Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Players choose what their PCs do . . .
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7636102" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Why?</p><p></p><p>In a relatively traditional RPG a GM gets to establish a lot of fiction: much of the setting; many of the NPCs; the framing of many situations; the narration of failures; maybe other stuff too that I'm not thinking of at present.</p><p></p><p>What is the function of <em>successful checks</em> if the GM also gets to establish what happens there too?</p><p></p><p>I was just responding to what you posted:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"></p><p></p><p>In what you posted, the player declares an intent for his PC to find financial records containing information in the desk drawer. The GM narrates that the PC fails to find any such thing. I don't see how that counts as a success.</p><p></p><p>If the action declaration had been <em>I search the drawer for something that might incriminate the Duke</em> then obviously we'd be having a different conversation.</p><p></p><p>In some RPG systems certain actions declared by players automatically trigger checks. Insofar as players can declare those actions, they can thereby trigger the checks. Examples would include Classic Traveller, Rolemaster and PbtA games.</p><p></p><p>In some RPG systems the GM can say "yes" to an action declaration but otherwise - assuming that the action declaration isn't of something that violates the logic of the system or the genre r the fictional positioning - is obliged to call for a check. Examples include Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic.</p><p></p><p>I don't know of any RPG system in which the GM has the power to refuse to countenance an action declaration, although the declaration violates neither system nor genre nor fictional positioning, by both refusing to say "yes" and refusing to permit a check. In such a system, what is the function of the players?</p><p></p><p>The PCs in a RPG don't <em>really</em> exist. They are elements in a fiction. That fiction is authored. Therefore whether or not the PCs are challenged is a result of authorship decisions taken in the real world. This is a significant difference from actual people in our actual world, who - subject to some theological speculation that I'll put to one side - are not authored entities "living" within an authored world.</p><p></p><p>Of course those authorship decisions which give rise to the fiction aren't typically part of the fiction. (Over the Edge is one RPG which is an exception to this - it allows for breaking the 4th wall. Maybe there are others too that I'm not familiar with.) So if we are talking about the imagined in-fiction causation then they don't figure. But if we're talking about what actually causes the fiction to have the content that it does, then we can't do that <em>except</em> by referring to those authorship decisions.</p><p></p><p>Which brings us to the role of mechanics. I can't do any better on this than to quote <a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">Vincent Baker</a>:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players <em>and </em>GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.</p><p></p><p>If the GM suggests that, as a result of the maiden winking, my PC is in love with her; and if I suggest that this is not so; then we have a disagrement as to what is actually true in the fiction. How do we resolve it? Via system. One possible system is <em>the GM is always right</em>. Another possible system is <em>the player is always right</em>. A third possible system is <em>they toss for it</em>. Rolling dice (be it a saving throw rolled by the player, a wink test rolled by the GM, or something else) is a more sophisticated version of that third possibility.</p><p></p><p>That's all. It neither increases nor reduces the amount of shared imagination taking place, and hence the amount of roleplaying. It does reduce the player's authorship authority compared to the second possible system. But even if one takes a fairly narrow definition of roleplaying that can hardly be relevant: actors play roles and typically they don't author the characters they are playing.</p><p></p><p>And for the curious who can't be bothered to follow the link, here is the whole of the Vincent Baker quote without ellision:</p><p></p><p>[sblock]Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players <em>and </em>GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not.</p><p></p><p>So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"</p><p></p><p>What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush?</p><p></p><p>1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.</p><p></p><p>2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."</p><p></p><p>3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!" The thing to notice here is that the mechanics <em>serve the exact same purpose</em> as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2, which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question.</p><p></p><p>4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this.</p><p></p><p>(Plenty of suggestions at the game table don't get picked up by the group, or get revised and modified by the group before being accepted, all with the same range of time and attention spent negotiating.)</p><p></p><p>So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.[/sblock]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7636102, member: 42582"] Why? In a relatively traditional RPG a GM gets to establish a lot of fiction: much of the setting; many of the NPCs; the framing of many situations; the narration of failures; maybe other stuff too that I'm not thinking of at present. What is the function of [I]successful checks[/I] if the GM also gets to establish what happens there too? I was just responding to what you posted: [indent][/indent] In what you posted, the player declares an intent for his PC to find financial records containing information in the desk drawer. The GM narrates that the PC fails to find any such thing. I don't see how that counts as a success. If the action declaration had been [I]I search the drawer for something that might incriminate the Duke[/I] then obviously we'd be having a different conversation. In some RPG systems certain actions declared by players automatically trigger checks. Insofar as players can declare those actions, they can thereby trigger the checks. Examples would include Classic Traveller, Rolemaster and PbtA games. In some RPG systems the GM can say "yes" to an action declaration but otherwise - assuming that the action declaration isn't of something that violates the logic of the system or the genre r the fictional positioning - is obliged to call for a check. Examples include Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic. I don't know of any RPG system in which the GM has the power to refuse to countenance an action declaration, although the declaration violates neither system nor genre nor fictional positioning, by both refusing to say "yes" and refusing to permit a check. In such a system, what is the function of the players? The PCs in a RPG don't [I]really[/I] exist. They are elements in a fiction. That fiction is authored. Therefore whether or not the PCs are challenged is a result of authorship decisions taken in the real world. This is a significant difference from actual people in our actual world, who - subject to some theological speculation that I'll put to one side - are not authored entities "living" within an authored world. Of course those authorship decisions which give rise to the fiction aren't typically part of the fiction. (Over the Edge is one RPG which is an exception to this - it allows for breaking the 4th wall. Maybe there are others too that I'm not familiar with.) So if we are talking about the imagined in-fiction causation then they don't figure. But if we're talking about what actually causes the fiction to have the content that it does, then we can't do that [I]except[/I] by referring to those authorship decisions. Which brings us to the role of mechanics. I can't do any better on this than to quote [url=http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html]Vincent Baker[/url]: [indent]Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players [I]and [/I]GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . . Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.[/indent] If the GM suggests that, as a result of the maiden winking, my PC is in love with her; and if I suggest that this is not so; then we have a disagrement as to what is actually true in the fiction. How do we resolve it? Via system. One possible system is [I]the GM is always right[/I]. Another possible system is [I]the player is always right[/I]. A third possible system is [I]they toss for it[/I]. Rolling dice (be it a saving throw rolled by the player, a wink test rolled by the GM, or something else) is a more sophisticated version of that third possibility. That's all. It neither increases nor reduces the amount of shared imagination taking place, and hence the amount of roleplaying. It does reduce the player's authorship authority compared to the second possible system. But even if one takes a fairly narrow definition of roleplaying that can hardly be relevant: actors play roles and typically they don't author the characters they are playing. And for the curious who can't be bothered to follow the link, here is the whole of the Vincent Baker quote without ellision: [sblock]Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players [I]and [/I]GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!" What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush? 1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking. 2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense." 3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!" The thing to notice here is that the mechanics [I]serve the exact same purpose[/I] as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2, which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question. 4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this. (Plenty of suggestions at the game table don't get picked up by the group, or get revised and modified by the group before being accepted, all with the same range of time and attention spent negotiating.) So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.[/sblock] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Players choose what their PCs do . . .
Top