D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[zakael19]

Likewise here. Fronts and threats = situations. Common English here. These are situations that the GM preps.

While I can see where you’re coming from, I think that there might be a distinction between a Front/Threat and at least what I think of when I see advice like “prep situations not plots?” The former is a fictional chain of badness, and once written down the principle of “always say what your prep demands” is really “don’t you effing dare pull your punches.”

If you wrote down “Baz’s crew infiltrate town -> the crew roughs people up to figure out wheee the water plant is -> they assault the water plant -> smash it ALL” or some such, each one of those might create situations or places for the characters to intervene or take action. Or maybe they don’t, and you follow through.

And maybe modern situation advice takes inspiration from that sort of thing and I just haven’t read it in detail, but I tend to see or think of it as “stuff for the players to do/explore” vs “stuff to actively impose upon what they care about” if that makes any sense?

 

[Emerikol]

Well, lets put it this way. If one claims to be offended and demands that others change their behavior, one must be willing to do the same. If instead one dismisses such complaints then one is committing the same behavior which one accuses others. One might then fairly be considered inconsistent, and perhaps other things. However, I don't really think it is worth dragging such things out here when the averred slights seem so trivial.

Wow you've hit my approach dead on...I don't care if others are offended and I don't care if they write something offensive. Especially about a game. Maybe I'd care more if it was something important.

 

[FrogReaver]

I answered it several time. Quantum for the DM before the players encounter it =/= quantum for the players hitting a random encounter because someone failed a knowledge engineering check.

Those are two different things.

Not by D&D RAW there's not. Both use the same tools in the same amount of time and neither of them is louder than the other. So the skilled PC shouldn't be avoiding the cook at any greater rate than the unskilled PC.

I often know several days(in-fiction days) in advance, which usually equates to at least one session ahead of where we are now. So I have to do it during the week before the next session. Even if I don't and I'm rolling it during the session, I still roll it before they get to that point. I'm never like, hey, let's see if something wanders into you guys now.

I mean, nobody has argued that for several hundred pages. Very quickly we acknowledged that both were quantum, but quantum for the DM is different than quantum for the players.

I think that us having said that what the DM does being quantum, but not the same as the players, several hundred pages ago is a pretty compelling argument in our favor that we are not saying yours is, but ours isn't.

Repeatedly getting something wrong over and over and over when it has been said that it's something different, and shown that it's something different, directly to him multiple times, eventually makes it seem like it's deliberate.

By quantum do you mean the roll fixes not just the present situation but also the past situation?

Like I don’t view an attack roll as the same because it only effects the present.

I’m sure there’s more as well, but this might be a good starting point.

 

[thefutilist]

While I can see where you’re coming from, I think that there might be a distinction between a Front/Threat and at least what I think of when I see advice like “prep situations not plots?” The former is a fictional chain of badness, and once written down the principle of “always say what your prep demands” is really “don’t you effing dare pull your punches.”

If you wrote down “Baz’s crew infiltrate town -> the crew roughs people up to figure out wheee the water plant is -> they assault the water plant -> smash it ALL” or some such, each one of those might create situations or places for the characters to intervene or take action. Or maybe they don’t, and you follow through.

And maybe modern situation advice takes inspiration from that sort of thing and I just haven’t read it in detail, but I tend to see or think of it as “stuff for the players to do/explore” vs “stuff to actively impose upon what they care about” if that makes any sense?

To create a story through resolution of a situation you need characters with conflicting wants and ethos. You put the characters together in scenes and see if things change between them and how.


This is the situation in the last game I played in.



There is a plague devastating the land of Anonia and…

King Mirthius does nothing. He is in deep in grief from the hunting death of his oldest son and heir to the Kingdom. He has become withdrawn and listens only to the portents of the sage who predicted his Sons death, the portents he ignored, the portents of…

Leotrix, a charlatan who struck it big. Masquerading as a sage he now has the kings ear and a life of luxury, but he fears his ruse won’t last long and is looking for an escape. He knows that people have suspicions about him and one of those people is…

Samantha, head of the Kings guard. At a loss of what to do about the plague she is thinking of taking matters into her own hands. She just needs to show that Leotrix is a fraud. And as if that wasn’t enough, one of the newest recruits to the Guard…

Theodore, an eager and straightforward youth, is sleeping with…

Princess Yasmina, deeply in love with Theodore but how can she marry him when whoever has her hand will become the heir to the kingdom, one such suitor is…

Paulus, a noble of high renown. He seeks Yasminas hand in marriage, ostensibly for all the reasons the son of a powerful lord should, but in actuality because he is a servant of….

Sierra, a worshipper of the malevolent god Thrak’ulsus. She seeks to spread the gospel of her god, build a great temple to his glory, and rain down ruin upon those who stood by while she was wronged. To do this she first manipulated…

Thomas, the Noble lord and father of Paulus. He has arrived at the royal palace to seek favour for his son, although at the moment he is in the throne room watching…

Renald, the court jester, a confidante of Yasmina, he seeks to move on from being a fool and become a poet, he has been called to perform this very day and decided that rather than prat falls he will give the audience the gift of song….


----

I've thrown away my notes for this but a quick over view of the first few scenes is as follows:

Scene one: the throne room: all 9 members of the cast are there as the King attends to business. The issue of the plague is brought up and the King consults Leotrix who says that the gods will stop the plague if a great festival is thrown. When talk of an heir comes up he says he is tired and leaves.

Scene two: Theo and Yasmina are in the gardens and she asks him to forget his duties and attend to her. Theo tells her that he won’t do this and being a kings guard is a serious business.

Scene three: Samantha speaks privately with the king and tells him point blank he has to do something about the plague. The king says he will not ignore the portents of Leotrix.

Scene four: Thomas frets about whether Yasmina and Paulus will marry. Sierra tells him he must get Leotrix on their side, using whatever means he feels are necessary.

Scene five: Renald is disappointed the King left before he got a chance to play. Yasmina says she will arrange it so he gets to play at the height of the festival before all the nobility.

Scene six: Samantha goes behind the Kings back, into the city, and starts ordering the plague doctors and wardens to demarcate stuff (basically deal with the plague)

Scene seven: Paulus and Thomas discuss what to do about Leotrix.

Scene eight: Paulus and Thomas basically ambush Leotrix in his room. Call him a fraud, which he denies. Intimidate him a bit, he breaks. They make a deal that they’ll pay him very well and create a way out for him to go and live a life of luxury elsewhere. He just has to say some things to the King.



Overall it was about 70 scenes over two sessions. Some stuff that happened, Theodore gets murdered by a demon summoned by Sierra. Samantha deals with the plague and arrests Paulus and Thomas. Sierra flees. Samantha has saved the day but is exiled because she disobeyed the Kings orders, she goes off to who knows where with Renald (now a poet), hoping to document her deeds. Yasmina and Mirthius, both wrecked by guilt have a huge argument where they accuse the other of putting their emotions above the good of the kingdom. They both accept they're doing that and decide to get on with it.

 

[FrogReaver]

There is a "diegetic" reason: it's a kitchen, it has a cook in it, the cook is startled by a burglar.

At 2am having a cook in the kitchen wouldn’t be diegetic. But we’ve covered that before. Only certain cook scenarios aren’t diegetic. These surprisingly line up fairly well with what actions the GM and player principles of narrativist games allow vs rule out. It’s why so much posting centered on the cook example being flawed.

Maybe I should take a step back and confirm. I am right that cook in the kitchen at 2am is viewed as a flawed example by you because it’s not a complication that would typically happen in narrativist games implementing fail forward or success with complication?

That's as "diegetic" as the reason for saying "There's a dragon in this hex because I rolled a 6 on the encounter die."

I think that depends a lot more on the amount of detail given for each scenario. There’s some variations of dragon in this hex because of a low roll that likely corresponds to the cook in the kitchen at 2am. I would expect though haven’t confirmed that such scenarios would cause similar dislike.

And theres also the additional difference around what the roll is described as representing, which I think is the bigger concern, or at least it is for me.

 

[el-remmen]

deciding what to cook

for some reason decided to talk to the cook

die to see if the cook is in the kitchen

Is this a “quantum cook”?

That cook will absolutely not be

they'll encounter the cook there instead

gets a cook

The cook example is representative

requires a cook. And cooking fuel

the cook isn't rolled on a wandering monster table

SCHRODINGER’S D&D COOK!

the cook was always there

the detailed nighttime behaviors of random cooks

the cook opens the door

the cook behind the locked door

adding a cook

The cook was probably hiding in the long grass.

the success was no cook

the general notion of cooks

the cook comes

Remember, the cook

You can put the cook there

A cook is implicit

a cook is unrelated

the cook isn't there

how cooks

a cook in the kitchen in the middle of the night

the cook becomes a distinct person

Monte Cooke

 

[Emerikol]

At 2am having a cook in the kitchen wouldn’t be diegetic. But we’ve covered that before. Only certain cook scenarios aren’t diegetic. These surprisingly line up fairly well with what actions the GM and player principles of narrativist games allow vs rule out. It’s why so much posting centered on the cook example being flawed.

Maybe I should take a step back and confirm. I am right that cook in the kitchen at 2am is viewed as a flawed example by you because it’s not a complication that would typically happen in narrativist games implementing fail forward or success with complication?



I think that depends a lot more on the amount of detail given for each scenario. There’s some variations of dragon in this hex because of a low roll that likely corresponds to the cook in the kitchen at 2am. I would expect though haven’t confirmed that such scenarios would cause similar dislike.

And theres also the additional difference around what the roll is described as representing, which I think is the bigger concern, or at least it is for me.

While I probably am sympathetic to your viewpoint, if you are saying having a cook in the kitchen in the middle of the night is implausible, let me say there are midnight snackers who end up in the kitchen all the time. So it's not that implausible.

 

[FrogReaver]

While I probably am sympathetic to your viewpoint, if you are saying having a cook in the kitchen in the middle of the night is implausible, let me say there are midnight snackers who end up in the kitchen all the time. So it's not that implausible.

I mean that you are justifying it by saying the cook might be a midnight shaker shows its relative implausibility.

 

[Emerikol]

I mean that you are justifying it by saying the cook might be a midnight shaker shows its relative implausibility.

How probably does it have to be? If I were reading a book or watching a movie, and the cook was in the kitchen late I wouldn't say this is a verisimilitude buster. Even if it happens one night a week it happens.

 

[clearstream]

What Harper says only establishes an "ought" on the premise that it is accepted as true. It's not self-grouding.

Furthermore, as I've already pointed out in this thread, reading that passage of Harper's in disregard of the rest of what he says, and of the AW rulebook, is leading some posters into dogmatic assertions that are not true of Apocalypse World.

As one example, the psychic maelstrom - p 113 of the AW rulebook says that:

It’s especially important to ask, the first time each character opens her brain to the world’s psychic maelstrom, what that’s​

like for her.​

This feeds into an important point. Harper (together with Vincent Baker) is well aware of the tension between X is in charge of the world and Y is in charge of Z's thoughts, beliefs and memories of the world, given that veridical beliefs and memories imply truths about things other than the person whose memories they are.

Harper gives this example, and explains how it works within the Apocalypse World framework:

Sometimes, the players say things that get very close to the line. Usually this happens when the MC asks a leading question.​

​

MC: "Nero, what do the slave traders use for barter?"​

Player: "Oh man, those fuckers? They use human ears."​

​

That's a case of the player authoring part of the world outside their character, however -- and this is critical -- they do it from within their character's experience and frame of reference. When Nero answers that question, he's telling something he knows about the world.​

So it's actually not as simple as saying "The GM is in charge of the world". Rather, the GM gets to decide when to bring in player contributions (by asking questions) and gets to decide how to bring in player contributions (by asking about PC knowledge, experience, etc). This is consistent with what is said on p 109 of the rulebook:

The players’ job is to say what their characters say and undertake to do, first and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions about their characters’ lives and surroundings.​

This shows how overly simplistic it is for someone to say that, in AW, "The GM is in charge of the world". And it's doubly simplistic, and absurd, to use that sort of wording to beat other posters over the head for playing RPGs which don't grant the GM exclusive authority over backstory.

Thank you for a helpful discussion of something I agree with, but as for my post you've misconstrued from the outset. I included the quote only because those precise words described a distinction I wanted readers to have in mind. Not in order to claim anything at all about AW! I thought the rest of my post made clear what I was focused on (which again, for emphasis was not about any sort of analysis of AW.)

In hindsight what I wanted to say would likely have been more easily understood by you if I'd cited text related to a traditional game. To get on the same page therefore, do you accept that there are indeed groups who embark on RPG play with in mind that GM controls world while players control characters?

Or am I misreading you and what you mean to deny is the claim altogether? That is, you believe no groups in any mode of RPG play make the distinction Harper neatly summarized in the precise words I quoted?


EDIT Also, "beat other posters over the head"!? My post wasn't focused on those who play "RPGs which don't grant the GM exclusive authority over backstory". It was about why other folk might draw distinctions that are given form by their commitments. @EzekielRaiden, @hawkeyefan and @Old Fezziwig for vis.