RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[Pedantic]

In my experience, the need to revisit and reevaluate the negotiations happens quite a bit during play. Reminding another participant of a relevant ability or situation, or clarifying position or situation so that everyone is on the same page.

To my mind, all of this is clearly negotiation. It’s discussion aimed at making sure all are in agreement.

I would describe that as a quite radical conception of negotiation. Failure to follow the rules in most games is regarded as either cheating or error, depending on the situation, and what you're describing above is tactical or strategic discussion (or possibly quarterbacking, depending how everyone feels about it and how well received it is). Negotiation requires the situation exist outside the rules, or not be determined until the two players reach an agreement. If an outside party with perfect knowledge of the rules could have taken the actions of those players and reached a conclusion about what happens next, then there is no negotiation happening.

The unique (and imagination driven) aspect of TTRPGs is that the board or game state doesn't exist in objectively verifiable form that can be referenced by all the participants. The traditional conception is that one party (the GM) is responsible for maintaining that board state, and thus can be queried for clarification about it if it's unclear to the players. It's obvious that such a system is imperfect and might lead to confusion, but it's very much rounding up to push that to negotiation. Surely negotiation might occur, but it's not the intention nor the point of process, and privileging it as the primary rules interaction changes the experience. Less charitably, it also leads to a reductive analysis that underlies so much of this; the GM maintaining the board state doing so imperfectly can lead to the same result as the GM determining the board state moment to moment, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Okay, so really instead of GM says, it sounds more like of a mix of GM input and player input. Which to me, means there’s negotiating going on.

It's how the shared fiction is established.

I mean I still wouldn't call players saying what their characters do and then the game following that "a negotiation", but whatever.

Right. But when someone says “besides the actions of their characters, how do players have input on play” it’s a bit odd to keep saying “through the actions of their characters”.

But also if one is interested in players being able to affect the course of the game, it is weird to omit the most important and impactful way they can do it.

I’m talking specifically about players. Can the players craft a background detail during character creation (or even after) that obligates the GM to include it?

I certainly have incorporated things from characters' backgrounds to the events of the game. I wouldn't say I'm "obligated" to do so, but it generally seems like good practice. Now generally I'd prefer such background stuff to be established before the game starts, but sometimes it might be necessary to elaborate on some stuff later on.

Can the players say “this seafaring stuff isn’t really doing it for me… can we put into port and try and establish a thieves’ guild?”

Why wouldn't the player just act this desire trough their character? Get to the shore and start establishing a thieves' guild. These certainly are things a character can attempt to do.

Or maybe “I’d really like to use the domain stuff from Strongholds and Followers… can we incorporate those items?”

Possibly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Why wouldn't the player just act this desire trough their character? Get to the shore and start establishing a thieves' guild. These certainly are things a character can attempt to do.

I suspect some of the question is whether they'd be "permitted" to do so; if the campaign was ship-centric, in some games doing that would be considered bad form at best.

(A possibly relevant side story: I ran a campaign for a the one of my two groups of players a few years back in the Morrow Project setting, but using another system. The Morrow Project is a mix of wandering around in the post-apocalyptic America and, essentially, helping people get on their feet, dealing with problem issues along the way. The default is to be focused more on the latter than the former (which is most primarily a job for specialty teams than the generic ones) At one point the players started to lean into former more than the latter, and I was pretty blunt that they really should have told me if they wanted to focus on that at the start of the campaign so A) They had a proper team/character group for the job and B) I'd have used a system that gave me more tools for the job to run it in that area. I wouldn't have actively forced them to do otherwise, but I did discourage it because there was going to be a lot of using a wrench for a hammer both in terms of the character group (the driver and the combat specialist were going to spend a lot of time twiddling their thumbs for example) and system (I was going to have to cobble together a lot of rules to handle what they were trying to do in relatively short order and not have a lot of time to think them through). This was all the more ironic since they'd avoided a different campaign that would have been more focused on that sort of thing from the get-go).

 

[hawkeyefan]

I would describe that as a quite radical conception of negotiation. Failure to follow the rules in most games is regarded as either cheating or error, depending on the situation, and what you're describing above is tactical or strategic discussion (or possibly quarterbacking, depending how everyone feels about it and how well received it is). Negotiation requires the situation exist outside the rules, or not be determined until the two players reach an agreement. If an outside party with perfect knowledge of the rules could have taken the actions of those players and reached a conclusion about what happens next, then there is no negotiation happening.

The unique (and imagination driven) aspect of TTRPGs is that the board or game state doesn't exist in objectively verifiable form that can be referenced by all the participants. The traditional conception is that one party (the GM) is responsible for maintaining that board state, and thus can be queried for clarification about it if it's unclear to the players. It's obvious that such a system is imperfect and might lead to confusion, but it's very much rounding up to push that to negotiation. Surely negotiation might occur, but it's not the intention nor the point of process, and privileging it as the primary rules interaction changes the experience. Less charitably, it also leads to a reductive analysis that underlies so much of this; the GM maintaining the board state doing so imperfectly can lead to the same result as the GM determining the board state moment to moment, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.

I don't think it's inaccurate, or "rounding up", at all. It's a constant, ongoing process. A lot of times, there's little need for any back and forth. The GM presents a situation, the player says what their character does, and the GM narrates what happens next... the default state, which is essentially negotiated before play. But whenever things don't go this smoothly, and discussion happens to make sure everyone is on the same page, then the negotiation becomes more involved, with more back and forth until everything is agreed upon or accepted.

I don't think the negotiation is the point of the process... I don't think anyone's made that claim... but I do think it is the intention.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I suspect some of the question is whether they'd be "permitted" to do so; if the campaign was ship-centric, in some games doing that would be considered bad form at best.

(A possibly relevant side story: I ran a campaign for a the one of my two groups of players a few years back in the Morrow Project setting, but using another system. The Morrow Project is a mix of wandering around in the post-apocalyptic America and, essentially, helping people get on their feet, dealing with problem issues along the way. The default is to be focused more on the latter than the former (which is most primarily a job for specialty teams than the generic ones) At one point the players started to lean into former more than the latter, and I was pretty blunt that they really should have told me if they wanted to focus on that at the start of the campaign so A) They had a proper team/character group for the job and B) I'd have used a system that gave me more tools for the job to run it in that area. I wouldn't have actively forced them to do otherwise, but I did discourage it because there was going to be a lot of using a wrench for a hammer both in terms of the character group (the driver and the combat specialist were going to spend a lot of time twiddling their thumbs for example) and system (I was going to have to cobble together a lot of rules to handle what they were trying to do in relatively short order and not have a lot of time to think them through). This was all the more ironic since they'd avoided a different campaign that would have been more focused on that sort of thing from the get-go).

Yeah, sure, good point. Every campaign has a premise, sometimes quite focused, sometimes more broad. This should be made explicit at session zero. For my current campaign it is rather broad, but it is still a game about sword and sorcery adventures, so I advised everyone to make a character suitable for that and they did. But conceivably a character might decide to stop adventuring and open a bakery, but that would probably mean a player retiring that character.

 

[Pedantic]

I don't think it's inaccurate, or "rounding up", at all. It's a constant, ongoing process. A lot of times, there's little need for any back and forth. The GM presents a situation, the player says what their character does, and the GM narrates what happens next... the default state, which is essentially negotiated before play. But whenever things don't go this smoothly, and discussion happens to make sure everyone is on the same page, then the negotiation becomes more involved, with more back and forth until everything is agreed upon or accepted.

I don't think the negotiation is the point of the process... I don't think anyone's made that claim... but I do think it is the intention.

To put my claim more bluntly, I think negotiation in such games is generally a failure point. One doesn't need to negotiate the board state in chess because the situations created by the rules are modeled physically and completely. An RPG requires a much more involved board that we imperfectly run on one person's brain and further have to relate by talking to the other players. This leads to negotiation as an outcome in some, but not all cases, and not as a desirable or intended state.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I mean I still wouldn't call players saying what their characters do and then the game following that "a negotiation", but whatever.

I don't see what's so problematic about the word.

But also if one is interested in players being able to affect the course of the game, it is weird to omit the most important and impactful way they can do it.

Right, but if we're having a discussion and I ask what can players do, aside from the thing we all know they can do... it's weird to not offer any other examples.

If I asked "Besides steering, what else does a driver have to do when driving?" it would seem very strange if you just kept going back to steering rather than bringing up braking or checking mirrors and blindspots and signaling and so on.

I'm not diminishing action declaration. I was asking for examples beyond it because when we talk about "player driven" knowing how the players can drive is relevant, and because there will be some variance from group to group.

I certainly have incorporated things from characters' backgrounds to the events of the game. I wouldn't say I'm "obligated" to do so, but it generally seems like good practice. Now generally I'd prefer such background stuff to be established before the game starts, but sometimes it might be necessary to elaborate on some stuff later on.

So the level of player driven varies from game to game, or instance to instance, would you say? Some games of yours may be more player driven than others?

Why wouldn't the player just act this desire trough their character? Get to the shore and start establishing a thieves' guild. These certainly are things a character can attempt to do.

Because sometimes they want to know others' thoughts? Because it's a group activity and the group can just be honest with each other about their expectations or desires for the game? Because some GMs may not want them to veer too far from what's prepared? Because other players may not want the same thing?

Wouldn't it be easier to just discuss it all as participants in the game and be open and clear about it rather than trying to decipher what the action declarations of the characters meant? I understand that you want the bulk of play to be in character, but do you never actually discuss the content of the game with each other? The level of satisfaction with what's going on, any desires for how things can change or improve?

Possibly.

There's a lot of gray area based on how you're answering. Everything seems subject to GM approval, except if it's declared in game.

So, if Bill the player says "Hey, I'd like to establish a stronghold kind of like old school D&D" you're less likely to listen than if Bill declares that "Rolf the Fighter puts out word that he wants to establish a hold in that old fort we cleared out"?

This is one reason why making a distinction between what players do and what characters do can help in understanding. Your answer here seems to vary depending on if the player asks or if the player simply declares the action in game... which seems odd.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To put my claim more bluntly, I think negotiation in such games is generally a failure point. One doesn't need to negotiate the board state in chess because the situations created by the rules are modeled physically and completely. An RPG requires a much more involved board that we imperfectly run on one person's brain and further have to relate by talking to the other players. This leads to negotiation as an outcome in some, but not all cases, and not as a desirable or intended state.

I think that's a really harsh way to look at it. The number of scenarios that can be presented by a GM in full, without the need for clarification by the other participants, is probably vanishingly small.

I prefer to look at it as an intended part of the process... so I describe a scenario, and the players ask any clarifying questions, and then I describe some more, and maybe there are some more questions, and so on until everyone's comfortable with the situation. Doesn't seem like failure to me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, sure, good point. Every campaign has a premise, sometimes quite focused, sometimes more broad. This should be made explicit at session zero. For my current campaign it is rather broad, but it is still a game about sword and sorcery adventures, so I advised everyone to make a character suitable for that and they did. But conceivably a character might decide to stop adventuring and open a bakery, but that would probably mean a player retiring that character.

Why is opening a bakery always the example? I can't even think of any examples of games where the characters even visited a bakery, let alone opened one.

I think there's a difference between something as outlandish as that and just something like two characters with different goals that become increasingly further apart. Or even something more short term, but immediate... do we go after the assassin who killed Rolf's brother, or do we look into this necromancer?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't see what's so problematic about the word.

That has been debated in length, but I already grew bored to that discussion.

Right, but if we're having a discussion and I ask what can players do, aside from the thing we all know they can do... it's weird to not offer any other examples.

If I asked "Besides steering, what else does a driver have to do when driving?" it would seem very strange if you just kept going back to steering rather than bringing up braking or checking mirrors and blindspots and signaling and so on.

I'm not diminishing action declaration. I was asking for examples beyond it because when we talk about "player driven" knowing how the players can drive is relevant, and because there will be some variance from group to group.

Right. But the thing is that I claim that a campaign can be rather player driven even if players can influence it mainly just via their characters. And how much influence like this can manifest can vary. Sure in almost every game players have control of their characters, but how much they can actually affect the course of the campaign may in practice be limited by various factors. Like in an adventure path the players are in control of their characters, but the direction of the game is still relatively linear so it is not very player driven.

So the level of player driven varies from game to game, or instance to instance, would you say? Some games of yours may be more player driven than others?

Sure.

Because sometimes they want to know others' thoughts? Because it's a group activity and the group can just be honest with each other about their expectations or desires for the game? Because some GMs may not want them to veer too far from what's prepared? Because other players may not want the same thing?

Wouldn't it be easier to just discuss it all as participants in the game and be open and clear about it rather than trying to decipher what the action declarations of the characters meant? I understand that you want the bulk of play to be in character, but do you never actually discuss the content of the game with each other? The level of satisfaction with what's going on, any desires for how things can change or improve?

Yes, such discussions can be had, I just would prefer it to be after or before the actual game, if possible, as I'd like to keep the game itself focused on the perspective of the characters.

There's a lot of gray area based on how you're answering. Everything seems subject to GM approval, except if it's declared in game.

Sure. And of course whether we incorporate some third party rules content in the game obviously is subject to GM approval.

So, if Bill the player says "Hey, I'd like to establish a stronghold kind of like old school D&D" you're less likely to listen than if Bill declares that "Rolf the Fighter puts out word that he wants to establish a hold in that old fort we cleared out"?

This is one reason why making a distinction between what players do and what characters do can help in understanding. Your answer here seems to vary depending on if the player asks or if the player simply declares the action in game... which seems odd.

It is not that I am less likely to listen, but I just prefer playing the game over talking about the game. And we can talk about it with Bill before the game, but obviously in the setting it still is Rolf who needs to make it happen.