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

[Bedrockgames]

Yes that is how it works.

A - "Everything" is GM decides
B - Not really I use tables
A - Yes but you created those tables therefore GM decides.
B - These tables are extensive, 2 pages deep

The point about tables is because you are putting disparate elements on them and rolling randomly, it isn't like the GM engineering a scenario. It tends to produce unexpected results and things the GM has to fit to that moment (and some tables require to roll on multiple tiers and combine things). Just because the GM made the initial entries, I would still say that is miles away from the GM creating a planned encounter

The problem with ' everything is GM decides' is it glosses over all the other things going on and reduces all trad play to the power of the GM. The GM's ability to provide setting response to players actions is important, but so are the player's actions. So are tables (and people can characterize these as GM decides because the GM built the tables, but that overlooks that a table is effectively a system that provides randomness in play, not something built on the GM deciding what he or she wants to happen in that moment (otherwise the GM would just choose the encounter rather than roll on the table).

And like everything I prep doesn't always see the light of day. PCs aren't forced to engage.

Sure this happens across styles and structures, you just have to accept you will eat more prep in a sandbox because that is the arrangement you are offering.

And I don't force them to engage.
However because they didn't engage with my prep I will GM decides a further move which works for my Living World.
Again ofc they are not forced to engage...

I think characterizing it as a move feels off to me. But as long as what the GM is introducing is a proper reaction to what the players are trying to do, I think you are honoring their agency and you aren't just in a game where the GM is simply deciding things.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So they forced him to do it against his will? Or he chose to do it himself because of the self-imposed constraint of "I want to satisfy my players?"

I don’t know, Max… read his account and decide for yourself.

I read it, and I know how I view it.

 

[JConstantine]

a lot of the like high level objectives & outcomes have struck me as similar.

We're in agreement here. There's differences, of course, but I see so much overlap that I'm genuinely bewildered by suggestions to the contrary.

 

[JConstantine]

I think characterizing it as a move feels off to me. But as long as what the GM is introducing is a proper reaction to what the players are trying to do, I think you are honoring their agency and you aren't just in a game where the GM is simply deciding things.

That terminology is certainly one of the contributing factors to people claiming PbtA feels restrictive or boardgamey. John Harper rephrases "Soft Moves" and "Hard Moves" as "set-up/telegraph" and "follow through", which I think does a better job of capturing the intent.

 

[Gimby]

This is the sort of thing I'd put cleanly in "rules" or "system" instead of GM guideline. The expectation the players have (not unreasonably) is that they should be able to express agency before consequence pins them down entirely. It shouldn't be incumbent on the GM to redesign the game on the fly to meet that expectation, and/or it should be clear upfront that this is a possible or even likely outcome.

It's frustrating to me that we have to have these discussions about the role of the GM and so on, when we could be focusing in on how crits are largely a bad mechanic that mostly serve to hurt players. I'm aesthetically opposed to PC specific interaction mechanics, but if I was going to make an exception, crits would be a great call, seeing as team NPC will always be making more rolls than team PC. At the very least, someone like 3e's critical confirmation roll would help.

More broadly though, this is exactly the kind of problem that comes with conflating the GM's responsibilities for setting creation and curation and NPC motivation with system design. If the players can't trust the resolution mechanics to produce desirable outcomes or even predictable ones, they expect the GM to redesign it on the fly to meet those expectations, GMs then expect the resolution systems not to work and change them regularly, and designers stop trying to make systems that work without being regularly changed. We end up in a horrible cycle that prevents the resolution mechanics ever getting better.

I'd largely agree with this - consider if you'd been running this in, say, WFRP, @Enrahim. In this case the rules of the game provide for the players to explicitly call out (through the Fate Point mechanic) that they don't want their characters to be killed by random crits. So rather than an invisible rulebook of the assumed social contract, we've got explicit rules that limit the chances for the GM (or indeed the players) to end up in this situation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Far enough. Definitely not the way I prefer to play, but each to their own.

Which of those things do you prefer to have in your gaming? None of the styles I listed seem all that strange for a trad-leaning GM to dislike.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yikes.

And in making that "unilateral and egotistical" decision you also absolutely 100% made the right call.

If the "implied social contract" has got to the point where players' characters can't be killed now and then by bad luck (or in broader terms, that bad luck can't force a loss condition) it's a sad day for all of us.

And if the players argue with your call, flip it around and ask if you're supposed to honour their rolls if-when they one-shot your BBEG. Then tell 'em the same principle works both ways, and rest your case.

I think you may have misread his post. He changed his decision so that the PC was not killed by the critical hit.

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t know, Max… read his account and decide for yourself.

I read it, and I know how I view it.

If you link the post, I will. Short of them forcing him to act that way, I don't see how it can be a player imposed constraint, though.

 

[Enrahim]

I'd largely agree with this - consider if you'd been running this in, say, WFRP, @Enrahim. In this case the rules of the game provide for the players to explicitly call out (through the Fate Point mechanic) that they don't want their characters to be killed by random crits. So rather than an invisible rulebook of the assumed social contract, we've got explicit rules that limit the changes for the GM (or indeed the players) to end up in this situation.

Yes, this is the common response. If the system produces situations that are so flawed two completely different groups look at the situation and everyone (including me) agrees this is just plain uncool, then the problem is the system, and you are better off playing something different.

There are merit to this argument, but I think it is too simple. To take another example of the extreme: If you have a system that is great 99% of the time, but produces an incident once every 50 sessions that is completely beyond reason. Are the group better off transition to a game that is good (but not great) 100% of the time, or introduce a system allowing for in play identification and elimination of the problem incidents?

It would be no surprise if the first roleplaying games ever produced contains severe issues if played completely orthodoxily. However the "error correcting" mechanism of the GM role as game designer is so strong that even in the face of games designed based on decades of learnings regarding what works and not - those old games with an actively meddling unorthodox GM provides an experience quite a few prefer over following a well designed modern game by the books.

Indeed this is a lot of the big controversy this conversation revolves around - has modern games managed to evolve to the point where they have become so strong that in session GM meddling is more likely to reduce the quality of the experience than improve it? And is this even a worthy design goal, or is actually designs more actively leaning into the concept of a strongly empowered GM a path that is leading to a better experience? After all actively avoiding a tool that has shown strong value in the past might seem quite counter intuitive.

 

[Faolyn]

Which of those things do you prefer to have in your gaming? None of the styles I listed seem all that strange for a trad-leaning GM to dislike.

Pretty much all of them.

I don’t think I count as fully trad. I do prefer narrative games and use narrative elements even in trad games. I just see no reason to limit how I run a game based on what category other people think the game belongs to. If the rules in a game I want to play are dumb, obnoxious, or outright bad, I ignore or change them or I toss the game entirely, but I haven’t found any GM- restraining rules to be bad like that so far, at least not in games I own (as you probably remember from earlier in the thread, I found plenty of bad ones in a game I don’t own).

To me, yes, there’s a bigger world out there, there’s all sorts of things out there that don’t care about the players’ actions, but this is the story about the PCs. I have no problems with the players influencing the world because I, like everyone else, have preferences about the way the setting works, but I also would end up finding it very boring if that was all that there is. I like having other people’s input. It makes the world feel more real to me.

And since this is the PCs’ story, they get a say in it. Their beliefs, goals, and fears are what drive them to act, and thus are important, even if the character sheet doesn’t have a section in which to write them down.