D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Crimson Longinus]

Oh, so, you hope to use Force, maybe, at some point because.... reasons. That the play of the game in this case would mean it's not Force because you aren't overriding other outcomes for your preferred one, you aren't ignoring player inputs, or action declarations. And you're absolutely relying on the system's say to do it at all is totally beside the point. A GM can use prep (which is freely acknowledged in the game that prep is a thing and how you're supposed to use it) it pretty much your entire argument. An argument that says that your game is almost 100% Force because you likely use a lot of prep. Is this the actual argument you wish to make?

The claim was that in Story Now the GM cannot direct the game towards their desired outcome without it being obvious. I call BS on that. That's it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Dungeon-like interior can exist almost anywhere.


They will fail checks eventually. That's just statistics.


Right. "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." And fine enough. But by this definition GM force cannot exist in D&D at all, as by the rules of the game the GM has authority to do basically anything, including fudging dice.

ONCE AGAIN, Force is when the GM overrides other considerations to enforce their preferred outcome, disregarding player input, action declarations, or the system's say. If you are correct that the GM can do whatever they want at any time in D&D and that is perfectly legal, then you're damning D&D with some pretty strong words, but still not avoiding the definition of Force.

The quantum ogre, where it doesn't matter what choice you make as a player, or what actions you declare, or any say the system has (like a wandering monster check), an ogre appears and attacks is clearly Force. The GM is using their authority to override all the other elements of the game to do have what they want to happen happen. That D&D largely gives this authority to the GM is part of the necessary bits -- it's not breaking the rules of D&D to do this, and no one has said otherwise. That D&D is so susceptible to the use of Force, and, in my opinion, requires it is part and parcel of the exact authority you cite here. The GM can avoid Force in D&D by not using that authority to enforce a preferred outcome over player inputs, action declarations, or the system's say. You seem to be intentionally misusing Force to make a point that, in some weirdly contrived situation that isn't even close to actual play, that you can use prep but call it Force. It doesn't make sense.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The claim was that in Story Now the GM cannot direct the game towards their desired outcome without it being obvious. I call BS on that. That's it.

Yes, I did, too. I was wrong. You are wrong. Mainly because I think that you think the game stays pretty predictable. It doesn't, it veers off wildly and very quickly into new fiction.

What's fun here is that you have no experience with these games, this play approach, and I don't even think you've attempted to read the rules. But you're absolutely confident that you could, with a long plan and subtle moves, do the thing that would actually be stupid to try and impossible to pull off without playing outside the rules of the game. IE, that you'd have to break it to do it. It's ignorance being presented as surety.

 

[FrozenNorth]

You can only teleport a character if it makes sense within the fiction -- it's not an always available option. If the current situation has elements that suggest or outright engage the concepts of teleportation, then this is a valid move. If not, not. You're again relying on a long causal chain to surmise that, at the very tail of the possibility distribution, a GM might have planned to engage Force.

For the sake of argument, let’s set aside the premise that the GM is only doing this to drop the character into a premade dungeon and thereby completely switch paradigms.

I don’t have experience with DW, though I have a little experience with Monster of the Week. My understanding is that following a miss, the GM can follow that up with a hard move. As long as it was established that one of the fauna in the mountains were giant eagles (which could have been done as part of scene-framing or otherwise), a legitimate hard move would be for the GM to use the separate move and have a giant eagle fly off with the character in its claws. But if that is too much, how about a variation using the same move. The character causes an avalanche or a rockfall (a common danger for mountaineers). The party escapes unharmed, but the rockfall has separated them into two groups.

Is that a use of GM Force? If not, is the only reason it is not a use of GM Force because the GM did not preplan separating the party so he could run prepared encounters for each?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes, I did, too. I was wrong. You are wrong. Mainly because I think that you think the game stays pretty predictable. It doesn't, it veers off wildly and very quickly into new fiction.

What's fun here is that you have no experience with these games, this play approach, and I don't even think you've attempted to read the rules. But you're absolutely confident that you could, with a long plan and subtle moves, do the thing that would actually be stupid to try and impossible to pull off without playing outside the rules of the game. IE, that you'd have to break it to do it. It's ignorance being presented as surety.

I have read the rules, and I have read the examples of play. I've been familiarising myself with Story Now games more recently, as one of my friends said they might run one at some point (And they have in the past, saying that GMing it is tricky.) And actually while reading the Apoc World recently, I remembered I've played it a bit years ago, though I really can't claim that gave me any insight as I didn't even remember it for a long while.

In any case, the procedure of the play is not that complex. It is pretty clear what is happening and where the points where GM can direct things lie. There is nothing magical there to stop this. I fully agree that it would be somewhat difficult and doing so would be kinda missing the point of playing such a game in the first place, but that's another matter. Though @EzekielRaiden seems to run some sort of hybrid approach successfully.

 

[Ovinomancer]

For the sake of argument, let’s set aside the premise that the GM is only doing this to drop the character into a premade dungeon and thereby completely switch paradigms.

I don’t have experience with DW, though I have a little experience with Monster of the Week. My understanding is that following a miss, the GM can follow that up with a hard move. As long as it was established that one of the fauna in the mountains were giant eagles (which could have been done as part of scene-framing or otherwise), a legitimate hard move would be for the GM to use the separate move and have a giant eagle fly off with the character in its claws. But if that is too much, how about a variation using the same move. The character causes an avalanche or a rockfall (a common danger for mountaineers). The party escapes unharmed, but the rockfall has separated them into two groups.

Is that a use of GM Force? If not, is the only reason it is not a use of GM Force because the GM did not preplan separating the party so he could run prepared encounters for each?

Again, the definition of Force is the GM enforcing a preferred outcome while disregarding player input, action declarations, or system say. If we evaluate your ask, the GM is not enforcing a preferred outcome because there is not a different outcome suggested that is less preferred. But, let's say the GM is indeed wanting to fly off with a character in the claws of a giant eagle for some reason, so this conditionally meets preferred outcomes. We then look to see if this is disregarding player input. Not really any here, the player clearly have agreed to the game and are attempting this dangerous task in this location, so this isn't being disregarded. Then look at action declaration. Again, not much input here as the declared action is not intended to counter this result, so we're not disregarding it to get here. Now system say. Here we're actually actively regarding system say, not disregarding it. We've done everything the system says to do, and the system is telling us that we have this authority and that this action is permittable under the principles and goals of play. We're green to go, not Force.

 

[Maxperson]

Because if yes, assuming the rest of the party want to rescue their comrade, then the GM can use that to haul the party into a location and-or an adventure of her choosing (because that adventure site is where the bird takes its captive); and how is that not Force of the highest order?

The bolded is why it's not force. They don't have to rescue their comrade. There have been a number of PCs over the years who if carried off by a giant bird, I'd make sure to wave goodbye to before he got out of sight.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I have read the rules, and I have read the examples of play. I've been familiarising myself with Story Now games more recently, as one of my friends said they might run one at some point (And they have in the past, saying that GMing it is tricky.) And actually while reading the Apoc World recently, I remembered I've played it a bit years ago, though I really can't claim that gave me any insight as I didn't even remember it for a long while.

In any case, the procedure of the play is not that complex. It is pretty clear what is happening and where the points where GM can direct things lie. There is nothing magical there to stop this. I fully agree that it would be somewhat difficult and doing so would be kinda missing the point of playing such a game in the first place, but that's another matter. Though @EzekielRaiden seems to run some sort of hybrid approach successfully.

@EzekielRaiden has intentionally drifted his game and is not running Story Now. He's running Trad with a few elements of indulging players. The scenario he just posted upthread is something I'd expect to see in a normal D&D game. Pointing to this as how DW is normally is like pointing at FATE and saying this is representative of D&D games. He's doing his own thing and it's pretty far from the intent and direction for playing DW. Which is totally fine.

In the meantime, your argument for Force just falls flat -- the only examples you've concocted aren't even Force. They're use of prep. Which is fine, and even encouraged, if done differently from how prep works in D&D or other Trad games. It's more an exercise in building prop pieces and using them when it works out but not worrying if they don't show up. The claim that you can smuggle in a specific piece of prep is conjecture and not actually demonstrated. It would be amusing to set up a game where you try to do this while staying within the rules of play with players and see if you a) can actually do it and b) if they notice you trying.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The bolded is why it's not force. They don't have to rescue their comrade. There have been a number of PCs over the years who if carried off by a giant bird, I'd make sure to wave goodbye to before he got out of sight.

Sure, but it still affects the direction of play. Situations where the PCs technically have the freedom to not do a thing, but in practice it is guaranteed that they will are common. In my last game there was a situation that one of the NPCs the PCs had been travelling with was kidnapped. Yeah, in theory they could have chosen to not to attempt to free them, but at the same time I knew that with 99.99% certainty they will.

And that's a situation which pretty clearly demands a response, but it doesn't need to even be that. With framing the GM directs what the PCs will do. If the GM describes an interesting thing the PCs will most likely poke it. Yes, it is technically their choice, but it is also completely predictable.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but it still affects the direction of play.

Everything on both sides of the DM screen affects the direction of play. If affecting the direction of play is the definition of force, then it's a broken definition and both players and DMs are constantly forcing each other.

Force needs to actually force the players down a path to be a useful definition. If the players don't have to go down that path, it's not force.

Situations where the PCs technically have the freedom to not do a thing, but in practice it is guaranteed that they will are common. In my last game there was a situation that one of the NPCs the PCs had been travelling with was kidnapped. Yeah, in theory they could have chosen to not to free them, but at the same time I knew that with 99.99 certainty they will.

It's still not force. We once had a situation where a dragon grabbed a valued NPC and flew off with him. We held services for him and moved on. We would have gone after ogres or giants for him, but not a green dragon.