numerera GM intrusions: help me get it

[Emerikol]

Isida that would be the only way to do it even if I was a narrativist in my thinking. I don't think a player should decide something that the character he is playing should never be able to decide. That is just my preference. I much prefer acting solely in actor mode. I'm not even sure I want the GM deciding arbitrarily. Make a roll and let fate decide. I'd probably have the bad case happen on a critical miss.

 

[FickleGM]

I think that, after seeing how intrusions work, I prefer Fate's version of using compels. I don't dislike intrusions, if course, but just prefer compels.

 

[Crusadius]

GM Intrusions are just putting some mechanics behind something that already happens. How many times have you had characters, for example, climbing a cliff and the GM says "roll some dice to see if you avoid the crumbling outcrop". As said above, a good place to use them is when no dice roll would normally be required.

To me it appears people have issues with GM Intrusion because of the cost of XP to refuse them - leading to, I imagine, visions of a GM cackling while saying "here's some XP, a volcano explodes under feet, you die" with the Player hemorrhaging XP left, right and center to keep their character alive. This ain't GM Intrusion, its bad game mastering.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

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.

The thing is, so many things are out of the players control. You don't take away their voice when they never had a say to begin with. They don't get to decide if there is a trap door their or not. They don't get to decide how difficult it is to avoid falling in. The DM intrusion allows you say "The trap door that's so difficult to avoid as to be impossible opens up beneath you. Since I only came up with this trap door off the top of my head to make this scene interesting, you can have some XP for it."

It does require some playing buy in. The players have to know that this is the sort of game they are playing in advance. If the players believe Numenera to have the same sensibilities as D&D, then it can lead to hurt feelings. I let my players know in advance exactly how DM intrusion works and made sure they understood it is part of the game.

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).

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Railroading has gotten a bad rap. It's now the boogie man of the RPG world. Everyone believes that the players MUST have full control over everything that happens to their character and any violation of this is horrible DMing. I say that's crap.

Most TV shows, movies, and books are interesting precisely because of the interesting twists that would never happen in an RPG: A sword breaks, a master of acrobatics hits a really slippery patch of ground that he didn't see, the ceiling of the cave collapses, the guard turns around at just the wrong moment, etc.

These are the things that DM intrusion should be used for.

 

[evilbob]

"The trap door that's so difficult to avoid as to be impossible opens up beneath you. Since I only came up with this trap door off the top of my head to make this scene interesting, you can have some XP for it."

This is exactly the sort of thing I never want to do.

I do hear you on the railroading and the lack of player agency across the board. I think it's really more of a semantics issue. When players are forced to do something that they feel their characters wouldn't or shouldn't do, or that the characters should have had a better chance to avoid doing ("uh, my elf is trained in spotting traps - why did the trap door suddenly open underneath her?"), I would call that railroading. Railroading is frustrating because it takes away from player engagement in the story. However, I agree that not all plot twists and random nastiness is railroading, and the word has been used too broadly and too often. Sometimes plot twists or swords breaking or whatever heightens drama - and that can be good, or interesting, or fun. But sometimes it just feels like the universe is picking on you, and that's not so fun. That's the sort of thing I want to avoid doing, because I dislike it so much when it happens to me.

This is all a huge side discussion, though: what is or is not railroading and whether it can be good or bad are really not the point. The point is/was: how can GMs use intrusions to better enhance their game without making the players feel like the universe is picking on them? And for me, the answer was: don't use GM intrusions because that's just not something I'm comfortable with as a GM. Maybe if I were more flexible or a better GM I could just take it all in stride, but that's not where I am, so I am just working around it.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

I'd recommend, to paraphrase someone else earlier in the thread, GM intrusion to do things you were already going to do. More bad guys going to join the fray because they heard the alarm anyway? "Intrude" and give someone XP as they show up. That locked chest had a trap already? Give the jack XP as they try to get it open and might set it off. That NPC have an unhelpful attitude towards the players before they even start trying to sweet-talk her? Intrude and give XP as they try to persuade her for the information they need. Find those places that you would already have players be making rolls for, "intrude" and then have them make their rolls anyway. The players get the XP recommended by the system, you don't have to introduce additional complications besides the ones you already had planned, and the players still get to roll to dodge/disarm/perceive. Everybody wins.

 

[evilbob]

Isida Kep'Tukari: Also a very good way to handle it, I agree.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This is all a huge side discussion, though: what is or is not railroading and whether it can be good or bad are really not the point. The point is/was: how can GMs use intrusions to better enhance their game without making the players feel like the universe is picking on them? And for me, the answer was: don't use GM intrusions because that's just not something I'm comfortable with as a GM. Maybe if I were more flexible or a better GM I could just take it all in stride, but that's not where I am, so I am just working around it.

Honestly, if you aren't comfortable doing bad things to the character, simply use GM intrusions that are completely out of the PCs control and may or may not be considered actually bad for them.

For instance, have an NPC they don't like show up at the most interesting moment to complicate their lives. Or a monster.

The other day I used a GM intrusion when one of the PCs harassed an NPC who just wanted to be left alone. The NPC kept telling him to go away and the PC walked up and stole the cigarette in his mouth and sat beside him smoking it and trying to make conversation. I could have had the NPC get angry and be done with it. But I used DM intrusion as an excuse to have everyone in town start with a bad attitude towards the PC they hadn't met yet because of the stories that had been passed around town.

Adventure taking too little time? As they find the object they were looking for...it turns out not to be there since someone go there first and they now have to track it down.

That kind of stuff is still "bad" for the PCs enough to give them XP for it without necessarily taking away their agency.