Prep situation to create plot

[thefutilist]

PREP SITUATION TO CREATE PLOT

Some thoughts about situation as part of my long running conversation with @pemerton . Going right back to basics after being inspired by Fantasy For Real. Also just feeling in the mood to create jargon.

Setting = The larger background context. A situation happens within a setting.


EXAMPLE SITUATION

There’s a place called the bubbling marsh. It’s occupied by the Southerners, the Toad Goblins (To the North), the Imperial military manning The Bridge. There’s some huge thirty mile long fantasy bridge that cuts through the swamp.

So the Southerners fish, live in their elevated huts and shacks, sometimes travel around in boats, just live their lives. The Toad goblins are doing the same. The Imperial military are really just a token force to keep the bridge safe for merchants and others passing though.

The situation is stable. As in it can continue like this indefinitely.

Now a huge storm is happening and floods. This has made large parts of the swamp uninhabitable and pessimists think that soon the entire thing will be uninhabitable. So many of the Southerners have fled to the bridge, climbing up it and occupying it. The military don’t want to just let a flood of refugees through the gates and currently the southerners don’t much want to become permanent refugees. Food and shelter are a problem though and hitting crisis point. The Toad goblins have rallied around a powerful leader who says the storm is the displeasure of the Toad god, to appease him they must drive the humans out of the swamp.

This situation is unstable. It can’t continue like this indefinitely.



RESOLVING SITUATION

So the point of play is to turn an unstable situation into a stable one. Doing so creates plot.

There’s a load of different tech you can use to approach this but before we get there I want to look at the fundament of play which is stakes questions. Given an unstable situation there are implicit questions we can ask about it.

Will the Southerners decide to leave? Will the military let them? Will the goblins attack? If they do will they be successful?

So we answer stakes questions to see how the situation changes. Which produces more stakes questions. Until all our questions have been answered and the situation has changed from unstable to stable.

As players/GM, we can be more or less enthused about finding out the answers to these questions.


TECH

One way of answering the questions is that the GM decides how things will go if left undisturbed. So they might decide that the military don’t let the starving southerners though, there’s riots and violence. Then then the goblins attack and slaughter everyone. The flood doesn’t abate and the goblins are now in the same dire circumstances. So they flee the area as pillaging war parties.

Clocks are just one way of being a bit more formal about this technique. You write down stuff happening at each stage. (1) Food shortage causes unrest (2) Bargaining with the guards leads to outbreaks of violence (3) Goblins attack.

PLAYER CHARACTERS

What Fantasy For Reals pickle tech does, is recreate the situation. Let’s say one of our PC’s is Wanmore, an artistic type. Upon meeting Brutalis, one of the defacto leaders of the Southerners, the player announces he is Wanmores estranged father. Wanmore was born in the Swamp but left for a more cultured life. He’s here to reconnect and mend his relationship with his family.

Now the implicit stakes have changed. The previous stakes are still in play but we have ‘will Wanmore reconnect with his family?’ And all the subsequent stakes that occur when Wanmore takes action or not.

Let’s say Wanmore decides to gather some Southerners and go on a risky venture to capture some Slime Toads. If he’s successful then suddenly the southerners have stuff to eat. The GM is going to have to take into account how this changes the whole situation It might mean the Southerners can hold on longer, so they don’t fight with the military, so there is a more unified force when the Goblins attack, does that mean the attack will no longer successful?

The player characters both create and answer stakes questions, turning the unstable situation into a stable one.


AESTHETIC CONSIDERATIONS

Fantasy for real: I think the text should be clearer that the situation is both unstable and is going to irrevocably effect the circumstances of npc’s within the situation. Although there is an interesting case to be made that stable situations ‘could’ work because the players can use their pickle to destabilise the situation. Having compelling situation is the work of everyone at the table.

This is very clear in In A Wicked Age. You should be creating best interests that create an unstable situation that’s about to blow. The same could be said for Apocalypse World, there is an onus on the players to get enmeshed and complicate things. It seems kind of obvious, to me, that the players (in session one at least), should have the power to declare relationships that maximally upset the situation.

Versus flags: A lot of the thematic load comes from the characters having opinions and desires about the status of various factions and npc’s. That will change in play due to circumstances Maybe Wanmore fails to reconnect with his family, decides they’re all hicks and leaves them to their fate. As long as the consequences of doing so are telegraphed , we learn a lot about the values of Wanmore.

 

[pemerton]

Versus flags: A lot of the thematic load comes from the characters having opinions and desires about the status of various factions and npc’s. That will change in play due to circumstances Maybe Wanmore fails to reconnect with his family, decides they’re all hicks and leaves them to their fate. As long as the consequences of doing so are telegraphed , we learn a lot about the values of Wanmore.

A question about this, and especially the "versus".

What do you see as the difference between a player-established flag and a player-established stakes question?

 

[aco175]

I have seen several videos pop up on my feed about this. The videos seems to have an acronym WOAC to help determine plot. What do the want? Obstacles in the way. Action. Consequence. I may be wrong with the last couple. There are several videos with the same idea for towns and leadership for kings and barons and such. I find them worth watching.

OK, a flood comes. The Southerners want to be safe from the flood. The obstacle is that the soldiers will not let them into the gate. Maybe they are waiting for orders or the gate leader does not like southerners or maybe there is not enough food or... The action is what the southerners do about it. Do they fight and force their way in. Maybe if the water is still flooding. Do they flee to the goblins and end up fighting them. Do they hire PCs to help sneak or fight to get in. What is the consequence of this. This is what leads to the next set of WOAC. If the southerners decided to fight and were repelled, do they join the goblins or move to another land. Do they seek other groups of fighters to strike at the kingdom and form a rebellion. Do they just destroy the bridge or supply lines from the merchants to make it unstable to use it.

Who is the leader of the southerners? What does he want? What obstacles are in his way? I have not really used it, but it seems to be easy and kind of makes sense.

 

[thefutilist]

A question about this, and especially the "versus".

What do you see as the difference between a player-established flag and a player-established stakes question?

Flags rely on the GM making sure something hits them, which isn’t the case for player created situation. To go more in depth, the two big examples of flags, BW beliefs and TSOY Keys, are really just currency mechanics. You could play BW and TSOY in such a way that the GM doesn’t care about them.

The dreaded no-myth + flags means the flag WILL get indexed because backstory is created in the moment so as to index it. This is me creating a stark division though. I felt it when I playing Dungeon World with ManbearCat but a lot of that happened at the resolution level.

Am I full of crap though? Do you see there being a difference?

 

[thefutilist]

Some thoughts on Fantasy For Real

We played two sessions and it looks like we’re done. Although this is frustrating because I don’t think we really engaged the system at all, as I envision it. My vision does diverge from Ron’s though. I think the magic rules are an abyss of awful. In part because I find all magic rules awful and FrR is an example of their worse excesses.

Where I see potential is the group taking joint responsibility for the situation. The elan rules for evoking a picklet have to happen on the author stance level so the players have to be skilful in their deployment, With a bit of work, I really could see a learning curve where we ended up with a well oiled machine.

Maybe more than any other game I’ve played, it seems to pay to just ignore what the text says and instead look at what it might be doing. As written it’s full of traps and ambiguities that really stuff things up. Here’s a list:


You should create an unstable situation with the material at hand, including just adding more to the initial pickle roll and ignoring/reworking the table at will. An interesting switch to flip is, what if you create a stable situation? The players are going to destabilise it with their picklets right? Yes but this seems like advanced stuff you can play with when you get the basics down.


The GM should just lay the situation out before you choose where your character is going to be. Not knowing the situation and being presented it by whoever you first meet, with all their attendant biases, is a neat idea but I’d still say it’s advanced stuff.


Making the picket rules your own and ignoring the text. There are so many potential applications for the elan roll to introduce picklets that it might be worthwhile struggling through to find best applications. The ones that come to mind for me are:

-Just stating you have a relationship with a character and the elan roll basically amounting to a kind of reaction roll.

-A kind of player led scene framing where we start in media res, with the roll determining how things are going.

-And those two combine pretty well.


Just stripping out the magic system OR reserving it as a kind of author stance tool where the player decides they just don’t want to deal with this, whatever this is. I clearly come to blows with the text here and change the nature of the game. Where I might be able to split the difference is having the magic system be part of the advanced rules. Use it when you’ve really got elan working well.

 

[pemerton]

Flags rely on the GM making sure something hits them, which isn’t the case for player created situation. To go more in depth, the two big examples of flags, BW beliefs and TSOY Keys, are really just currency mechanics. You could play BW and TSOY in such a way that the GM doesn’t care about them.

The dreaded no-myth + flags means the flag WILL get indexed because backstory is created in the moment so as to index it. This is me creating a stark division though. I felt it when I playing Dungeon World with ManbearCat but a lot of that happened at the resolution level.

Am I full of crap though? Do you see there being a difference?

I don't know The Shadow of Yesterday other than by reputation.

In the case of Burning Wheel, I think there are two relevant considerations:

First, the rules give clear instructions to the GM (Gold Revised, pp 9-11):

These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. . . . Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about. . . . The GM is responsible for challenging the players. . . . The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book.​

So there is no process of play other than the GM presenting/challenging the players with problems based on the players' priorities. Yes, I guess that drifting away from this is possible. But then likewise the GM in Fantasy For Real might drift things away from the Elan/picklet rules.

The second thing is that the rules give clear instructions to the players (Gold Revised, p 552):

• Players in Burning Wheel must use their characters to drive the story forward—to resolve conflicts and create new ones. Players are supposed to push and risk their characters, so they grow and change in unforeseen ways.

• Use the mechanics! Players are expected to call for a Duel of Wits or a Circles test or to demand the Range and Cover rules in a shooting match with a Dark Elf assassin. Don’t wait for the GM to invoke a rule - invoke the damn thing yourself and get the story moving!

• Participate. Help enhance your friends’ scenes and step forward and make the most of your own. It doesn’t matter if you “win,” so long as the story spins in a new and interesting direction. If the story doesn’t interest you, it’s your job to create interesting situations and involve yourself.​

That last, italicised clause is important. The players have mechanical options to create interesting situations: primarily Circles and Wises. Even if these tests fail, the rules for failure (a bit like the rules for a failed picklet-oriented Elan test) mean that the situation will shift in the direction that the player thought was interesting.

Some thoughts on Fantasy For Real

<snip>

Where I see potential is the group taking joint responsibility for the situation. The elan rules for evoking a picklet have to happen on the author stance level so the players have to be skilful in their deployment, With a bit of work, I really could see a learning curve where we ended up with a well oiled machine.

<snip>

There are so many potential applications for the elan roll to introduce picklets that it might be worthwhile struggling through to find best applications. The ones that come to mind for me are:

-Just stating you have a relationship with a character and the elan roll basically amounting to a kind of reaction roll.

-A kind of player led scene framing where we start in media res, with the roll determining how things are going.

-And those two combine pretty well.

I think your first suggestion is within the rules as written. The second seems like maybe a bit more of a departure: the rules very clearly give the GM scene-framing authority.

You should create an unstable situation with the material at hand, including just adding more to the initial pickle roll and ignoring/reworking the table at will. An interesting switch to flip is, what if you create a stable situation? The players are going to destabilise it with their picklets right? Yes but this seems like advanced stuff you can play with when you get the basics down.

The GM should just lay the situation out before you choose where your character is going to be. Not knowing the situation and being presented it by whoever you first meet, with all their attendant biases, is a neat idea but I’d still say it’s advanced stuff.

There is an express rule (p 6) that tells the GM to "Adjust any content or details, or add concepts of your own, as you like." But maybe the actual number of pickle elements is meant to be set by the initial die roll?

The pickle elements push towards unstable situations: conflicts; determined people ruthlessly pursuing their goals; dangerous circumstances; creatures causing trouble. Substances may be part of a stable situation. It's clear that Ron thinks that magic is, in virtue of the rules, inherently a source of instability.

When it comes to laying out the situation, the rules as written contemplate that the GM might have stuff in mind, based on the pickle and its development, that is not revealed to the players. This is clear in the instructions for setting up play; but also in the rules for when the GM should call for a test. Laying out the situation might devalue Culture and Normal Lore as skills?

I think the magic rules are an abyss of awful. In part because I find all magic rules awful and FrR is an example of their worse excesses.

<snip>

Just stripping out the magic system OR reserving it as a kind of author stance tool where the player decides they just don’t want to deal with this, whatever this is. I clearly come to blows with the text here and change the nature of the game. Where I might be able to split the difference is having the magic system be part of the advanced rules. Use it when you’ve really got elan working well.

Here is Ron on the magic rules:

It says right there on the cover: “… this text is also written to develop skills for playing as game master.” By which I mean,

• Situational play, especially concerning failed tests in a current scene and the activities of entities who aren’t in the current scene.
  
  • In practice, the most common example concerns brewing magic, when multiple spells’ and/or trinkets’ effects synergize into something new with quite a bit of power, quantitatively. “Oooh,” say the players, “that’s why magic doesn’t need resolution rolls …” because their own enthusiasm with so-easy, so-effective spellcasting has only done what it might well be expected to do.

That comment elaborates on the rules (p 18):

The whole pickle changes through play: tests change scenes, and altered scenes change everyone’s perspectives or plans. Your job is to express these effects in two ways:

• Play the NPCs as determined to get what they want, and willing to try harder and differently if they have to.

• A lot of magic in a single scene interacts: examine the name and strength of each spell, as they will affect one another – the more surreal and bizarre, the better.​

We haven't seen this in play. I think some of that is on me as GM; but also because, with only two players - and one of you not really using magic - the multiple effects interacting hasn't come up.

Here's a comment that you might think is silly: but I see the magic system as a little bit like Open your brain to the psychic maelstrom, but based around concrete action rather than just knowledge. It's the system's way of opening the door to the GM to use the weird to impose their vision.

 

[thefutilist]

I think your first suggestion is within the rules as written. The second seems like maybe a bit more of a departure: the rules very clearly give the GM scene-framing authority.

There is an express rule (p 6) that tells the GM to "Adjust any content or details, or add concepts of your own, as you like." But maybe the actual number of pickle elements is meant to be set by the initial die roll?

The pickle elements push towards unstable situations: conflicts; determined people ruthlessly pursuing their goals; dangerous circumstances; creatures causing trouble. Substances may be part of a stable situation. It's clear that Ron thinks that magic is, in virtue of the rules, inherently a source of instability.

When it comes to laying out the situation, the rules as written contemplate that the GM might have stuff in mind, based on the pickle and its development, that is not revealed to the players. This is clear in the instructions for setting up play; but also in the rules for when the GM should call for a test. Laying out the situation might devalue Culture and Normal Lore as skills?

When I say the player led scene framing, I really mean roll for establishing pack story via the pickle and then framing into that. The GM should still determine the specifics and have final say.

For instance, when the search party was looking for Verly my picklet intent was seduce Jael. My suggestion for a win was they find me bloody and bleeding making out with Jael. You could have deferred to any suggestion of mine on a failure or we both build it up. Really the same as a lot of games, the GM still retains formal last say.

I agree that revealing the situation devalues culture and lore but the trade-off is worth it, well depending on what elements of the game you want to highlight.

We had rules issues in both of our sessions but I think we were/are in the process of ironing out the knots. It makes it harder to criticise parts of the game (magic) when other parts weren’t really working like they should have been.

The obvious issue was that we didn’t have the rules for elan/picklets nailed down in session one (and I was dead on my feet). In session two Verly was actually dead so I couldn’t use the elan/picklet rules.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Is this about a specific ttrpg product/system? I am not seeing the question or contention here other than a vague premise for drama. What am i missing? what is the question?

@pemerton @thefutilist

 

[thefutilist]

Is this about a specific ttrpg product/system? I am not seeing the question or contention here other than a vague premise for drama. What am i missing? what is the question?

@pemerton @thefutilist

I ended up talking about Fantasy For Real too much, which is a game by Ron Edwards. I was going to springboard into some other stuff.

You’ll probably find some contention in a bit because when I’ve got more time I’m going to take shots at side-real/generative resolution.