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

[hawkeyefan]

This is an example designed to demonstrate what you are trying to prove though. Most NPCs aren't going to be this pre-loaded for a particular scenario (i.e. send the PCs on an assassination mission, and have the victim be related to a very vengeful king). Now I don't have a problem with this sort of thing being in the setting, but I think that most interactions with NPCs are much more involved than you killing their daughter and them being vengeful. Also if the PCs decide not to do the Assassination or learn more about the victim, this stuff probably doesn't even happen. So even if these pieces are all set to explode in a particular direction, in a sandbox the PCs can still always say, naughty word this guy who wants us to kill the kings' daughter, let's go see if there are any emerald mines in the west.

The scenario is not one designed to prove my point. As I said, it was posed by @thefutilist not far upthread. I just used that.

If the elements of the setting that the GM has created have been detailed enough that they can function as a “machine running on their own”, then I’d expect them to be pretty detailed. If they’re detailed that much, the GM will have a good idea how they’ll respond to different PC actions.

Would you agree with that, or no?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The same can be said for implications that Narrativist play is not meaningful. Personal stakes, finding out who the character are under pressure and emotional heft are the central emphasis. Telling someone striving for narrativist play their play is not meaningful is about the worst thing you can say about their play.

The meaningful thing was I believe in relation to the result being determined by a die roll rather than free roleplay. Also not me, for the record.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What the GMs are saying is that there will be at least a somewhat logical chain of events that should naturally happen after a major event happens, and that not following that chain of events wouldn't work.

And do you expect most events would yield only one possible result such that anything else would be illogical?

Or do you think that most events would be likely to yield several potential outcomes?

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, I find the idea that plate tectonics and wind currents are important for designing a fantasy setting a bit odd.

Because if you want a world to be as realistic as possible, you want to know where the trade winds are, because that will determine which cities will be the most prominent or at least conduct the most trade. If you know where the plates are, you know where you will find volcanoes, mountain and island chains, earthquake zones, and more. That will then shape the location of the forests, deserts, and plains around them, along with the flow of rivers and where other bodies of water are (which, in turn, will reveal the location of other biomes).

You seem to like Tolkien, seeing as how you just said you used characters from the Silmarillion as inspiration for one of your PCs. He was quite famous for the enormous amount of time and effort he spent on conlangs. Is that more important or useful than figuring out your world's centers of trade or basic geography, less important, or equally important?

 

[robertsconley]

The scenario is not one designed to prove my point. As I said, it was posed by @thefutilist not far upthread. I just used that.

If the elements of the setting that the GM has created have been detailed enough that they can function as a “machine running on their own”, then I’d expect them to be pretty detailed. If they’re detailed that much, the GM will have a good idea how they’ll respond to different PC actions.

The actions of the PCs have when they roleplay are too numerous. As a result the referee doesn’t have level of certainty about outcomes you think they have in a sandbox campaign.

 

[thefutilist]

This is an example designed to demonstrate what you are trying to prove though.

No it's a bit of a Rorschach test.


My answer is that the Emperor falls into despair, doesn't get vengeance and neglects running his Empire. What's the point of all this stuff if what you most love can just get taken away like that? It's true that he responds to slights with violence but that's because they're an attack on his ego. His relationship with his daughter was the one thing not ego driven. Yeah his ego got him his Empire but so what.

Why do I think that? It's just what feels right, other people are going to come to very different answers. I think even with a lot more background and description of his personality people will come up with different answers.

I don't care at all about player agency or whether things are GM or player driven though. What's important to me is that the other participants know I made the decision simply because it felt right given what had just occurred.

 

[pemerton]

No, I’m considering player actions.

<snip>

Yes, the players acted and it is significant, and the GM is considering that. But so many other factors being considered don’t come from the players… they come from the GM.

So when we see how the GM decides, given that he’s determined nearly all the things that matter, I think it’s silly to diminish the role the GM is playing in all this.

Here's my take, by way of an illustrative story of course!

Suppose that I walk up to you and insult you. I prompt you to action. Maybe you laugh and walk away. Maybe you abuse me. Maybe you punch me. Maybe you take pity on me.

It seems fair to say that I have no complaint that you respond - I've provoked you, after all. Perhaps some responses - punching - are out of bounds for broader social/legal/etc reasons. But I can't reasonably expect you to remain inert in response to my provocation.

Nevertheless, you are the author of your response. There's no particular thing that I made you do.

Turning from the story to RPGing:

When the players declare actions, the GM has to respond. That's not in doubt, I think.

If the GM hasn't got a planned response, then they have to come up with something. Their are all sorts of ways they can do that. But the fact that it wasn't planned, and likewise the fact that the GM didn't even anticipate the prompt, doesn't change the fact that it is the GM who is authoring whatever it is that they come up with.

What is interesting is to look at the principles, heuristic, rules, expectations, formal and informal norms, etc that guide and govern the GM as they make a decision. Depending on what those are, the one who prompts the GM's response may exercise more or less control over things.

To go back to my story: if I know that you are a violent person with a hair trigger person, and I want to get you in trouble, then maybe I insult you so that you will throw a punch, so that I can then have you arrested for assault. You're still the author of your action; but I've played you, manipulated you, goaded you.

In ordinary interpersonal relations that sort of manipulation is often unpleasant (not always, though - when I extend my hand to you, thereby and knowingly prompting you to shake my hand, that may just be common courtesy). But in game play it's how we make things go - for instance, in a RPG the GM describes something to the players in order to prompt them to declare actions for their PCs.

I see the relationship between player agency and the GM's control over play in the terms I've set out. If the players know how the GM will exercise their authority, and can use that knowledge to prompt certain responses, they are exercising agency. If they don't, then they are exercising considerably less agency - they are prompting the GM to respond, sure, but in a rather blind way. They don't know what they're going to get in response.

 

[robertsconley]

Why do I think that? It's just what feels right, other people are going to come to very different answers. I think even with a lot more background and description of his personality people will come up with different answers.

Which is why I assign odds and roll half the time.Why not all the time? Because dice are idiots and roll enough times on a random table you will either get nonsense result or another kind of repetition. So the balance is to mix periodic judgment calls with periodic rolls.

Anyway your decision on the emperor looks reasonable and plausible given the circumstances. More information would be helpful of course but based on what provided and how people are known to react it looks good to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Whether or not something is a model isn't a matter of preference. It's about the role it plays in a reasoning process.
If I told you that my campaign gets at the truth because I gut birds and read their entrails, would you just nod along and say "it's all preferences"?

If it's a hard definition, why did you suggest that those with a different opinion "have a lower bar" than you? That suggests different standards for something you just said only had one.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The actions of the PCs have when they roleplay are too numerous. As a result the referee doesn’t have level of certainty about outcomes you think they have in a sandbox campaign.

We’re talking about extrapolation. There’s a starting point, which includes many relevant factors. A king, his disposition, his goals, his bond with his daughter, his enemies. All determined by the GM.

The PCs then do something.

The GM then decides what happens afterward, based on the PCs’ action, along with all the other things that the GM determined.

It’s a significant amount of influence over things, even accounting for the uncertainty of the players’ decisions.

This is not a bad thing, by the way.