RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[Crimson Longinus]

And this is why it makes a difference as to what the resolution system takes as its unit of resolution. If you have goal/intent resolution then set backstory isn't going to be a stopper level problem. You simply move up the chain of the levels of abstraction of what the character is after. They may say "I try to eat the pizza!", an action, which may fail, but if this is about goals then "I assuage my hunger, by eating the pizza" (which the GM has already decided is triple anchovy and inedible) can still be accomplished, you find a bag of chips under the table, your munchies are handled!

But if the location of the bag of chips was predetermined you necessarily couldn't do that. It still seems to me that the wiggle room relies on a lot of things being undetermined so that the GM has leeway to create new fiction to conform to the player goals.

In case there was some confusion on this point anywhere, DitV as a system CARES NOTHING ABOUT opening safes! If some sort of information does or does not exist in the safe, either way the player simply opens it, revealing whatever backstory, such that conflict can happen. You don't need to dice for this stuff, its not the point of play. The conflict will come when, papers in hand, the PC confronts the Mayor with the evidence of his theft of town funds. THAT is a conflict!

When I first brought this up I said the following:

So there was some discussion about "GM's secret backstory" i.e. whether we use myth or no myth and how it is compatible with conflict resolution.

To me is seems that if we have conflict resolution and "say yes or roll the dice" we also need to have no myth. Like in the safe example the GM cannot veto the attempt because the incriminating papers are not in the safe but instead in hidden compartment behind a painting, or that they are not there because the PCs had actually misconstrued the situation and the person whose safe they are poking has nothing to do with the incriminating documents. These are things that can only arise when the player fails their roll and doesn't find the documents, thus how it is cannot be predetrmined.

But if we don't have "say yes or roll the dice" I assume the GM could still veto attempts based on their backstory, even if the game used conflict resolution when the rolls were allowed. For example in case where the players were looking the papers from the wrong place the GM could just say without any roll, "you open the safe but the papers are not there." This is saying "no" as the intent of the player was not just open the safe but find the documents.

To me it seems my latter paragraph effectively describes the same thing than yours here. Yet it got rejected as not proper in conflict resolution game, because we are not saying yes or rolling the dice.

 

[clearstream]

Are they in any of the 1e D&D game books? If not, then the answer is and will be no. But I promise you that the strength and conviction of my opinions about those blog entries will be inversely proportionate to how little of them I have read.


Could you imagine a student writing this in a paper or even discussing this in a debate?

"I guess we have no idea what John Rawls thought about democratic societies because they're dead so we can only ask people who talk about Rawls."

Meanwhile you're just silently screaming on the inside, "Yes, we do know what he thought about this basic issue. Read the freaking books, essays, and lectures that were all provided for you in the syllabus and class materials!"

Folk, I'm not a mod so you can go ahead and ignore me, but at this point what you're doing feels like bullying. When multiple posters gang up and disparage another, repeatedly, that's not welcoming their perspectives. It must make that other person feel like s***. If you feel their posts aren't moving things forward, saying nothing is a wonderful option.

 

[Aldarc]

Obviously it's a complete mystery what Vincent Baker and John Harper think a good conflict resolution system would look like!

And yet we somehow do know that it's dysfunctional, incoherent, and unachievable BadWrongFun.

 

[pemerton]

To me it seems my latter paragraph effectively describes the same thing than yours here. Yet it got rejected as not proper in conflict resolution game, because we are not saying yes or rolling the dice.

Here is @AbdulAlhazred, describing what does or doesn't count as conflict and stakes in DitV:

In case there was some confusion on this point anywhere, DitV as a system CARES NOTHING ABOUT opening safes! If some sort of information does or does not exist in the safe, either way the player simply opens it, revealing whatever backstory, such that conflict can happen. You don't need to dice for this stuff, its not the point of play. The conflict will come when, papers in hand, the PC confronts the Mayor with the evidence of his theft of town funds. THAT is a conflict!

So in the case of DitV, says AbdulAlhazred, the player always finds whatever it is they need to initiate the conflict with the Mayor. This is part of actively revealing the town in play.

And here is what you, @Crimson Longinus, posted:

But if we don't have "say yes or roll the dice" I assume the GM could still veto attempts based on their backstory, even if the game used conflict resolution when the rolls were allowed. For example in case where the players were looking the papers from the wrong place the GM could just say without any roll, "you open the safe but the papers are not there." This is saying "no" as the intent of the player was not just open the safe but find the documents.

As best I can tell, you are not saying the same thing as AbdulAlhazred. You appear to be contemplating the exact opposite, namely, that the GM does not actively reveal the town in play, and hoards backstory, and makes the players declare low-stakes actions to try and trigger the GM into revealing it.

Here are the reply you got from me. I began by saying the same as AbdulAlhazred:

DitV coined "say 'yes' or roll the dice" and is a paradigm of conflict resolution.

And is not "no myth". The GM is required to prep a town for each scenario, and the game provides extensive advice on how to do so, and on how to use the town in play.

The difference from "secret backstory" is that one of the GM principles in DitV is to actively reveal the town in play.

And then I pointed out that the sort of situation you are envisaging is an example of error in DitV or similar conflict-resolution-driven play:

If the player is declaring an action to look for documents in the safe, and there is (somehow-or-other) fiction that establishes there are no documents there, then something has gone wrong, because the player thinks something is at stake - "Can I get the documents from the safe" - when it fact the answer (no) is already settled.

And I have come back to this repeatedly in replies to you, from the angle of success: the way you avoid this error in play is to ensure that there is a coinciding of the player putting the discovery of the documents at stake, and the character being fictionally positioned to discover the papers.

The method that DitV uses to insure that these things coincide is to have the GM actively reveal the town in play.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And then I pointed out that the sort of situation you are envisaging is an example of error in DitV or similar conflict-resolution-driven play:
And I have come back to this repeatedly in replies to you, from the angle of success: the way you avoid this error in play is to ensure that there is a coinciding of the player putting the discovery of the documents at stake, and the character being fictionally positioned to discover the papers.

The method that DitV uses to insure that these things coincide is to have the GM actively reveal the town in play.

So this effectively necessitates that there are no secrets to the characters or at least that there are no secrets to the players, so that they can use their meta knowledge to avoid making action declarations that would lead to this sort of situation.

Because in an instant the players in good faith assume (or even suspect) a thing to be in certain way, yet it isn't, the game becomes prone to the issue.

 

[pemerton]

So this effectively necessitates that there are no secrets to the characters or at least that there are no secrets to the players, so that they can use their meta knowledge to avoid making action declarations that would lead to this sort of situation.

There are other techniques than this.

Actively revealing the town in play is one. A related one is managing framing. Vincent Baker discusses some aspects of this on pp 76-77 of DitV:

As GM, you get to help establish stakes. If your player says “what’s at stake is this” you can say “no, I don’t dig that, how about what’s at stake is this instead?” Not only can you, you should. This is an important duty you have as GM and you shouldn’t abdicate it.

As GM, you should push for small stakes. It’s natural for the players to set stakes big. “Do we get the whole truth from her about everything that’s going on? Do we convince him to give up his sinnin’ ways and do right forever after? Do we undo all the harm the cult has done?” You as GM have to engage with them and wrestle them down. You should be saying, “no, how about do you win her trust about some small matter? Do you give him a moment’s pause? Do you make this one person breathe easier, right now?” It’s out of creative tension between their big stakes and your small stakes that the right stakes are born.

What you’re after is two things: follow-up conflicts and givable conflicts.

Since you want good follow-up conflicts, the right stakes can go either way without creating a dead end or a dull patch. Pushing stakes smaller will tend to make them less make-or-break.

Givable conflicts - that’s the trick. The right stakes will make it so that escalating, taking a blow and giving are all roughly equal. Set the stakes too large and Escalating is always worth it. Set them small enough and Giving vs. Escalating becomes a real question, as does Giving vs. Taking a bad Blow.

Conflicts always end with a Give. It doesn’t have to be because one side has used every single last die. It can be as soon as one side sees which way the wind’s blowing - but that won’t happen if the stakes are too grandiose.​

 

[clearstream]

Suppose that we redefine conflict resolution so that it includes I climb to the top of the wall to see what I can see, then resolved by a climbing check to see if they get there; or I skulk in the shadows as best I can, so that no one can see me, resolved via a stealth check that forms the DC for Perception checks by unknown NPCs under the GM's control. And that it includes play where all consequences of both success and failure are decided by the GM, with or without discussion with the players and with or without making those things clear prior to the dice being rolled.

(Emphasis mine.) Something you might find acceptable to have in mind is, with reference to my post #817, I said

(a) game text requires the group to establish setting, situation and characters, with goals/stakes that matter within them that players will pursue​

Closed-scene resolution requires players to pursue the goals (however they're established), and one way to be certain they will do that is by stating them up front. Through stating them up front, players can decide if they're goals they want to pursue. That is a noticeable benefit of D&D3e, PF2e and TB2e skill usage lists, and 5e DMG ability checks. I sometimes see players taking a related approach to PbtA moves.

When systems state or require the consequences of recognisable performances to be stated up front, then players can express a goal they want to pursue by choosing that performance.​

Example

Player: "Will climbing get me to the top of that wall?"​

GM: "Yes, it will take a minute, needing 7+, 6 or less you'll fall from half the distance...."​

Player: "I'll climb then... and I roll an 8"​

GM: "Great, you're at the top of the wall."​

Not a very complex scene, admittedly. A case of high immediacy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Actively revealing the town in play is one.

Which is basically about avoiding having secret knowledge like I suggested. Agreed?

A related one is managing framing. Vincent Baker discusses some aspects of this on pp 76-77 of DitV:

As GM, you get to help establish stakes. If your player says “what’s at stake is this” you can say “no, I don’t dig that, how about what’s at stake is this instead?” Not only can you, you should. This is an important duty you have as GM and you shouldn’t abdicate it.​

​

As GM, you should push for small stakes. It’s natural for the players to set stakes big. “Do we get the whole truth from her about everything that’s going on? Do we convince him to give up his sinnin’ ways and do right forever after? Do we undo all the harm the cult has done?” You as GM have to engage with them and wrestle them down. You should be saying, “no, how about do you win her trust about some small matter? Do you give him a moment’s pause? Do you make this one person breathe easier, right now?” It’s out of creative tension between their big stakes and your small stakes that the right stakes are born.​

So how is this not a form of saying no? It seems clear that this is GM saying no to the stakes suggested by the player and substituting it with another stake instead.

I said ages ago that if the GM is allowed to say no the issue is averted, and this is what Baker is effectively suggesting here.

 

[pemerton]

So how is this not a form of saying no?

Player: "How about we get the whole truth from her about everything that's going on?"
GM: "How about 'Do you win her trust about some small matter?'"

Where is the saying no? Nothing has been decided about whether or not the PCs can get the whole truth from her.

DitV, pp 140-3:

Follow the players’ lead about what’s important
You present an interesting situation to your players, a town. It’s got a couple few conflicts already present in it, each with at least two sides, some facets and nuances to the moral questions it poses. You’ve made this cool, interesting thing, this town and its problems, so you show it to your players like, “look! What do you think?”

Then you step back and wait to hear what they think - and I shouldn’t suggest that you have to actually wait at all. The truth is that they start taking sides the instant you start showing them what the sides are. It’s immediate and visceral. . . .

There’s not a plot the PCs have to foil. You’re not providing judgment for the players the way you have to if you’ve pre-decided who the villain is. Instead, you’ve presented your interesting moral situation, the PCs can’t walk away from it, they have to cut through its knot somehow and leave the town better off. So, what do they think?

They’ll surprise you. They’ll take sides you never expected. People just endlessly delight me and one of the reasons they do is because of their capacity to take surprising sides. Watch, you’ll see. . . .

When the players take sides - from the first moment they begin to take sides - start complicating their lives. . . .

In concrete terms, this point and the point before are about setting conflicts’ stakes. The point before says: let the players set the stakes. This point says: then, you set the stakes harder.

Here’s an example:

I’m the GM. I present to my players a situation: Brother Cadmus’ little brother wants the Dogs to tell him who to trust, but not to tell him to stop drinking whiskey. Brother Cadmus and Meg, his player, have noticed that there’s something he’s not saying, but they don’t know what yet.

Meg has Brother Cadmus say, “I can’t tell you who to trust until you tell me what’s really going on.”

I say, “Sweet! Let’s roll some dice. What’s at stake is, does he spill?” Notice that even though I’m the one who said what’s at stake, Meg’s the one who chose it.

We roll dice, Raise and See back and forth, and (unsurprisingly) Brother Cadmus is winning.

Now it’s my turn to set the stakes harder. How badly do Meg and her character want to know? I say, “he says, ‘y’know Cad, I come to you for advice and you grill me. Isn’t that just like you.’ He shoves past you. I’m escalating to physical.” I roll some more dice. Meg has to choose: does her character physically stop him from leaving, or give? How far is she willing to go for this? What if he throws a punch, will she still be willing to push him?

Let’s say that yes, she’s willing to fight him for it. Then, what if he’s beating her? Will she have Brother Cadmus draw on his own brother?
​

The GM's role is not to say no. It's to sharpen the focus, and to make it personal.

 

[FrogReaver]

Player: "How about we get the whole truth from her about everything that's going on?"
GM: "How about 'Do you win her trust about some small matter?'"

Where is the saying no? Nothing has been decided about whether or not the PCs can get the whole truth from her.

Baker’s actual words that you quoted were - ‘you can say no, I don’t dig that, how about this instead’.

Using Baker’s words, how is that not saying no?