numerera GM intrusions: help me get it

[GrahamWills]

I don't like them because they are so metagame. Offering the player some XP and then based on that decision having something in world happen. Ouch. How can you get immersed in a game with such things going on?

Actually, it's even worse. When you want to try and do something, you have to grab a plastic shape, bounce it around on the table, read whichever number is on top and then so some math, following which you tell the GM a number and he compares it to another number to let you know if you were successful. Ouch. How can you get immersed in a game with such things going on? It is why I only play Fiasco.

Seriously, though. We are playing games, and we do lots of stuff like this. We are so used to rolling dice, which we do hundreds of times a session, that we don't notice it. GM intrusion, which happens to each player maybe once a session, takes less time than a dice roll, is focused entirely on plot and character, not mechanics, and facilitates storytelling.

 

[GrahamWills]

Evilbob, it seems you just have had bad experiences of GMs, and you worry that Numenera will make them worse. Actually I tend to agree. For a bad GM, you want them to do as little as possible! But for a competent GM, they will not be cackling with glee as your attempt to scale a three foot wall causes you to break a leg.

The goal of GM intrusion is to make the game more interesting (fun!) for the players. Not to introduce random problems for no good reason. In combat, as you point out, the intrusions are minor. When you want to have intrusion as part of the general session, inspired purely by the GM, the main duty of the GM does not change -- make it fun!

I have more experience of this in the FATE system, which also has really good advice for intrusion, but a good set of guidelines would be:

- make the complication interesting. No "you cannot find anyone to talk to". Instead "your disguise slips"
- make it something that will lead to story. Since your disguise slipped one of the servants saw you. Something will have to be done
- make it about the character. Simi is a wanted criminal, so it was his disguise at slipped
- do it when the pace of the game is a bit slower. If Simi was already hiding from one person, while the rest of the party were in the middle of stealing something, adding another complication could just slow the game down. If the players are sitting in their seats, waiting for the scene to end, maybe then it makes sense.

 

[Emerikol]

Actually, it's even worse. When you want to try and do something, you have to grab a plastic shape, bounce it around on the table, read whichever number is on top and then so some math, following which you tell the GM a number and he compares it to another number to let you know if you were successful. Ouch. How can you get immersed in a game with such things going on? It is why I only play Fiasco.

Seriously, though. We are playing games, and we do lots of stuff like this. We are so used to rolling dice, which we do hundreds of times a session, that we don't notice it. GM intrusion, which happens to each player maybe once a session, takes less time than a dice roll, is focused entirely on plot and character, not mechanics, and facilitates storytelling.

The classic answer of the narrativist. Your answer is kind of insulting. I mean we are using dice to adjudicate something happening in the world. That is a far cry from the DM giving the player the choice whether some random event is going to happen to their character. It's obviously not something the character even knows about. Lumping that kind of thing in with rolling dice to hit which the character is attempting to do is disingenuous at best.

I prefer simulationist approaches to roleplaying. I guess that explains my position. 4e, 13th Age, Numenera, Fate, etc.. are all unacceptable to me for similar reasons.

 

[gweinel]

I have not played Numenera or FATE (although i would love to) so my judgement is more theoretical. I think it is more or less a legitimization and exculpation of the GM roll fudging. Some times when the things went too well or too bad for the players and this doesn't serve the game I have fudged the rolls in order my players continue to have fun (always this will be subjective to the GM of what "fun" means). I think this is a way to pass it to the game mechanics.

 

[GrahamWills]

Your answer is kind of insulting. I mean we are using dice to adjudicate something happening in the world. That is a far cry from the DM giving the player the choice whether some random event is going to happen to their character. It's obviously not something the character even knows about. Lumping that kind of thing in with rolling dice to hit which the character is attempting to do is disingenuous at best.

I apologize for my flippant tone. Re-reading it does indeed come across as insulting. I meant to try for an absurdist/humorous tone, but, yeah. I failed. My player must have rolled low, or accepted an intrusion ... anyone, sorry, and thank you for only a gentle rebuke.

Anyway. We have a player trying to have their character do something. Case A is the player rolls a dice, consults his character sheet, does some math and gives a number to the GM. The GM then says how well the attempt succeeds. Case B is the GM asking the player if they wish to simply succeed well, or accept a less successful result with a player reward.

In neither case is it "something the character even knows about", so I do not see that argument has any validity. In both cases the character attempts to climb a wall. They fail and get hurt as they fall (or suffer some other sort of mishap). The character cannot tell why they failed. In case A it is purely a gamist reason. A roll of 20 would have succeeded, a roll of 1 failed. In case B it is purely narrative reasons. A boring intrusion would have been rejected, an interesting one accepted. In both cases simulation was used to set up the parameters (the fail % for the gamist case, the possible intrusion in the narrative case), but it's basically DICE=GAMIST, INTRUSION=NARRATIVIST.

I would actually argue that the narrativist approach is more immersive, whereas you argue it is less immersive. And the reason is that for the narrativist approach all I have to do is think about my character and what makes sense. I stay in the story, in the mode of thinking about my character. I don't even look at my character sheet. No external polyhedra, numbers, statistics on a sheet, or anything distract from being immersed in the experience of my character.

In both cases the PLAYER is using some decision process to decide what happens to their character. Game mechanics or narrative, their CHARACTER has an outcome based on that process.

If you straight-out dislike narrative elements, then of course you won't like it! No problems with that at all -- what I do feel is not accurate though is the attempt to say that dice rolling is inherently more immersive. It may jar you, because you don't like narrative style. For another person, it may be more jarring to have to pull out a book and work out what the penalty for climbing walls in the rain is.

Personally, I like a mix. And I like mostly simulation / gamist decision making -- rolling dice, following rules, etc. But I do like a bit of narrative in here and there. Not MOST of the time (I do actually like Fiasco, but cannot play it a lot ...) but definitely occasionally.

 

[Emerikol]

Thanks. I'm glad you were not intending insult.

I know it's just preferences too so please take what follows as just me expressing how I view immersion.

I want to make decisions as my character. I guess you'd call that actor mode as opposed to director mode. So when I'm climbing a wall, I always want to succeed. If the GM intrudes and offers me xp to take a lesser result, then I the player must weigh the choices and decide. Is the extra xp worth the trouble about to happen in game? The character though is still climbing the wall and knows nothing of this "devils bargain" the player and GM have hatched. To me, that is immersion breaking because I'm no longer being my character.

Now as for dice rolling. First I think the GM needs to know what he is doing and if he feels the need to look up a DC he should wing it instead. Then chastise himself for not knowing the rules better and be better prepared next time. I won't know what he does. All I will know is the wall looks "hard" or "easy". If my GM even states the DC which is only sometimes when it's clear I could judge the difficulty, that number is just a way to communicate to the player what the character is seeing. Personally, I could dispense with the dice and let the GM roll everything and probably be happy. Just act and react as my character but even I realize my fellow players would draw the line. At least some of them would.

I also think the wall example is not the only one I've seen. I truly love Monte Cook's work normally, so I've followed Numenera closely even though system wise it's not a good fit for me. He gave an example once of someone standing on a trap door. The door drops open under the players feet. The GM intrudes offering an xp to fall through or if rejected the player will leap aside before falling. Maybe that is a little like climbing the wall if normally you'd allow the PC a chance to escape the trap after coming to stand upon it. I kind of got the impression maybe once you went that far you wouldn't.

I realize this one mechanic could be totally ignored. I have a few other issues with the game along similar lines though. I've played it and I think the overall idea is awesome. I think cyphers are a little too pat. I'm not sure I'm totally at ease with effort conceptually and it's relation to damage. A lot of perhaps minor factors. I was in the Kickstarter. I probably won't go forward with the game. I do wish Monte the best because he is genuinely one of the nice guys in this hobby. So I want to like his stuff.

 

[evilbob]

But for a competent GM, they will not be cackling with glee as your attempt to scale a three foot wall causes you to break a leg.

This made me laugh. It still makes me laugh every time I read it!

That's definitely the sort of thing I dislike, although obviously it can be much more subtle. But as a GM I don't even want to be put in that position. I don't want to have to tell the character that you suddenly had some weird bad luck for a reason that I believe makes the story more interesting, but the player might think, "this GM is a jerk." I mean, I have my own sense of what is interesting and what makes for good pacing and interesting interactions, but it still feels like I'm taking some of the players' voices out of the mix when I simply dictate: THIS HAPPENS. Oh, and here's your booby prize.

Emerikol mentioning the trap door thing is interesting because in the book, it specifically mentions that example along with two ways to deal with it which I think are radically different but the book is like, "eh, either way." One is to allow the character suddenly standing on the trap door to roll to avoid it (like a normal trap) and the other is to tell the character they fell through the door. One still puts the agency in the hand of the player; the other is basically mild railroading (in my opinion).

Perhaps another way to think about GM intrusions - and one that allows the "devil's bargain" to be much more clearly in the hands of the players - would be to combine them with the "fail forward" idea. For example, using the mustache disguise idea: maybe the character needed to roll a 12 to fool people with the disguise, and they got an 11. I could ask them: well, do you want to go ahead and run with it, knowing that your disguise is a little shoddy and might fall off at some point? I could even hand them the XP up front to sweeten the deal and let them know if they succeed on the encounter fast enough it might not even come up. It'd have to be a pretty big bribe, because most players I run with probably wouldn't take a sure chance of failure. But a reasonable chance at success AND some XP? Done. (You can't really rely on this as a consistent XP source, though.)

Overall, I like the idea of disguising GM intrusions as discoveries. Like the trap door: you discovered a trap door! That's worth XP. Ok, yeah, you had a chance to fall through, but in the end the XP for discovery helps hide the sting of the randomness, and it doesn't seem like I'm just being capricious quite as badly. Same thing might happen in battle sometimes: you discover this creature can do this extra thing when it's enraged! That's worth XP. And now the party will know they should focus-fire the thing down once it starts to get hurt if they fight one again.

Also, it's a good way to cover for bad writing (which I think is pretty rampant in the "first adventure" in the back of the book), where if the characters don't find X (a trap door, a way to pick a lock, etc.), the action grinds to a halt. (Seriously, there are no less than 3 different places where a roll of 15 or 18 is required to advance the story, although special training and help can reduce that. But still...) In the best case, you wouldn't write the story that way, but everyone can write themselves into a corner every now and again, and it gives you an "out." But like the "fail forward" idea, you can't rely on this as a consistent source of XP - thus, focusing more on discoveries.

 

[evilbob]

Personally, I could dispense with the dice and let the GM roll everything and probably be happy. Just act and react as my character but even I realize my fellow players would draw the line. At least some of them would.

At the risk of derailing my own thread: some of the best (and definitely most interesting) games I've ever been in or run are what we call "free style." In these cases, there are no dice or rulebooks, and people just describe what their characters are doing and the GM simply guides the story, plays the part of the NPCs, and adjudicates if necessary (and it's typically never necessary).

I know that can be a radical idea to some, but when you have a good GM it's pretty amazing. It's funny because in the Numenera book, Monte specifically says that gaming without dice is impossible. What a small perspective to have as a game designer.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I've read all the advice on how to play - most of it twice - especially the stuff about GM intrusions. And I still can't shake the feeling that they basically amount to an "eff you" button for the GM to pull on players.

Similar to the 13th Age icon rolls (player-driven enforced randomness), this is a mechanic that seems tailored to a GM style that I guess I just don't use or haven't experienced. In my mind: I -want- the PCs to succeed. I -hate- the feeling of GMs screwing you over just because they enjoy feeling powerful. I've experienced that before and I NEVER want to do that - ever.

...

So what am I missing? What's a good way to handle these? What are some better examples of GM intrusions in play that don't make you just seem like the Nelson "HA HA" game master? Or is Monte just sort of a jerk?

GM intrusions are a very clunky form of Compels from Fate - and I really recommend getting a copy of Fate Core to understand them properly. But the basic idea is as follows:

1: Beating up ninjas while wearing plate armour and carrying a your trusty longsword = good

2: Beating up ninjas while wearing only a bath towel by either throwing them into the swimming pool, hitting them with the lifeguard's chair, or stabbing them with their own weapons because they've attacked you at the public baths = awesome

3: Attacking PCs at the public baths with ninjas because that's where they will be vulnerable leads to a paranoia arms race from many players/PCs because they don't want to be attacked like that even if the results are awesome so the PCs are likely to turtle up.

4: Give the PCs both a benefit for being attacked like this and the players the ability to say no (remember GM intrusions can be refused at the cost of 1XP) and the players are more likely to enjoy it, encourage it to happen again, and to deliberately suggest or offer opportunities for such twists aimed at their characters.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

For the "immersion" aspect of the game, you could try something like this. Hold two XP cards (or tokens you're using to represent XP) in your hand, showing this is an intrusion, but don't stop your narrative. Like so:

Player: "Thirwen moves across the platform to cover Jaseen as she tries to get the anti-grav platform going, and fires an arrow at the abhumans to keep them away. I rolled a 12."
DM (holds XP tokens up): "As you move across the platform, your foot contacts a patch of oil and your feet begin to slide out from under you..."

If the player accepts your intrusion, taking the tokens from you -
DM: "...and your balance is off as you fire your arrow. It does indeed strike the abhuman, but goes through his body and hits a gap in the wall covering. Sparks fly, and a wailing alarm is triggered. You hear the pounding of feet in the distance. More abhumans are converging on your location!"

If the player refuses your intrusion, paying you a token instead -
DM: "...but you recover adroitly and your arrow downs the abhuman cleanly."

That way you never have to explicitly drop the story, but the player still has the "choose his own adventure" option.