NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8443034" data-attributes="member: 6696971">A game that is extremely driftable (like 5e) is prone to mid-session incoherency of table expectations.  Consequently, it is MORE imperative in such a game that what is happening is table-facing.My advice to GMs and players who are running 5e would be to always keep the meta-conversation open.* If the players are expecting skilled play to govern whether they can woo an NPC (eg the Social Interaction mechanics of 5e is basically a game of Charades + Wheel of Fortune) and the GM's unrevealed backstory makes it impossible for the PCs + the GM hasn't made a sufficiently telegraphed soft move as to why this NPC is not wooable......Houston...we have a problem.* If the players are expecting Genre Logic + Intent and Task resolution + Fail Forward to govern action resolution and the GM is all..."nah, process simulation where failure is (a) task-driven and (b) hard failure..."...Houston...we have a problem.* If the player is expecting Story Now priorities to govern the deployment of a Background Trait (they're the player deploying their dramatic need driven fiat that is embedded into their character build and now the gamestate says <whatever is inherent to the trait> and the GM has to honor that and evolve the fiction accordingly...except the GM is all "nah, unrevealed backstory says this Trait doesn't work now" or "nah, I don't like how this perturbs my metaplot or the AP's metaplot..."...Houston...we have a problem.* If the players are expecting that skilled play governs if a Long Rest has been earned and thusly the gamestate going into the BBEG showdown should be <group is fully recharged> and the GM is all "nah, I don't like the way that screws up the drama of the BBEG fight" or "nah, unrevealed backstory (that wasn't sufficiently telegraphed with a soft move where players could draw the inference says this BBEG has a contingency plan that says x bad thing happens that offsets the players new fully-charged status..."...Houston...we have a problem.[HR][/HR]There are dozens and dozens of varying instantiations of the above lurking in any given 5e game if the metachannel isn't open.  You can't just drift from Vanilla Story Now to GM Force to Skilled Play to Process Simulation over Genre Logic to arbitrary Hard Fail vs Fail Forward to GM/AP Story Hour etc. If you (the GM) just arbitrarily (meaning the system gives neither structure nor overt, principled constraint on GM drifting play) drift play AND its not a table full of Participationists (players just happy to be there and let the GM control the trajectory of play as they passively consume the story/tour the setting)......be prepared for hard feelings and problems.Hence, keep the metachannel open (eg overtly and unmistakably signal this drift in some way).</blockquote>

Verification