Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[Fenris-77]

@pemerton - No, my approach isn't typical at all, and I wasn't suggesting that your comments struck me as odd because they didn't describe my game, only because they didn't describe a lot of D&D games.

Outdoor maps and movements rates are to determine how long, on average, it will take to get from A to B. Nothing more, nothing less is inherently specified. What A DM actually does with that can vary quite a bit of course. The standard answer is to roll X number of random wilderness encounters on chart Y based on terrain and duration of travel. Some times it's just to say it takes two week to get there. Sometimes there's a whole spectrum of adventure, possibly even including the throwing of a shoe. Even inside the core rules there are different ways to handle travel and maps, and once you take into account the various 3PP resources for the same there's a pretty wide range. I'd agree that hand waving travel is common of course, but it's not standard. To come back to your question, what are they for, the actual answer is something like whatever you need them for.

As for the quote about my map use, I'll be specific, I was talking about dungeon and location maps there, not country maps for travel. Colouring inside the lines there is just about not ending up with two rooms occupying the same space by mistake. That sounds a lot like your use of Anatolia. Other than that I think I narrate much the same way you do - the map doesn't dictate action declaration other occasionally based on options about direction, or the other barrier type things that would, I think fall under your definition of terrain and architecture. I might have a list of things I can populate a given space with, a list usually generated with evocative description in mind, and I'll have a list of monsters that could appear, possibly a neat custom treasure or two, and maybe some notes about factions if the place is big enough. The bigger the dungeon, the more I'd consider some brief notes about factions and ecology. Those notes aren't generally tied to specific locations on the map though, unless there's an element that calls for a specific treatment, like a dragon in a lair, rather than hanging out in a 10x10 room guarding a cupcake (genre conventions and whatnot). The notes are more like crib notes to expand on as the fiction provides the appropriate space.

And no, that isn't how D&D suggests DMs use dungeon maps, it's far more informed by my running and playing other more fiction forward games. I also don't always do things this way either. If I'm running a module I'll take what it gives me and freelance off that and use the map I'm given. It depends on the game, the process I describe above is for my own stuff.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The information about the guarded gate isn't necessarily all that player-facing, just looking at the gate. It might (in 5E) be difficult at best to tell more than numbers, and numbers alone wouldn't make the gate impassible. I feel as though I've been explicit that the PCs should be able to determine how well the gate is guarded, and how sensitive the BurgerMaster is--otherwise it's a complete "gotcha," and I don't do those. I'll grant that the mechanics of combat are more player-facing than the mechanics of social interactions, but that's not the same thing.

I'm not a huge fan of absolute descriptors, but I don't think that having a gate guarded by a force the PCs cannot defeat or having an NPC with a hard-coded reaction will inevitably be bad; it comes to being sure the PCs have information to make well-thought-out decisions. I think you and I have different positions on this.

Not where it appears you think we do. The last paragraph I largely agree with. The issue might be that I think that if you do the last thing, it needs to be 100% explicitly clear. I cannot foreshadow this and expect the PCs to investigate to find it out. So long as we're in saying things like, "gang, if you insult the Burgomaster, he'll react violently, no matter what. He's deeply unstable and a bit crazy, and this is his representation of that." However, I, and I think others, might not like such explicit statements as part of our game. I don't like them because I'd rather not have such closed avenues. Others might not like them because they are 'unearned' by PC actions. So, as most will play, that kind of explicit statement won't really be something that occurs, instead it'll be softer and greyer and less clear, which leads to the GM thinking they made it clear enough but the players not getting the message and you're right back in gotcha territory, just unintentionally.

In the OP's example, there seemed to be competing contradictory player goals, or the player whose character did the insulting had the goal of disrupting the negotiation attempt. When player goals diverge, especially from character goals, it seems to me as though there's an out-of-game problem among the players.

As to unintentional offense--that doesn't seem likely here, and my comment was a light-hearted spin on the line about diplomacy being the art of not giving unintentional offense (which line is my reason for using a Diplomacy skill to nail an insult).

I'm 100% fine with competing contradictory player goals, so that's not a problem I see. If you're into homogeneous party goals, as I believe you've said you are, then this is definitely an out-of-play issue, not an in-play issue. I can't talk to that, aside from recommending it be dealt with away from table, but I can talk about how a competing goal action declaration can still work in play.

Of course, we don't know the insulting player's goal, we're left to guess. It might very well have been to disrupt the negotiation, but I can see a number of good reasons to do that, depending on what's being negotiated. We don't know that the negotiating players weren't acting unilaterally. So much that we can only guess at in the OP that I'm trying to not to and just present play examples that illustrate my approach that at least start in the same place as the OP's.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure. But to what end? Upthread @Lanefan said it took him little time to come up with that. So what is the contribution to gameplay of setting it all out like that in advance of play?

If it's just for me, it's so I'll have a better chance of coherently remembering what I had in mind when I thought of it.

If it's for someone else, it gives a location-based framework for a DM to build on and with any luck provides some ideas and inspiration as to what said DM might want to do with it.

Let's just go back to the time of day of arrival. In the fiction, there could be any number of reasons why the travel takes + or - N hours. Which means it is no more nor less realistic or verisimilitudinous for the PCs to arrive in the morning, at noon, or in the evening. Yet in much D&D play that is not treated just as a matter of framing. The travel is counted out on maps using miles-per-day charts and no one ever twists an ankle, or has a horse throw a shoe, or otherwise have their travel time be less than near-metrenomic. Why? What is this bringing to the table? Certainly (in my view, at least) not depth or verisimilitude!

When I read the word 'verisimilitude' I parse a combination of 'believability' and 'immersiveness'.

Is it neither realistic nor believable that the PCs be allowed to choose their time of arrival - particularly after the first time? For example, once their intel puts the guildhouse somewhere in or near Cheapside Way they ought to be allowed to say "We'll check it out at mid-day when it'll most likely be busy" or "We'll check it out after dark so we can more easily tell suspicious activity from run-of-the-mill business" or "What's the weather forecast - if high winds or rain or fog are coming we might be able to use that to our advantage" or .....

Far more immersive that they get to plan their own actions than to just be plopped down at the top of the street and told "Here you are".

As for depth: describing a street with a number of diverse (and maybe interesting, who knows?) locations by default gives more depth to the setting than just describing the Curio Shop and bypassing everything else.

For long-range travel: while I do a quick calculation using distance and miles-per-day for how long a trip should take (as in, in my current setting it's six days by foot from Torcha to Karnos; a trip that many a PC has made over the years) I'll always do a single quick roll to see if there's any variance this time - did the group make particularly good time, did they get delayed for some reason, etc. This is far more relevant when the journey is by water, as conditions can be so much more variable and (unless your ship is self-powered somehow) you're largely at their mercy.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm confused. Genre appropriateness has been presented as an input into GM adjudication of action in the sense of if it's not present the GM can fail the declaration without engaging the action. Like, not allowing someone to find a ray gun in the baron's closet, or asking a dragon to give away it's horde. These are not genre appropriate to a 5e game and so the GM can use that heuristic to not consider them and fail them without consideration. You say that genre appropriateness isn't a useful test of action declarations because there's no requirement for the player to adhere to genre in their declarations and beside, the GM can refuse those actions anyway. That seems to miss the point because there wasn't a claim that the player was beholden to genre in action declarations, but that it was a consideration for how the GM would adjudicate that action declaration -- a claim you seem to agree with at least in outcome in that non-appropriate declarations should be made to fail.

I've made that same argument for 2-3 posts now. I think one would be justified in thinking that because you hadn't rejected my argument on those grounds earlier that you implicitly agreed with those premises. That's definitely how your posts read to me and how I took that. I mean afterall, we could have saved countless back and forth posts if you had just led with this.

That said, it's been days and pages later. I don't believe you are summarizing your point fairly or correctly. But it's been days and pages later now and I don't think either of us want to go digging back through the thread to prove that one way or another.

In game, as in with the mechanics, there's nothing about an inappropriate declaration that isn't easily handled by refusing to allow success of the action. This holds across many game systems. Genre appropriateness is a heuristic for the GM to use in adjudicating the action. In a game like 5e, where the GM decides, it's an input to auto-success or failure (ie, if a check is even called for) or to how an ability check is resolved (what ability check, what DC, etc.). Genre-appropriateness needs to guide the narration of the result as well. It's a GM side heuristic for both determining if an action requires adjudication or refusal, and what possible narrations of the outcomes might be.

If all you have meant to say is that player actions will auto fail if not genre appropriate then I agree. I agree with this part of what you said fully. It's just I don't see how that actually ties back into a meaningful way into the discussion we were having about PC actions.

For example, if a 1st level fighter without any assistance or magic, is declared to be jumping to the moon, the GM can choose to refuse this action declaration based on being genre inappropriate.

I don't believe he can - at least not by any rule other than fiat.

The GM might also use the same-heuristic to allow the action, but declare it automatic failure, and narrate a result, like, "you try as hard as you can, but just look silly jumping up and down but only getting a few feet off the ground. In the meantime, you've made a lot of noise and, <clatter> it appears someone or something is coming to investigate. What do you do?"

And that is what happens.

If the GM has some established in the fiction reason to consider the action, then that might control. If the fighter happens to be standing where the GM has revealed that there's an environmental effect that a jumping person will be teleported to the moon, then the adjudication of this action changes. The established fiction has provided a way to avoid genre inappropriateness, and the action is consistent with that established fiction. Viola! The 1st level fighter now 'jumps' to the moon in a way that is both grounded in the fiction and is genre appropriate.

Yep and that's where following from established fiction comes in - which I think is a very good heuristic. I don't believe you can shorten it to following from fiction though as pretty much everything is possible in fiction - as you just illustrated it's fictionally possible in genre appropriate terms for a fighter to jump and end up on the moon. That's why established fiction is soo important there.

 

[Campbell]

I am not speaking for @pemerton here.

@Lanefan

Generally in games with a GM where scene framing is like a thing framing is primarily the responsibility of the GM. The GM/MC is the one that sets the stage for the scene and establishes the initial fictional details. So if the players have their characters travel from one village to another the time it took, what time of day it is when they arrive, who is there to meet them when they arrive is up for the GM to establish.

Players do not generally get to frame scenes.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That said, it's been days and pages later. I don't believe you are summarizing your point fairly or correctly. But it's been days and pages later now and I don't think either of us want to go digging back through the thread to prove that one way or another.

I'm having trouble reading this as anything other than an accusation of dishonesty. Help me out, here.

 

[pemerton]

Is it neither realistic nor believable that the PCs be allowed to choose their time of arrival - particularly after the first time?

I wasn't contemplating "after the first time". But equally your description is not contemplating "after the first time", given that - after the first time - many things could have changed (burned or broken buildings; injured, departed or deceased people; etc - I mean, this whole thing started from a reference to burning down an orphanage).

describing a street with a number of diverse (and maybe interesting, who knows?) locations by default gives more depth to the setting than just describing the Curio Shop and bypassing everything else.

That's like saying that a Lonely Planet guidebook, or a street directory, has more depth than JRRT's description of Minas Tirith. I simply don't accept the proposition.

A simple description of a forlorn face in the window of the curio shop might - depending on context, of course - provide more depth than any amount of description of building layouts and signage.

For example, once their intel puts the guildhouse somewhere in or near Cheapside Way they ought to be allowed to say "We'll check it out at mid-day when it'll most likely be busy" or "We'll check it out after dark so we can more easily tell suspicious activity from run-of-the-mill business" or "What's the weather forecast - if high winds or rain or fog are coming we might be able to use that to our advantage" or .....

Far more immersive that they get to plan their own actions than to just be plopped down at the top of the street and told "Here you are".

Generally in games with a GM where scene framing is like a thing framing is primarily the responsibility of the GM. The GM/MC is the one that sets the stage for the scene and establishes the initial fictional details. So if the players have their characters travel from one village to another the time it took, what time of day it is when they arrive, who is there to meet them when they arrive is up for the GM to establish.

Players do not generally get to frame scenes.

As it happens, this came up in our session yesterday. The PCs led their warband out on a night time raid against a group of Huns. They had their scout, Algol the bloodthirsty, leading the way. I had the player whose PC has Algol as part of his retinue make a Hunting + Presence check against an appropriate difficulty - the check failed.

So I narrated that the group spent most of the night wandering through the hills trying to find the Huns, which eventually they did as the red glow of dawn was just barely visible on the horizon. As a result of spending the night wandering, the PCs and their forces had a one-die penalty to their checks during the ensuing battle.

In system terms, what is happening here is that the players have asked for a scene: We find the Huns during the night. I have decided that there is a risk attached to this, of being tired from staying up all night. So I call for a check (in other systems this might be a check to establish an augment, or avoid a complication - eg in Burning Wheel it might be a linked test). The check fails, and so I frame the desired scene but with an attendant penalty applying to the PCs.

Deciding whether the players should just get the scene they want - We're in Cheapside Way at midday - or whether it should be complicated in some fashion or even outright denied - is an important aspect of GMing. These decisions involve questions of pacing, degree of challenge, what aspects of the fiction and the characters are to be foregrounded (eg in my example the fact that one of the PCs has a hunter and scout in his service becomes foregrounded), etc.

Handling this sort of thing badly - eg go back to @Doug McCrae's description of his game with Gordon - is in my view one major reason for poor RPG experiences.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm having trouble reading this as anything other than an accusation of dishonesty. Help me out, here.

I post 3 full paragraphs in response to you. You then ignore everything else and pick out one sentence. So how about you help me out here, because I'm having trouble reading that as anything other than an accusation that i'm acting in bad faith.

And to answer your question. Suggesting you are mistaken while leaving the door open to being mistaken myself is not the same as suggesting you are dishonest. To me that should have been such an obvious possibility that the most likely cause for your misinterpretation IMO was that you were looking to take offense. Though it's certainty not the only possible cause and so I'm curious what your explanation will be.

So I think we have 2 options. You can take further offense and we can end the conversation. Or we can both apologize for any unintended offense and move on. In fact I'll even go first. I intended no offense and apologize if any was taken.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I post 3 full paragraphs in response to you. You then ignore everything else and pick out one sentence. So how about you help me out here, because I'm having trouble reading that as anything other than an accusation that i'm acting in bad faith.

And to answer your question. Suggesting you are mistaken while leaving the door open to being mistaken myself is not the same as suggesting you are dishonest. To me that should have been such an obvious possibility that the most likely cause for your misinterpretation IMO was that you were looking to take offense. Though it's certainty not the only possible cause and so I'm curious what your explanation will be.

Sigh. I asked. I asked if you could explain that statement in a way that wasn't an accusation of dishonesty. I tried to NOT take offense.

As for the rest of your post, I was not interested in the discussion if you were accusing me of dishonesty, so I tried to resolve that, in a polite way, by asking.

So I think we have 2 options. You can take further offense and we can end the conversation. Or we can both apologize for any unintended offense and move on. In fact I'll even go first. I intended no offense and apologize if any was taken.

I accept your apology.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I've made that same argument for 2-3 posts now. I think one would be justified in thinking that because you hadn't rejected my argument on those grounds earlier that you implicitly agreed with those premises. That's definitely how your posts read to me and how I took that. I mean afterall, we could have saved countless back and forth posts if you had just led with this.

No, silence on message boards is not consent or agreement. There's any number of reasons I may not have responded to you, and silent assent should not be your default assumption. The first time I realized what had happens was the same post you made things personal by attacking me instead of discussing my argument. I put you on 'scroll snooze' and didn't read your posts for a few days. As I do, I will usually look against after a few days and see if I think it's worth re-engaging. Here we are.

If you want to assume that lack of response is agreement with your arguments from other posters, go ahead. You should never assume that about me.

That said, it's been days and pages later. I don't believe you are summarizing your point fairly or correctly. But it's been days and pages later now and I don't think either of us want to go digging back through the thread to prove that one way or another.

I am summarizing my point fairly and correctly because my point hasn't changed. It's the same point I've made in many other threads. I have no reason to obfuscate it in any way. I'd actually strongly recommend that you do go back and check before you suggest I'm mistaken or in error about my own arguments -- not a good look.

If all you have meant to say is that player actions will auto fail if not genre appropriate then I agree. I agree with this part of what you said fully. It's just I don't see how that actually ties back into a meaningful way into the discussion we were having about PC actions.

No, I'm saying I, as GM, can refuse to adjudicate the action at all. There are any number of action statements that are genre inappropriate that I wouldn't even countenance, much less adjudicate. There are many that I would. Without a specific statement and situation, I'm not going to say one way or the other and keep both options open.

I don't believe he can - at least not by any rule other than fiat.

Would I similarly have to adjudicate a cheated roll? Or a dishonest modifier added by a player? A genre inappropriate action can rise to the level of bad play and shouldn't be treated as a valid input to the game as a whole. I don't need a rule in the game to decide this or we need to talk about how GMs must honor cheating because there's no rule specifically to deal with that outside of fiat. If an action rises to the level of being outside the game, I don't have to use game rules to deal with that -- I can just say, "no, do we need to discuss this or are you going to engage the game?"

If it's not at that level, then, sure, adjudicate it if you want.

And that is what happens.

If the GM chooses so.

Yep and that's where following from established fiction comes in - which I think is a very good heuristic. I don't believe you can shorten it to following from fiction though as pretty much everything is possible in fiction - as you just illustrated it's fictionally possible in genre appropriate terms for a fighter to jump and end up on the moon. That's why established fiction is soo important there.

I'm very confident that I've only ever said, "follow the fiction." Following fiction seems like nonsense to me, so I wouldn't have said that outside of an unfortunate typo. Following the fiction, refers to a specific fiction. My mistake in assuming it would be obvious that it was the fiction created in the game. I didn't think that it would be taken as refering to any fiction, as that doesn't seem a logical argument at all (as you note). Now that I do know that some will miss the definite article or not grasp it's intent, I'll make sure to sprinkle in 'follow the established fiction.' I am glad that this formulation let you understand my point.