D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Crimson Longinus]

Well, if you've got a map there that everyone can look at, then the question's not going to come up, is it?

That's really sidestepping the question. Imagine any action declaration that conflicts with the facts of the setting, be it geography, culture, tech level etc.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure, I think we got pretty far down the line in discussing Dungeon World or other PbtA and, at least potentially, low myth games for a while. That is certainly not the only way to go, Story Now can certainly exist in a setting of any level of detail. However, that might impose certain constraints in terms of available play process. Clearly DW isn't that appropriate to 'high myth'. OTOH AFAIK Doskvol is a pretty detailed milieu where a lot of elements are known to be present and at least some details are nailed down.

The question here would be why use a lore heavy setting to play a game that’s meant to be low on lore?

I mean, yes you could take any setting and then use a PbtA or similar system to run a game in that setting. But how that setting info is put to use is likely going to be very different.

Any “setting secrets” that may exist should basically be jettisoned. You’d use the commonly known lore…this faction believes that, these people are enemies because of this, and so on.

Here, I would point to the interesting case of Stonetop, which is a Dungeon World hack that takes place in a set setting: a vaguely Iron Age Celto-Germanic village. It is definitely not a "no myth" setting. A lot of the setting is sketched-out, including the surrounding region:

Spoiler

One gets an impression of a "mythic" backdrop with secrets surrounding some key elements: e.g., the Makers, Green Lords, fae, etc. Some of the creatures already have "myth" on their bones: e.g., "these monsters were created by the Green Lords to do X."

But there are also a lot of blanks in the setting. A number of entries for creatures and places in the setting have questions attached to them that the GM may ask the players to answer. Also pertinent enough, some of these same entries have additional information clearly meant to help GMs that is categorized in two ways: "something useful" and "something interesting."

 

[pemerton]

That's really sidestepping the question. Imagine any action declaration that conflicts with the facts of the setting, be it geography, culture, tech level etc.

But the same would be true, wouldn't it? Why would any particular participant have authority as an interpreter/applier of the setting?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But the same would be true, wouldn't it?

Same, what same? People necessarily aren't familiar with every technological, cultural etc detail of any given setting. Like for example people might assume that there is plate armour (often though as just medieval) even if the game is set in 9th century, it wouldn't have been around for centuries. Similarly people might not be familiar with some religious and cultural norms of the milieu.

Why would any particular participant have authority as an interpreter/applier of the setting?

Well, I feel it might be useful if someone was.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's really sidestepping the question. Imagine any action declaration that conflicts with the facts of the setting, be it geography, culture, tech level etc.

This seems a terribly simple solution, why are you posing it as a problem?

Something like this came up in our last Blades session. The GM framed a scene containing elements that they knew through trope and I knew because I actually worked in the field. To the GM, what was being described was an interesting challenge. To me, it was a nearly impassible wall. Do you know what happened next? We had a talk about it, cleared it up, and moved on. Mostly, I agreed to work in the trope space rather than the "I have experience here" space. Easy-peasy. I mean, I already have to turn that kind of thing off for a lot of entertainment anyway.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This seems a terribly simple solution, why are you posing it as a problem?

Something like this came up in our last Blades session. The GM framed a scene containing elements that they knew through trope and I knew because I actually worked in the field. To the GM, what was being described was an interesting challenge. To me, it was a nearly impassible wall. Do you know what happened next? We had a talk about it, cleared it up, and moved on. Mostly, I agreed to work in the trope space rather than the "I have experience here" space. Easy-peasy. I mean, I already have to turn that kind of thing off for a lot of entertainment anyway.

Right. So the GM informed you how they expected the setting to work (and this was relevant to the action declarations) and you agreed to do it in accordance to their view. This is basically what I suggested.

 

[Aldarc]

This seems a terribly simple solution, why are you posing it as a problem?

Something like this came up in our last Blades session. The GM framed a scene containing elements that they knew through trope and I knew because I actually worked in the field. To the GM, what was being described was an interesting challenge. To me, it was a nearly impassible wall. Do you know what happened next? We had a talk about it, cleared it up, and moved on. Mostly, I agreed to work in the trope space rather than the "I have experience here" space. Easy-peasy. I mean, I already have to turn that kind of thing off for a lot of entertainment anyway.

It amazes me how many problems people imagine for various games - and here we may also include 5e D&D - that are easily fixed with people talking things out as adults.

And that's really an incredibly understated point behind all the discussion of sketched-out settings, now to low myth, "retcons," and quantum geography/forges/lore/etc. The group is more than capable of talking through these issues, and I estimate that most participants are just as committed to consistent and plausible worlds as anyone else at the table or in this thread. IME, players are also highly invested in making sure that the facts of the setting make good sense.

Right. So the GM informed you how they expected the setting to work (and this was relevant to the action declarations) and you agreed to do it in accordance to their view. This is basically what I suggested.

Admittedly in Blades in the Dark, play is described as having a conversation about the fiction. It's something that is essentially being negotiated between the participants. It's important that everyone is on the same page about the fiction so that the stakes are likewise clear. In this case, Ovinomancer embraced the GM's vision, but there are often times when the GM may concede to the players' understanding of the fiction. There may even be reasons for the latter, including the player having a different perspective on the fiction that can potentially produce more interesting dramatic consequences that the GM had not previously considered.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Right. So the GM informed you how they expected the setting to work (and this was relevant to the action declarations) and you agreed to do it in accordance to their view. This is basically what I suggested.

No, actually, and I'm not sure why you've leaped here from what I said. The GM offered to redo the scene after we talked and go in a different direction. I made the choice to stick with the current framing after I had reoriented to trope view.

 

[Manbearcat]

Just popping in here right quick to convey a few things (as I'm the GM @Ovinomancer is referring to):

1) It is EXTRAORDINARILY important that a GM remain humble and NOT be wedded to their situation framing or their setting. The most important aspect of play is that players understand their decision-space and can navigate their move-space so that they know that the gamestate affecting stuff that they're doing now and the gamestate condition downstream of it is all comprehensible and intelligibly related.

2) This is an opportunity to discretize setting from situation. Situation is the parameters of the shared imagined space that table-time is occupying right now. What they are. Their orientation to each other. Our orientation to them. The system's orientation to them.

Setting is (a) the stuff we (the table) know about the greater milieu (what has been established through play) and (b) what emerges out of resolved situations.

The intersection of these two is not always clean. As a result, sometimes situation-framing needs to be "tidied-up" in real time so players can do the stuff I wrote in (1) above.

I'd like to harken back to why I have continuously talked about players and GMs navigating noncombat action adjudication in 5e. Why is it so important that GMs meticulously convey to players that the GM's workspace (for "saying yes", for "saying no", for setting DCs, for rendering consequences/changing gamestate post action resolution) is working off of genre/trope logic vs process sim logic (and if the latter...who is the baseline?..."everyman?"...a "capable adventurer of PC level?")? To avoid what @Ovinomancer is referring to.

Even in a game like Blades (which works overtime to ensure that you don't encounter a framed situation where a player is working in one cognitive workspace while the GM is framing it from another and has a phase of play - Information Gathering - which works to keep all parties on the same page), you can encounter a moment of play where the relationship of GM situation-framing and player orientation to that situation-framing "is on the fritz."

How do you fix it?

Well system can fix it via encoded agenda, principles, and stable play procedures.

But there still might be 1 in 200 situations where things go awry (despite system and table partcipants' best efforts).

So when those outliers occur, be humble, be gracious, and be as charitable and as deferential and as caring (all parties) as you can so things are quickly sorted out. Play now will be better served and play downstream will be better served (because trust and credibility will be reinforced...which goes a hell of a long way!).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Ok. Question: It becomes relevant to know how the laws governing inheritance of noble titles work in a country the characters happen to be in. How is this information provided? Does it matter if this is a historical game set in the real world? A game set in a published world that has plenty of source material? In a world created by the GM?

Does it matter why the question becomes pertinent? What if player declares an action that relies on assumption of the situation that might not be shared by others at the table? Does it matter if there in theory would exist a 'correct' answer to the question? (I.e. the information is available on wikipedia/setting book/setting creator's head etc.)