RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not necessarily. If you've any sort of scrying capability you can try looking behind the door, and if all you see is threats but no loot then move on. You can try to find another way around or in. You can quietly move away and come back later when the noises have stopped. You can abandon that particular chamber or area. Etc.

"A sort of charade" seems a rather uncharitable way of putting it. That said, if your only goal in that dungeon is to scoop its loot then yes, ideally you'll end up exploring the whole place thoroughly. But IME most of the time there's one or more other goals beside just sheer loot acquirement, and the conflict then becomes one between getting on with the mission or staying to scoop more loot.

Maybe nowadays. I haven't done any dungeon crawling in QUITE a long time (maybe a cave or two). Back in the day it was just pretty much straight up looting. Maybe now and then we'd have a specific 'loot goal', a certain item, recover some lost gear, etc. So, the potential might exist for listening to have some point, but there wasn't a lot, mostly we did it to avoid failing surprise checks if we happened to hear something and then opened the door.

 

[clearstream]

Maybe nowadays. I haven't done any dungeon crawling in QUITE a long time (maybe a cave or two). Back in the day it was just pretty much straight up looting. Maybe now and then we'd have a specific 'loot goal', a certain item, recover some lost gear, etc. So, the potential might exist for listening to have some point, but there wasn't a lot, mostly we did it to avoid failing surprise checks if we happened to hear something and then opened the door.

Emphasis mine...

 

[Aldarc]

(Seriously, I have the PDF open and I have glanced it, and this really is not the sort of game I have even least bit of interest in playing.
And not because of the mechanics.)

If it makes you feel any better, I have never played this game, quite likely for the same reason you leave unstated.

 

[clearstream]

I think this is key as well, and it's why I keep coming back to scope; it's clear that intent in task resolution is often encoded by the available actions. Climbing something or searching an area have pre-specified mechanical outcomes that do not yield to a player hoping to achieve something else. You can climb at X speed, even if your goal is to get to the top of the wall faster.

This is true of game texts incorporating conflict resolution, too, wherever the scope of effect for a given performance is defined. That's why I believe it can't be key. In such CR play I can express my intent in the form of choice of performance, i.e. invoke a mechanic with a defined scope that does not yield to my hope to achieve a greater or different effect. (In some cases effects are tunable: by "greater" I mean extending beyond that envelope.)

Players are thus expected to set broader goals, and to want things both tactically at the level of a given action, and strategically at the level of many actions (and possibly accounting for several actors). Half the time they express intent through their choice of actions, instead of directly stating it. Gameplay is a medium for expression, which is can lead to surface level weird design directions:

I agree that games present players with an expressive vernacular of play in the form of mechanics. Seeing as the vernacular is limited, participants may be empowered to extend it at need, or they may have a principle such as "say yes"... anything not covered works, typically with unspoken norms curtailing expressions such as "punch the Earth in half".

you may want actions players cannot fail to achieve, you may want actions that aren't guaranteed to have any effect on the game state

Seeing as actions subject to resolution are not guaranteed to have an effect on the game state, I assume you mean actions that "test" if it is the case they are effective. As player I present my performance and it may or may not be the case that matters right now to the game world.

and you almost certainly want actions that only produce information, locking down the board state to a known place to inform future actions.

Can you think of any example of "actions that aren't guaranteed to have any effect on the game state" that cannot be understood as thereby changing the information state?

 

[clearstream]

@pemerton

So now looseness of fiction is important for framing and narration of failure in conflict resolution system, but not for success? I don't recall my claim being about success in particular, but just games using conflict resolution as a whole. In any case, I don't see why it would matter for failure but not for success.

I also notice that you avoided answering my question about the reason characters cannot listen at random doors in DitV.

The two long posts, and many preceding them, to my reading drew attention to the following

(i) Information that matters to play but is not the focus of play can be simply disclosed. Why not? They're not what anyone at the table cares to put in doubt or spend time on. Thus, if the demonic papers are to be found between the leaves of the Brother Jo's Book of Life, that won't nullify a player character act. I think it could conceivably be narrated as part of a conflict.​

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(ii) Low-no-myth (I believe everyone accepts that putatively "no-myth" games start with something sketched out, even if only to the extent implied by the kinds of characters that can exist, so perhaps one can just say "no-myth" and mean "but really the barest necessary myth".) No-myth then, can be distinguished from (i) above. With (i) I have myth, but following principles of play it can't get in our way. Whilst with no-myth, I do not have myth that could get in the way of our play. I have observed no myth groups taking care to preserve myth as they establish it. One might assume that everyone is privy to such locked in truths, but I've observed edge cases in which GM decides on hidden information as prompted by play, that has implications not limited to those at stake in the moment. It seems to me generally accurate to say that no-myth transitions to myth over time, given enough sessions of play.​

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(iii) High-myth, such as is ordinarily prepared for traditional modes of play. Even here, there are differences in the kind of commitments made by prep. Are we committed to plot, or only to people and places? Suppose players are investigators and while we commit to people and places, we make no commitment on clues. Perhaps abstracting them mechanically and providing narrative moves to drive progression. In this case, high-myth can't get in the way of our focus of play. This is really just a restatement of (i) to show that what is entailed by high-myth isn't cut-and-dried.​

The above boil down to one principle, which is "don't commit to fact that which should be found out through play". Anything it is not the focus of play to find out, you can write a Bible on. And ought not hide under a bushel. Contrast the alternative principle "commit to fact that which you intend players to find out through play." It's the latter that can obstruct conflict resolution. Analysis of cases formed under one principle often won't transfer to cases formed under another.

@pemerton tagging you here as this is to some extent responsive to your detailed comments upthread. Also my immediately following.

 

[clearstream]

Ultimately the matter is rather simple.
If the player is allowed to make an action declaration "I discover that X is Y" but the secret myth says X is not Y, then we are at an impasse.

You've raised objections that I believe are interesting, to which the answer lies in the nature of play itself.

Upthread you raised a concern with GM scaling down player declarations. Can player notwithstanding what GM says, insist upon their scaled up declaration? If not, then GM has said "No". One may believe that norms in force at the table will lead players to give, in such confrontations, but it's still "No - you can't declare what you wanted to declare"... or it's "Yes, let's proceed with your scaled-up declaration even though it would work better scaled down!" A connected observation is that players as often say "No" to themselves.

It's an obvious glitch in CR - commented on by multiple folk - that I could declare "punch the Earth in half" and if we aren't resolving my performance - how strong my punch is - then we could end up with a result that doesn't feel legitimate. I've already discussed some practices commonly used to fix that. And it is right to point out that these resolution methods do not exist in isolation: they're part of a web of practices that work together. One can to an extent analyse a single component of an Internal Combustion Engine, but one cannot complain too much of fault if the action of said component is regulated by another component leading to collective functionality.

Which leads to the solution that I think you find unsatisfactory. The playful negotiation rarely if ever leads to "I discover that X is Y". It's overwhelmingly more likely to land on "What's the deal with X, is it Y?" Logically, yes - you are right. There are all kinds of legitimation failures possible in CR. Your example of asserting a fact contrary to those already settled is just one of them. Picture "I know we said the sky is blue, but I discover it is pink." Roll... is the sky still blue? "I know we said Brother Jo is wearing a linen shirt and heavy oilcloth coat, but I discover he's standing at the pulpit stark naked." Roll... is Brother Jo naked?

Play occurs because players adopt the appropriate lusory-attitudes for that play. The cases you are speaking of are far more extreme than you might be picturing. According to Huizinga, they are those of the "spoilsport", who shatters the magic circle by abandoning the attitudes that sustain play.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You've raised objections that I believe are interesting, to which the answer lies in the nature of play itself.

Upthread you raised a concern with GM scaling down player declarations. Can player notwithstanding what GM says, insist upon their scaled up declaration? If not, then GM has said "No". One may believe that norms in force at the table will lead players to give, in such confrontations, but it's still "No - you can't declare what you wanted to declare"... or it's "Yes, let's proceed with your scaled-up declaration even though it would work better scaled down!" A connected observation is that players as often say "No" to themselves.

I don't think it terribly much matters whether the GM has de jure power to reject player action declarations, or just can de facto do so by social contract by convincing the player to abandon their action declaration. It is different, sure, but ultimately the end result is the same.

It's an obvious glitch in CR - commented on by multiple folk - that I could declare "puch the Earth in half" and if we aren't resolving my performance - how strong my punch is - then we could end up with a result that doesn't feel legitimate. I've already discussed some practices commonly used to fix that. And it is right to point out that these resolution methods do not exist in isolation: they're part of a web of practices that work together. One can to an extent analyse a single component of an Internal Combustion Engine, but one cannot complain too much of fault if the action of said component is regulated by another component leading to collective functionality.

Which leads to the solution that I think you find unsatisfactory. The playful negotiation rarely if ever leads to "I discover that X is Y". It's overwhelmingly more likely to land on "What's the deal with X, is it Y?" Logically, yes - you are right. There are all kinds of legitimation failures possible in CR. Your example of asserting a fact contrary to those already settled is just one of them. Picture "I know we said the sky is blue, but I discover it is pink." Roll... is the sky still blue? "I know we said Brother Jo is wearing a linen shirt and heavy oilcloth coat, but I discover he's standing at the pulpit stark naked." Roll... is Brother Jo naked?

Play occurs because players adopt the appropriate lusory-attitudes for that play. The cases you are speaking of are far more extreme than you might be picturing. According to Huizinga, they are those of the "spoilsport", who shatters the magic circle by abandoning the attitudes that sustain play.

So examples about this are often absurd like punching planet in half or the thing about Brother Jo's clothes. And I guess it would be good if the game had some codified structure for rejecting such too, but in practice that is not such a big deal as people playing in good faith simply won't do this.

But the issue can arise even if people play in good faith. If people in the town have been losing faith because rumours about heretical papers that are claimed to prove that the prophet is a fraud and the faith is based on a lie, it is perfectly reasonable for the PC to confront the mayor who is clearly part of this heresy and have a goal of "I compel him to divulge the truth about the location of heretical papers."
Except that the prep might say that it is only the undertaker that knows the location of the papers, thus the mayor does not possess the truth to divulge.

And in this instance it would make perfect sense for the GM to scale down the stakes from that to "compel the mayor to reveal what he knows about the heresy", but that also would be GM saying no based on secret myth.

Another issue is that whilst everyone would try to only make action declarations are "reasonable" people might have differing conceptions about what is reasonable in fiction.

Ultimately any conflict resolution game needs to have boundaries, either formal or informal, about what the allowable action declarations are.

 

[clearstream]

I don't think it terribly much matters whether the GM has de jure power to reject player action declarations, or just can de facto do so by social contract by convincing the player to abandon their action declaration. It is different, sure, but ultimately the end result is the same.

So examples about this are often absurd like punching planet in half or the thing about Brother Jo's clothes. And I guess it would be good if the game had some codified structure for rejecting such too, but in practice that is not such a big deal as people playing in good faith simply won't do this.

Well, the game texts generally do have a codified structure, or you could put it - they say what amounts to playing in good faith!

As a side note, absurd examples are only used to make the point clearly. Real cases usually lie on the boundary of what the group counts legitimate, which lies in different places for different groups. Again, game texts generally guide to the intended boundary.

But the issue can arise even if people play in good faith. If people in the town have been losing faith because rumours about heretical papers that are claimed to prove that the prophet is a fraud and the faith is based on a lie, it is perfectly reasonable for the PC to confront the mayor who is clearly part of this heresy and have a goal of "I compel him to divulge the truth about the location of heretical papers."

Except that the prep might say that it is only the undertaker that knows the location of the papers, thus the mayor does not possess the truth to divulge.

I would say that the issue cannot arise if people play in good faith. Where good faith play amounts to shared commitments on practices, principles and rules. It only arises if those commitments are rejected.

And in this instance it would make perfect sense for the GM to scale down the stakes from that to "compel the mayor to reveal what he knows about the heresy", but that also would be GM saying no based on secret myth.

Isn't this headed off by the GM just going ahead and saying what the mayor reveals? Given that's not at stake. What I'm getting at is your examples appear (to my reading) to aim to put that prepped myth at stake, but that requires discarding the foundational premise. Once I discard the foundational premise, I can no longer claim to be playing in good faith.

It's not logically only

"compel the mayor to reveal what he knows about the heresy"

It's

Given it is going to be a focus of play but GM went ahead and prepped it anyway, "compel the mayor to reveal what he knows about the heresy"

Or

Given it is not a focus of play but GM went ahead and hid it anyway, "compel the mayor to reveal what he knows about the heresy"

I don't discount the possibility that some set of axioms could describe all this successfully, but the count of such axioms and the logical steps required would surely be vast.

Another issue is that whilst everyone would try to only make action declarations are "reasonable" people might have differing conceptions about what is reasonable in fiction.

Ultimately any conflict resolution game needs to have boundaries, either formal or informal, about what the allowable action declarations are.

That's all true, and it often takes groups a few sessions to figure out where they want to draw their boundaries... and that's even with good cognizance of the game text.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I would say that the issue cannot arise if people play in good faith. Where good faith play amounts to shared commitments on practices, principles and rules. It only arises if those commitments are rejected.

You must be more specific than that. Why is this situation not good faith play and what commitments and principles would prevent it from occurring?

Isn't this headed off by the GM just going ahead and saying what the mayor reveals? Given that's not at stake. What I'm getting at is your examples appear (to my reading) to aim to put that prepped myth at stake, but that requires discarding the foundational premise. Once I discard the foundational premise, I can no longer claim to be playing in good faith.

In about seven thousand pages ago when I first brought this up and this was still about safes, I offered the GM just letting the player open the safe without roll and find that the papers are not there (because the prep says they aren't.) I think this is a form of saying no, and people rejected it as valid approach regardless. So this situation is the same. The GM might have the mayor tell the players all he knows, but he doesn't know the thing the players were interested in. Yes, to me this would seem like a fine way to handle this, but others disagreed.

 

[pemerton]

If the player is allowed to make an action declaration "I discover that X is Y" but the secret myth says X is not Y, then we are at an impasse.

That is not a well-formed action declaration in any RPG that I'm familiar with. Do you have any in mind?