My DM'ing has gotten worse over the years, not better

[pemerton]

He said 'content available in any direction', which hardly tallies with the GM framing all the scenes in advance.

True. I missed that (although I notice that I did quote it! oops).

A GM who creates hooks, bad guys, and obstacles between PCs and bad guys is not "in charge of the story" - story is a bad word here. He's in charge of the environment. The players create a story in play through their engagement with that environment.

The key words/phrases I was picking up on were "hook" and "bad guys". If the GM chooses the hook and the adversaries, then the GM has gone a long way to determining what the story will be.

The contrast between this approach to running a game (which is the standard approach of eg every WotC module I've looked at) and the one that KM describes, wherein the GM introduces adversity in response to the hooks provided by the players, is not a trivial one in my experience. Doing it KM's way opens up the door to player-driven but non-exploratory play (ie narrativism of some form or other). But GM-provided hooks plus bad guys tend to lead either to player-driven exploratory play (the players have their PCs wander the world until they find some hooks and/or adversaries that they want to engage) or a GM-driven storyline (adventure-path style play) which can easily (although by no means inevitably) collapse into railroading.

called[/I] RPGing isn't actually RPGing. And a lot of advice in books that are generally regarded as mainstream RPG manuals in fact becomes advice on how not to run an RPG.

Can you give an example of this?

I can't give you a text that says "action resolution is the GM deciding what would make for a good story".

But the 3.5 DMG does say, at page 18:

Terrible things can happen in the game because the dice just go awry. Everything might be going fine, when suddenly the players have a run of bad luck. A round later, half the party's down for the count and the other half almost certainly cant take on the foes that remain. If everyone dies, the campaign might very well end then and there, and that's bad for everyone. . . it's certainly within your rights [as DM] to sway things one way or another to keep people happy or keep things running smoothly. . . A good rule of thumb is that a character shouldn't die in a trivial way because of some fluke of the dice unless he or she was doing something really stupid at the time.​

I think there is something similar in the 4e DMG, but I can't find it at present. But in relation to 4e player books, there is a very telling (in my view) shift between the PHB and the later Rules Compendium. At page 8, the PHB says of the GM that "When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and adjudicate the story" - fairly uncontentious stuff in a game with a GM. But at page 9, the RC (in a section that is largely cut-and-pasted from the PHB) alters this to read "The DM decides how to apply the game rules and guides the story. If the rules don't cover a situation, the DM determines what to do. At times, the DM migh alter or even ignore the result of a die roll if doing so benefits the story."

In my view, this is one of several signs in Essentials that WotC is pushing back towards more traditional approaches to play. I'm pretty confident there was text in the 2nd ed rulebooks about not permitting the dice to derail the story, and White Wolf had their "golden rule" about the GM suspending the rules in the interests of story.

All this stuff, about the GM suspending the action resolution mechanics in the interests of the story, is pretty common (if in my view tending to produce bad play experiences). The effect of this advice is for the GM to shape the story, rather than the players' choices as resolved via the action resolution mechanics of the game. The player becomes a contributor of narration and colour. Hence my reply to Pawsplay - because the implication of his comment is that this advice to GM's about fudging in the interests of story is that it is advice to turn the game from an RPG into something else. Which I think can't be right, given that eg the 2nd ed rulebooks are paradigms of roleplaying game texts.

I think you can have Gamist games where the only choices the players make are what tactics to use to best defeat the opposition and avoid dying. Linear adventures, and I think most CRPGs, are rather like that. I think the tabletop version of those still counts as RPGs - "Kobold Hall" in the 4e DMG may not be much fun, but playing it is still playing an RPG IMO.

Just be way of elaboration: the difference between this sort of play and illusionist play (or some forms of railroading, for that matter) is that if the party TPKS - or wins easily through cleverness or luck - then those results stand and the GM has to accomodate them.

I'm guessing that a lot of adventure paths are run this way.

Although with some indie 'Nar' games like Dogs in the Vineyard where the only challenge is to create a good story/address a Premise in an interesting way, I'm not sure I'd call them 'Games' - painting a good painting is a challenge, but it's not a Game - but maybe round-robin painting is a 'Game' - so I'm not sure what I think about this

I don't think that what you say about those games is quite right. The goal of play is to produce a good story, but the way this is achieved is for the player to play his/her PC within the scene/context that the GM has provided. The player doesn't have to actively address the metagoal of getting a good story - the idea is that the game design itself will ensure this.

A blog that LostSoul likes to link to elaborates on this point:

conch-passing lacks many features that are mandatory for different types of roleplaying games, so if your game reduces into conch-passing, you might find that the system no longer adequately supports roleplaying of the sort you wanted. . .

many people find conch-passing games to pale next to a proper roleplaying game; the advocacy/referee/antagonism division of responsibilities is simply a more dynamic, interactive, emergent and fun way of crafting stories than undiluted and complete dramatic control for many of us. Authorship is work, advocacy is game. . .

Here’s how 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:

1. 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 (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications.

2. The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. They play their characters according to the advocacy role: the important part is that they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants.

3. The actual procedure of play is very simple: 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. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.

4. The player’s task in these games is simple advocacy, which is not difficult once you have a firm character. (Chargen is a key consideration in these games, compare them to see how different approaches work.) The GM might have more difficulty, as he needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).

These games are tremendously fun, and they form a very discrete family of games wherein many techniques are interchangeable between the games. The most important common trait these games share is the GM authority over backstory and dramatic coordination . . . which powers the GM uses to put the player characters into pertinent choice situations. Can you see how this underlying fundamental structure is undermined by undiscretionary use of narrative sharing? 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 . . . And it works, but only as long as you do not require the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice.​

Now it's true that the author of this blog also says "D&D for instance has nothing to do with the standard narrativist model, but it still sucks for slightly different reasons if you make playing the setting a matter of group consensus". But my own experience is that it's actually not that hard to play a game exemplifying features 1 to 4 above using a mainstream game like D&D, if you have the benefit of the GM guidance of these other games (some of which is handily reproduced by Robin Laws in DMG 2!) and if you work out how to handle the scene transition issues I was talking about upthread (4e facilitates this greatly, even though it is not perfect in this regard).

 

[S'mon]

I can't give you a text that says "action resolution is the GM deciding what would make for a good story".

But the 3.5 DMG does say, at page 18:

Terrible things can happen in the game because the dice just go awry. Everything might be going fine, when suddenly the players have a run of bad luck. A round later, half the party's down for the count and the other half almost certainly cant take on the foes that remain. If everyone dies, the campaign might very well end then and there, and that's bad for everyone. . . it's certainly within your rights [as DM] to sway things one way or another to keep people happy or keep things running smoothly. . . A good rule of thumb is that a character shouldn't die in a trivial way because of some fluke of the dice unless he or she was doing something really stupid at the time.​

While I dislike that DMing approach (fudging to ensure PC survival), and it's a big flaw of the 3.5 rules that using the RAW random PC/party death is practically inevitable IME, it's hardly saying "Role Playing Games are about the Players adding Colour to the DM's Story".

Edit: I guess if you are (a) running a Linear Adventure Path and (b) fudging to ensure PC survival/success, then yes you are right, the 'game' will indeed tend towards "the Players adding Colour to the DM's Story".

On reflection, and looking at your quotes, I think it's possible that pawsplay and me have not fully grasped how widespread/normal is this 'play' style. I know my eyes always just elide over those advise-to-fudge sections without really taking them in.

 

[S'mon]

I'm feeling a bit queasy now, because I'm currently playing in what seems to be a fairly linear adventure trilogy, the Punjar Saga from Goodman Games - although there is a slight exploration element. And although our DM doesn't fudge dice rolls, he certainly seems to fudge monster abilities & attacks to avoid killing us - I think he powers-up stuff, combines encounters etc, then has to backtrack sometimes to avoid TPK. And I've been enjoying it, but I guess what I've been enjoying doing could well be described as "adding colour to the DM's Story". :\

I do get to occasionally use my Streetwise skill to get brief player-initiated RPing scenes that are not part of 'The Story'. but those could still be described as 'colour' I guess. And the other PCs don't even get that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Great post, pemerton! It's a lot, but it's worth reading.

The challenge is - How does one transition between scenes? Or, to put it another way, When the climax of one scene has resolved, how does the GM set up the next scene?

Not sure if I accurately understand what you're driving at, but...

Generally, I'll combine the denouement of one storyline with the introduction of another, and I'll do what I can to weave my players' stories together, reinforcing the problem. For instance, the giants that slew Burin's clan might also possess the cleric's lost missionary mentor, and once they're dealt with in some way, the giants will tie into the next bit with the Grand Illusionist and also the thief's pursuit of a particular idol bilked from her in a gambling game gone awry (which happens to be in the possession of the rival Illusionist), perhaps by being illicit trading partners.

I use rests and levels to mark transitions. After each major conflict, the party gains a level. After each session's bit of that conflict, the party can take an extended rest. I usually link "shopping trips" and the like to the very beginning of an arc, or to the end of it, when they're gaining levels. During the arc, there is little true safety to be reached.

First, there are mechanical carryovers from scene to scene which the players have the mechanical resources to deal with outside the framework of the scenes themselves - eg healing, equipment collection/repair/purchase, resting to regain spells, etc.

Yeah, I use these as natural "break points," by and large. By the beginning of the next "arc," the players should be basically "at full" (unless it's relevant that they're down for some reason -- like, the arcs both take place in the arctic wasteland, and the slow resource drain is something they're going through).

Second, there are overland travel rules which tend to emphasise travel speeds, maps, "getting lost" checks, etc, all of which encourage the players to engage in the minutiae of travel as part of play, although not itself a source of drama, rather than treating non-dramatic travel as something to be handled via scene-transition.

Well, for me, the only point in bothering to roll dice is if there's a conflict to resolve. So if there's no conflict in getting from Point A to Point B, it basically just happens. It's a well-worn road, you buy some travel supplies, and take off down it, next scene you're in the town (perhaps with some foreshadowing)

If there's a conflict -- if the trail isn't blazed, or the monsters around are dangerous -- it becomes a part of the rising action, or a part of the climax.

As an example, my 4e group right now is in the arctic tundra going to find the Crystal Dragon who predicts the destiny of mortals. They're second level. I've determined that the big conflict of Level 2 will have to deal with the crystal dragon and her madness somehow (it plays into the "Return of Io" arc I have in mind for all 30 levels), but there's lots of other stories swirling around, too. The arctic tundra, being a harsh environment, presents a challenge itself, so they need to roll dice to overcome it, and might fail to do it, so they need to supply for the journey, make skill checks, loose healing surges as they succeed or fail (rule: they can't regain healing surges until they rest "somewhere warm and protected"), and get involved with a few possibly hostile locals. These scenes are mostly rising action: you're in the harsh arctic, there's blizzards and fey and undead and dire elk, deal with it. Then, when you hit the big aurora-illuminated castle at the top of the world where destinies are told, you'll have earned it!

But when they were farther south and moving between towns, I didn't bother to do anything but tell them how many days they had to supply for, since I didn't feel the need to drive home the environmental aspects of the land.

Third, classic D&D play handles finding threat (eg traps, ambushes etc) and gaining rewards (eg treasure in a dungeon) in a fashion that encourages players to treat it as a part of play more-or-less independent of engaging a climactic scene.

I'll link reward to threat more explicitly, mostly in the case of levels -- my group levels once they've resolved some major conflict. Treasure I sprinkle throughout the dungeons and minor conflicts that make up a level. The climax isn't the only threat they face, it's just the BIGGEST threat of the level.

In practice, the technique I use is ....

That matches up pretty solidly with what I do, too. Especially the "If I didn't expect there to be anything, but they WANT there to be something, maybe I'll put something there!" element.

Which is to say, the issue here isn't about railroading, but about preferences for play - do the players prefer exploration (if so, have the GM build a world and let the players wander their PCs around it, finding their own scenes) or do the players prefer thematic engagement (if so, have the GM frame scenes that are worth anyone's time).

I, at least, prefer thematic engagement. But I do want them to choose their own thematic engagements. I think this stems from me assuming that nobody automatically cares about my world, but they certainly care about their characters. So to bridge that gap, I have the world and their characters interact, rather than having their characters coast on top of a world that doesn't really care about their unique characters any more than it cares about Goblin #36.

 

[pemerton]

I guess if you are (a) running a Linear Adventure Path and (b) fudging to ensure PC survival/success, then yes you are right, the 'game' will indeed tend towards "the Players adding Colour to the DM's Story".

I think your use of "tend" here is correct. It's a tendency. I'm deliberately pushing things a bit harder in my posts - messageboards tend to encourage strong rhetoric - but I think the tendency is all that I really want to point to.

On reflection, and looking at your quotes, I think it's possible that pawsplay and me have not fully grasped how widespread/normal is this 'play' style. I know my eyes always just elide over those advise-to-fudge sections without really taking them in.

I don't have any empirical data either. But I don't know how else to understand the popularity of adventure paths, railroady WotC modules, etc.

I'm feeling a bit queasy now, because I'm currently playing in what seems to be a fairly linear adventure trilogy, the Punjar Saga from Goodman Games - although there is a slight exploration element. And although our DM doesn't fudge dice rolls, he certainly seems to fudge monster abilities & attacks to avoid killing us - I think he powers-up stuff, combines encounters etc, then has to backtrack sometimes to avoid TPK. And I've been enjoying it, but I guess what I've been enjoying doing could well be described as "adding colour to the DM's Story". :

I do get to occasionally use my Streetwise skill to get brief player-initiated RPing scenes that are not part of 'The Story'. but those could still be described as 'colour' I guess. And the other PCs don't even get that.

What I think this might show is that (i) adding colour isn't nothing, as far as an actual play experience goes, and (ii) it can be a lot of fun to hang out with friends and roll some dice. Especially in the context of a nicely-written story.

When I played in this sort of "adding colour to the GM's story" game (back in the 2nd ed era) I got my fun in two other ways also. First, there can be a gamist element to play, because even if the GM is fudging a bit you can still, as a player, work hard to maximise your own performance and the party's performance so as to save the GM having to fudge (in my own case, I was helping others build broken PCs using Skills and Powers, and also trying to do clever spellcasting with my cleric who had access to wizard Evocation spells as a bonus sphere). Second, there can be a lot of fun roleplaying with the other players, and in effect setting up a "shadow story" (which in my case became the real story, as far as I was concerned) which the players are primarily in charge of.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're doing one or both of these other things too.

What eventually made me leave my game that was like this was when the GM teleported us all 100 years into the future, which (for various reasons to do with how the PCs related to the ingame situation) effectively killed off the player-driven "shadow story". I don't know if the GM had this as a deliberate goal - I think he may have done - but in any event, for me it wrecked the game.

 

[S'mon]

What I think this might show is that (i) adding colour isn't nothing, as far as an actual play experience goes, and (ii) it can be a lot of fun to hang out with friends and roll some dice. Especially in the context of a nicely-written story.

When I played in this sort of "adding colour to the GM's story" game (back in the 2nd ed era) I got my fun in two other ways also. First, there can be a gamist element to play, because even if the GM is fudging a bit you can still, as a player, work hard to maximise your own performance and the party's performance so as to save the GM having to fudge (in my own case, I was helping others build broken PCs using Skills and Powers, and also trying to do clever spellcasting with my cleric who had access to wizard Evocation spells as a bonus sphere). Second, there can be a lot of fun roleplaying with the other players, and in effect setting up a "shadow story" (which in my case became the real story, as far as I was concerned) which the players are primarily in charge of.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're doing one or both of these other things too.

I do the character-build optimising & tactical-optimising thing, yup - one of the big rewards is that the more damage my Thief, Larsenio, can inflict, the quicker the fights go, which in 4e D&D is a major concern!

While I talk IC with the other PCs, I'm not aware of them having much background/depth, so there's not an opportunity for the 'shadow story' you mention. And I think the DM's not interested in engaging with individual PC interests/plans outside the scope of the adventures, which is a bit of a pity as the city setting is potentially a rich source of drama.

 

[S'mon]

What I think this might show is that (i) adding colour isn't nothing, as far as an actual play experience goes, and (ii) it can be a lot of fun to hang out with friends and roll some dice. Especially in the context of a nicely-written story.

Yeah - on point (i), there's potentially huge satisfaction for me in delivering a killer one liner - often literally a 'killer', accompanying a death blow to a BBEG - at just the right time, and pulling it off just right. I wish I could do it as often at work (lecturing) as at the D&D table!
On point (ii), I think it's particularly true of an environment like the D&D Meetup I play at - we typically don't mostly know each other that well, but it's a lot of fun to have a focused group activity where everyone knows what to do. And I think a lot of people prefer a less 'challenging', more 'beer and pretzels' play mode in that milieu. We want to be sure we'll be entertained. And a lot of players aren't too keen on 'making their own entertainment' as in a PC-centric game where the directing energy comes primarily from the players. They like the idea of a published Adventure Path, they can relax and rely on the DM to give them a good time. And they don't need to negotiate a course of action with the other players; the right course is obvious - follow the Path.

 

[pawsplay]

[MENTION=15538]pawsplay[/MENTION], my objection to what you're saying is that, if you're right, than quite a good chunk of gaming that get's called RPGing isn't actually RPGing. And a lot of advice in books that are generally regarded as mainstream RPG manuals in fact becomes advice on how not to run an RPG.

I think at a certain point usage has to bow to reality.

And if you think about it from the point of view of the non-GM participants in an illusionist game, they may experience their contribution of colour - funny voices, choice of equipment, even perhaps the occasional but ultimately irrelevant sidequest - as a genuine contribution to the game. As playing. (After all, by "roleplaying" at least some posters on these boards seem to mean funny voices and other expressions of colour that are ultimately irrelevant to action resolution.)

Not that I want to make our disagreement about this a big deal - it's only terminology, although terminology in which some people have an emotionally invested stake. I think my defence of KM against your criticisms is perhaps the real point on which we disagree (that is, if we disagree at all, which perhaps we don't).

I agree that usage has to bow to reality. I don't object to some level of illusionism; in fact, some tiny amount is probably necessary as a fixing agent, or to put it another way, the box for the sand.

But this is not a minority stakes discussion. When a game is devoid of significant uncertainty, it ceases to be an RPG according to the understanding of most people who play them. I'm not saying people who play that way can simply be voted off the island. I follow that observation by stating there is a principle on which this distinction is based; RPGs are based on players having their characters do things, and such a game, ultimately, is not. If you want to discuss RPGs, the discussion is not improved by admitting such a thing into the discussion. If you try to stretch the definition of an RPG to include such games, it becomes difficult to say anything about RPGs that is useful.

 

[pawsplay]

While I dislike that DMing approach (fudging to ensure PC survival), and it's a big flaw of the 3.5 rules that using the RAW random PC/party death is practically inevitable IME, it's hardly saying "Role Playing Games are about the Players adding Colour to the DM's Story".

Edit: I guess if you are (a) running a Linear Adventure Path and (b) fudging to ensure PC survival/success, then yes you are right, the 'game' will indeed tend towards "the Players adding Colour to the DM's Story".

On reflection, and looking at your quotes, I think it's possible that pawsplay and me have not fully grasped how widespread/normal is this 'play' style. I know my eyes always just elide over those advise-to-fudge sections without really taking them in.

I would consider that advice to be simply bad, rather than "not an RPG." It admits to the possibility of unpredictably, while simply reducing it in some parts of the game. My advice would be, "Don't roll if you can't live with the results." I can live with, "Fudge if you need to save your campaign;" I think your campaign probably sucks (IMO) but I understand your need to save it.

I've seen advice that basically amounts to, "Fudge all you want, all the time," and that's the point, I think, where things could cross a line in actual play where you are no longer doing an RPG, but some kind of coloring-in thing. Even freeform play-by-email, which is pretty marginal to tabletop culture, still meets the basic definition of an RPG in principle, in a way this hypothetical fudging game does not. Railroady games risk descending into a black hole of futility from which they cannot escape. If a game at least has the merciful possibility of a TPK, you at least have something to wager or earn in a game.

 

[TarionzCousin]

a DM's tale he tells is alot like a flower garden, he plants the seeds and gives it water and soil and lets the flowers grow, its not an exact art, but the ending result is always beautiful

Not always. I've DM'ed some terrible gardens in my time.

[MENTION=17927]Kravell[/MENTION], have you seen Dino-Pirates of Ninja Island? It sounds like your type of fun.