 days, which allowed me to point out a difference in Barovia that I totally had planned out already )

I am currently running Abomination Vaults. At the start of the game, the bad guys turn on their super weapon. The group was able to determine it would take about a month for it to recharge, so they had about 30 days to get to a specific point in the scenario.

In both of those cases, there was something happening at that point in the future, but I said "what are you going to do?" in the meantime.

For my own game, the players engage with a particular plot, and I put a clock into play for when the bad guys are going to finish what they are doing. There are also clocks for larger issues going on. When they find out about it, I put the clock actively into play where they can see it. It gives them a feeling of "we can do stuff, but time is passing in the world" and I find that generates the pressure I need to make things fun, while still letting them explore things as they will.

That's how I do it now, but if I was running a more scripted module (which I don't think is a bad thing) I would get their buy-in before starting play that we were going to have a more constrained time period.

Sooo... FYI... absolutely none of this is "Play to find out."

• GM knowing info ahead of time about anything = removes 'play to find out' status
• GM making plots the players don't know about = removes 'play to find out' status
• GM progressing plots/clocks without players knowing what or why = absolutely not 'play to find out' what the clocks are.

Not trying to be harsh, just saying, this isn't it.

 

[Committed Hero]

Sooo... FYI... absolutely none of this is "Play to find out."

• GM knowing info ahead of time about anything = removes 'play to find out' status
• GM making plots the players don't know about = removes 'play to find out' status
• GM progressing plots/clocks without players knowing what or why = absolutely not 'play to find out' what the clocks are.

Not trying to be harsh, just saying, this isn't it.

Dynamic antagonists and things happening offstage don't violate "play to find out" (unless they are invulnerable to PC input, I suppose). Players should be given no guarantees they will find out every secret of the setting, if they have the freedom to ignore what they want.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Dynamic antagonists and things happening offstage don't violate "play to find out" (unless they are invulnerable to PC input, I suppose). Players should be given no guarantees they will find out every secret of the setting, if they have the freedom to ignore what they want.

Ehhh... None of this is Play to Find Out either... or at least, its not correctly addressing what my post said.

"Players should be given no guarantees they will find out every secret of the setting" = this has nothing at all to do with play to find out. And in and of its self, is not 'play to find out'.

I am not fully sure what you mean by "unless they are invulnerable to PC input" = I suppose this could a odd phrasing of "as long as the PCs can ad/edit/alter things." Which ok, yeah allowing PCs/Rolls/GM to append to or alter details is kinda closer... but in a real vague way.

Play to Find Out = has nothing at all to do with "secrets of the setting". And if there are secrets, then those secrets are preventing "play to find out" for sure! (again, unless that is an oddly vague way of saying 'things nobody not even the GM is aware of"... but I would never phrase that as secrets of the setting. Secrets imply factual and imposed truths that are just not known yet. And that is not play to find out.)

Folks, play to find out isnt about secrets...

 

[pemerton]

In both cases, this was "an adventuring day." So the group got up in the morning, did as much as they could do, and then did a long rest. And the timing advanced.

Key to me, here, is "did as much as they could do". In a lot of RPGs - I mentioned a few in my post - this is all about GM decision-making, and so is not really gameable by the players. Which tends to reduce "play to find out".

For example, in one of my first D&D sessions, the players had their PCs use timber to build defences for a homestead that they knew was soon to be assaulted by Goblins. (The scenario was an adaptation of Night's Dark Terror.) I can't remember, now may years later, exactly how I resolved that. I do know that the passage of time was merely flavour/colour, because there is no rule in 4e D&D for how much timber can be cut, and how much palisade constructed to what degree of effectiveness, in a given amount of time.

 

[zakael19]

Sooo... FYI... absolutely none of this is "Play to find out."

• GM knowing info ahead of time about anything = removes 'play to find out' status
• GM making plots the players don't know about = removes 'play to find out' status
• GM progressing plots/clocks without players knowing what or why = absolutely not 'play to find out' what the clocks are.

Not trying to be harsh, just saying, this isn't it.

Not true at all. You can't play to find out something if the GM doesn't have some idea of what's at stake!

If you say "An army is invading the kingdom, we play to find out if the players have what it takes to rally defenders before its too late" having a countdown of Portents / Doom doesn't remove playing to find out. It clarifies the stakes and ensures the GM has meaningful consequences to levy; while also ensure the players can see meaningful outputs from their actions.

I can progress the "clock" without the players knowing exactly what it is or that there is one per se, you just telegraph it through teh fiction. "Heroes! We've received word by pigeon that Illin's Dale has fallen, the Shining Legion has crashed over our defenses there! We have but days before they arrive here, and there's no hope without..."

• we know what's at stake (the Shining Legion will conquer this town/kingdom/whatever)
• we know that they've progressed their plan
• we know we have X time to do something about that

Now we can play to find out if we do (and we assume there's reasons for the players to been involved in this situations etc). What we don't do is say "ok, so the players Must Do XYZ if they're to stop this, and they need to follow the exact line of events or else the plot breaks, and..."

If teh GM held off on any progress until The Plot Said So (Skyrim problem); or forced the players to be places; or never showed consequences, you'd not be playing to find out the stakes, you'd just be following a plot.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Not true at all. You can't play to find out something if the GM doesn't have some idea of what's at stake!

No. This is not correct at all. Play to find out is at its very core about "limiting GM fiat and preparation".

Its about NOT doing exactly what you describe.

If you say "An army is invading the kingdom, we play to find out if the players have what it takes to rally defenders before its too late" having a countdown of Portents / Doom doesn't remove playing to find out. It clarifies the stakes and ensures the GM has meaningful consequences to levy; while also ensure the players can see meaningful outputs from their actions.

I can progress the "clock" without the players knowing exactly what it is or that there is one per se, you just telegraph it through teh fiction. "Heroes! We've received word by pigeon that Illin's Dale has fallen, the Shining Legion has crashed over our defenses there! We have but days before they arrive here, and there's no hope without..."

• we know what's at stake (the Shining Legion will conquer this town/kingdom/whatever)
• we know that they've progressed their plan
• we know we have X time to do something about tha

Not even close. This is in no way whatsoever "play to find out' . In fact, its a clear opposition to "play to find out"

Now we can play to find out if we do

Nope.

Play to find out is not "play to see if we can achieve the thing". You are mixing up word termage for design language.

...

Play to find out is design language. in the say way "playloop" is design language.

Play to find out = is about creating a game system that "reduces or eliminates the GM's dictation of events, GM fiat over rulings, and GM preparation of plots/events. To a degree this may extend to players too, in so much as preparation or predefinition."

 

[billd91]

This all kind of underscores the fundamental uselessness of the whole "play to find out" statement as a practical matter. As if any RPG can't lay claim to that statement. Whether it's no prep or extensive prep, RPGs have pretty much always been about playing to find out what happens, what the PCs do, how situations are resolved, how puzzles are solved.

As a defining element of certain games it's just polemical jargon. The fact that it is a statement used to set some RPGs apart from others underscores the fundamental and value-laden implication it's trying to sell - that the other games are just railroads where the choices of players at the table don't matter or have no impact on the result of play.

 

[zakael19]

No. This is not correct at all. Play to find out is at its very core about "limiting GM fiat and preparation".

Its about NOT doing exactly what you describe.


Not even close. This is in no way whatsoever "play to find out' . In fact, its a clear opposition to "play to find out"



Nope.

Play to find out is not "play to see if we can achieve the thing". You are mixing up word termage for design language.

...

Play to find out is design language. in the say way "playloop" is design language.

Play to find out = is about creating a game system that "reduces or eliminates the GM's dictation of events, GM fiat over rulings, and GM preparation of plots/events. To a degree this may extend to players too, in so much as preparation or predefinition."

You play to find out the answer to things.

No idea where you're coming from here. Pretty much every game that builds "play to find out" as the core of its ethos has the GM front pressures (AW Threats, DW Fronts, BITD factions and clocks, Daggerheart Campaign Countdowns).

We play to find out what the players do, or dont do, faced with those situations. How the pressures escalate and how they handle that. How their own goals and priorities run into the premise and core of play pressing back.

If you're playing AW, and you have a Threat, you've most likely built some sort of Countdown Clock. We play to find out, in the specific sub-case of this Threat, what will happen with how it imposes itself on the player's periphery.

To quote from AW1e:

For the most part, list things that are beyond the players’ characters’ control: NPCs’ decisions and actions, conditions in a population or a landscape, off-screen relations between rival compounds, the instability of a window into the world’s psychic maelstrom. When you list something within the players’ characters’ control, always list it with an “if,” implied or explicit: “if Bish goes out into the ruins,” not “Bish goes out into the ruins.” Prep circumstances, pressures, developing NPC actions, not (and again, I’m not fing around here) NOT future scenes you intend to lead the PCs to.

THAT'S what I'm talking about. The GM creates stuff, often with an end point (which may or may not be directly aimed at the players), and with those "if's" in place where relevant. We don't proscribe player inputs, but we do prep what happens in the world. When the Faction Clock completes, the Red Sashes go to war with the player's allies. When the Threat Countdown progresses Badness shows up.

Then we see what happens.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

This all kind of underscores the fundamental uselessness of the whole "play to find out" statement as a practical matter. As if any RPG can't lay claim to that statement. Whether it's no prep or extensive prep, RPGs have pretty much always been about playing to find out what happens, what the PCs do, how situations are resolved, how puzzles are solved.

Except again, you are not actually saying anything correct. The above statement fundamentally does not understand what Play to Find out is.

"Play to find out" has nothing at all to do with = "RPGs have pretty much always been about playing to find out what happens, what the PCs do, how situations are resolved, how puzzles are solved."

As a defining element of certain games it's just polemical jargon.

This is very very wrong. Play to find out is not a critique or condemnation or even commentary. Hopefully nobody is using that way, i certainly never would agree with doing that.

The fact that it is a statement used to set some RPGs apart from others underscores the fundamental and value-laden implication it's trying to sell - that the other games are just railroads where the choices of players at the table don't matter or have no impact on the result of play.

No. Wrong again.

Design language is not for the players other than to maybe aid in helping them find out why game A played one way, but a similar themed game B played differently.

it's ok to make a game using "pass fail" rules
It's ok to make a game with "zero GM fiat"
it's ok to make a game with "100% GM fiat"
and so on and on and on. It's all good.

Design language helps the designer achieve the ways rules and presentation and wording support a specific style of play.

Play to find out is just one of may designs of a game, and speaks nothing at all about being 'better' or 'fixing problems' or whatever.

In the same way that we talk about GM no-roll systems... each type of design choice will influence play.

note: There is no addendum for player-house rules/alterations. That's just a given in all things.

 

[zakael19]

This all kind of underscores the fundamental uselessness of the whole "play to find out" statement as a practical matter. As if any RPG can't lay claim to that statement. Whether it's no prep or extensive prep, RPGs have pretty much always been about playing to find out what happens, what the PCs do, how situations are resolved, how puzzles are solved.

As a defining element of certain games it's just polemical jargon. The fact that it is a statement used to set some RPGs apart from others underscores the fundamental and value-laden implication it's trying to sell - that the other games are just railroads where the choices of players at the table don't matter or have no impact on the result of play.

The core of the ideas is that you don't have like, a chain of plot and events set out. You don't have "the PCs must do A, and then at some point do B, and then let's see, also C & E or else Z will happen and everybody dies!" It's about posing questions through play and seeing how or if the PCs will answer that.
"Wow, I'm really excited to see how the players deal with the portents and doom of this Threat that's going to intersect a bunch of their priorities! Guess we'll see what the dice and Moves brings!" and then you front a scene, and ask "what do you do?" over and over.

When you find something you genuinely care about — a question about what will happen that you genuinely want to find out — letting the game’s fiction decide it is uniquely satisfying.

When I play Blades in the Dark, I'm genuinely curious to find out if "the fledgling crew can thrive amidst the teeming threats of rival gangs, powerful noble families, vengeful ghosts, the Bluecoats of the City Watch, and the siren song of the scoundrel’s own vices." And so in play, I bring all of that into the city, refined down via Clocks and Complications, and stuff we develop together at the table into play to ensure those "threats of rival gangs" and "vengeful ghosts" and "vices" show up and we answer the question one way or another!