D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[prabe]

Generally roleplaying game design seems overly afraid of its players.

I think that this is most certainly true--especially if you include GMs among the players.

 

[prabe]

Regarding constraint on the GM; I think that's something I’ve found very engaging about GMing Blades and similar games. As a GM, I’m forced to react and think on my feet, and to honor input to the game other than my own.

In that sense, it’s kind of like being a player. Which I think speaks to “Play to find out” as a principle.

But thinking a little further on it, we typically think of a player who is able to navigate the many constraints placed on him by the fiction in order to overcome a challenge as being skilled.

Doesn’t it stand to reason then that a GM navigating the constraints set upon him during play is likewise skilled? That this mode of GMing is a challenge that requires skill?

Taken a step further, doesn’t less constraint mean less skill is needed?

It’s probably more a different set of skills being tested, but I think there’s something to that.

I haven't GMed Blades or anything PbtA, but as someone who believes GMs do better work when constrained (and that you can kinda judge a GM in a more traditional game like D&D by how constrained they are) I'm inclined to agree wholeheartedly with this.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, that is not at all what I said. I've, repeated at this point, acknowledged that the decisions in play will create different situations in play. I've also pointed out that this will still be constrained within the story structure that is independent of the characters. But I've repeated noted that there will be a different, if similar, story of play between parties at the end of play. This bit of being noticeable at the end of play has received some discussion, as I've been pointing out that the interchangeability is at the beginning -- the structure of the AP is the same regardless of what characters are brought to play.

I agree. It's why I haven't made that argument.

Let me ask a slightly different way -- would you agree that all of the information in the AP is entirely independent of the PCs? That the locations, NPCs, and challenges presented in the AP don't ask what characters are present when you read through the AP? That any difference that happens in play only comes after this information is deployed and the players are making choices about what to do about it?

This is what I mean by interchangeable characters; the AP's information -- the challenges, NPCs, locations -- do not change regardless of what characters show up to play. After the players are turned loose within this, of course the will make different choices from other characters, and the RNG will definitely drift play around.

Right, and the corollary to this is that the material 'leads play'. It may well be that some AP might have multiple 'paths', but it is hard to see how it can make them really entirely different. There is some sort of theme and plot to the AP, or else it would simply be a map and key, without theme or any unifying architecture at all besides geography (the 4e Shadowfell supplement on Gloomwrought falls into this category, though it has a lot of basic plot hooks. It is not generally considered an 'AP', though I would argue it is a pretty good supplement for a Story Now type of game). Even Gloomwrought ultimately focuses on Roland the Deathless, as any party which remains there long enough will either end up opposing him or working for/with him, or both. If they get powerful he will probably try to wipe them out too! Again, there's a certain inevitable logic.

So, an AP MUST really ultimately produce roughly the same trajectory, at least of movement if not anything else. OTOH I think I talked up above about how Prince Valiant is probably, if played in a narrow milieu sense, going to likely result in fairly predictable action too. So, we find that with all types of game, CHARACTERIZATION is a central aspect, at least once you get out of Gygaxian key-and-map play. I think the main difference is that in Low/No Myth play the players conceptions of how the world is laid out are much more prevalent and they author a lot of the story, rather than mostly deciding their motives and techniques, which is more like traditional/AP kind of play.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm personally not a very big fan of currencies that don't have a corresponding fictional existence. Stuff like Willpower in World of Darkness is fine. So are strings in Monsterhearts. Mostly I think we rely too much on currency to mediate authority when directed judgement generally works better in my experience. Generally roleplaying game design seems overly afraid of its players. That we cannot let characters do amazing things without somehow limiting it. Pathfinder Second Edition and Exalted Third Edition have kind of changed my mind on that point. Nothing breaks if characters can just kind of be good at the things they are good at pretty much all the time.

I can't say that I necessarily agree, if I understand your point correctly, though here I have Fate and fate points in mind. But the currency of Fate points is also about generating the ebb-and-flow of the fiction, particularly complications and invocations.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm personally not a very big fan of currencies that don't have a corresponding fictional existence. Stuff like Willpower in World of Darkness is fine. So are strings in Monsterhearts. Mostly I think we rely too much on currency to mediate authority when directed judgement generally works better in my experience. Generally roleplaying game design seems overly afraid of its players. That we cannot let characters do amazing things without somehow limiting it. Pathfinder Second Edition and Exalted Third Edition have kind of changed my mind on that point. Nothing breaks if characters can just kind of be good at the things they are good at pretty much all the time.

I’m not always crazy about them either. The Lucky Feat in 5e just seems annoying to me. But Stress in Blades in the Dark is just fine for me.

What about Flashbacks? I got into a discussion with Justin Alexander how he considered them non-diegetic, but I disagreed. I feel like they are connected to the fiction, just it’s the chronology that’s not in sync. I’m curious for your take on it.

 

[Campbell]

I’m not always crazy about them either. The Lucky Feat in 5e just seems annoying to me. But Stress in Blades in the Dark is just fine for me.

What about Flashbacks? I got into a discussion with Justin Alexander how he considered them non-diegetic, but I disagreed. I feel like they are connected to the fiction, just it’s the chronology that’s not in sync. I’m curious for your take on it.

Flashbacks are somewhat tough. I'm not crazy about tying stress to them, but I have no real issues with nonlinear scene framing (although consistency of resources and character build can be challenging). Our Infinity game uses a lot of flashbacks, but no equivalent currency. Still I think it's the best of several bad solutions for enabling play where we get to feel like prepared, savvy, professional criminals despite not being such ourselves. I'm willing to give a bit on ideal play process to make that happen. The same reason why I was willing to deal with Martial Dailies. I can justify it and having fighters that feel worthy of the name are more important than play process for me. Then PF2 decided I no longer had to choose.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm personally not super enthused by Spout Lore actually. Mostly because useful here tends to lean into intent and task more than I like for a Powered by the Apocalypse game. I generally prefer stuff like Discern Realities, Gathering Information in Blades, or momentum spends in Infinity that allow players to ask direct questions and get those questions answered with reliable information. That way there are still constraints on the GM, but makes the setting feel more objective (not that it actually is). It also absolves me of trying to decide what is and is not useful since I usually do not always have (or want) a clear idea of what players are trying to have their characters accomplish.

Its interesting that you say this. I've tended to classify moves more as DR than SL myself. I mean, clearly a player can pretty much obligate you to invoke SL, or else just tell them something or have them tell it to you, but DR seems vastly more common in our games. Spout Lore has tended to be more of a move that gets used early in the structuring of a story, like a player will want to know more about the Lost Island, and clearly consulting your own knowledge is a good way to do that. Once the boat is offshore of the island, that's always seemed more like time for a DR check. This could be the same as your objection to SL, when the goal and object are distant, then intent and task are fairly generalized, so there's lots of room to play.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The various factions would be constantly threatening your cabbage patch and you would be forced to band together with your fellow farmers to form the Order of Oppressed Cabbage Farmers, local 666. You would then undertake daring raids and operations in order to recover your cabbages and equipment, and to gain enough power to keep your enemies at bay. The authorities would look dimly upon this and various other powerful factions would align themselves either for or against you, necessitating further 'ops' in order to continue to grow.

Frankly, I think the game would play exactly the same as it does now, except there might be some light fictional color which would produce slightly different descriptions for some locations and whatnot. Botany might replace some other knowledge, and tending cabbages might replace some other chore, etc.

So you're saying it doesn't matter in the Blades who the characters are, the content is still the same?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For myself:
A sapling is a small thing, its presence or absence having little effect other than making this one roll work this one time. I don't know if there is a mechanical difference, since (properly speaking) the "luck roll" is a generic mechanic and the Spout Lore is not. It's also diegetic, in the sense that your luck happened to not fail you this time--but it would have been Especially Bad if your luck had failed you.
Food, water, and shelter is more of a challenge, but not much. One example, you run into someone who happens to be out there (such things happen), perhaps a trapper or the like, who is of a favorable disposition and shares supplies with you. That seems diegetic to me, you literally lucked into finding help.
As I had understood it, it wasn't the DM authoring the Forge, because the whole point was player authorship. I had thought this whole conversation was very specifically about the problems of DM authorship, and avoiding the use of Force by giving players authorship of things. Is that not the case? Is the player not simply declaring that this Forge exists, but rather receiving a favorable result from DM authorship? And if that is the case, how is it not Force? Isn't the authorship still ultimately held completely by the DM, they're just prompted to use that authorship by the mechanics triggering rather than "because I felt like it" (which is, technically, a "mechanic," just an unreliable and often unspoken one)?

This always comes back to the other principles and agenda in DW. The GM is a fan of the players, we're playing to see what happens, you ask questions, make moves, etc. So, the GM isn't really all that free. The player DID, with SL, determine the general topic of the revealed material, and their need/intent are driving things. The point is, it isn't players or GM in the driver's seat, the game is playing, its engine is running, and both players and GM are adding grist to the mill!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Flashbacks are somewhat tough. I'm not crazy about tying stress to them, but I have no real issues with nonlinear scene framing (although consistency of resources and character build can be challenging). Our Infinity game uses a lot of flashbacks, but no equivalent currency. Still I think it's the best of several bad solutions for enabling play where we get to feel like prepared, savvy, professional criminals despite not being such ourselves. I'm willing to give a bit on ideal play process to make that happen. The same reason why I was willing to deal with Martial Dailies. I can justify it and having fighters that feel worthy of the name are more important than play process for me. Then PF2 decided I no longer had to choose.

I don't recall ever playing a game which has mechanics to trigger flashbacks, but I have occasionally (very rarely) used flashbacks while GMing. I think it can easily be a tad awkward from player perspective though. At least to me it has potential to cause an immersion clitch. "So I knew all that the whole time?" "That traumatic thing actually happened chronologically just before the first part of the session where we all were behaving like we had no care in the world?"