RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[FrogReaver]

In a D&D combat, the player rolls to attack, the GM declares a hit, the player then rolls damage, then observes the GM performing a calculation, and then the GM declares "You drop them".

In the fiction, the opponent might be playing possum, whether to try and escape being killed, or as part of so me more elaborate ruse. The character can't be sure otherwise; though they might find it more likely, given their overall knowledge of the situation, that they cut their foe down.

I don't really see that what I described is any different in structure. It's a game; the players have to have some sort of grasp on their fictional position if they are to make moves.

The difference is in d&d the GM isn’t trying to actively reveal binding myths.

 

[FrogReaver]

Right. So here the players knowing that the information was gained via a successful test that makes it binding is the channel for the meta information. The characters know no such thing, for all they know papers can be forgeries and people can be mistaken or lying to them etc.

So, waiting to reveal stuff in a successful ‘test’ isn’t what I’d call active revealing. Which so far leaves the only other channel for doing that being outright meta communication. Nothing per se wrong with that, but that’s different than how active revealing seems to be described to me uo through now.

In case it isn’t clear my hope is to probe the concept of active revealing.

 

[clearstream]

So, waiting to reveal stuff in a successful ‘test’ isn’t what I’d call active revealing. Which so far leaves the only other channel for doing that being outright meta communication. Nothing per se wrong with that, but that’s different than how active revealing seems to be described to me uo through now.

In case it isn’t clear my hope is to probe the concept of active revealing.

How are you characterising disclosures that are diegetic but not compelled by resolution?

 

[FrogReaver]

How are you characterising disclosures that are diegetic but not compelled by resolution?

Non binding

*assuming you mean disclosures to the characters in the fiction.

 

[clearstream]

Non binding

*assuming you mean disclosures to the characters in the fiction.

Yup, that is what I meant.

If (i) the NPC delivers the information to the PCs after they have been successful in a contest, and (ii) the players understand that one GM principle is to actively reveal the prepared fiction in play, and (iii) the GM does not give any cue that suggests this NPC does not actually possess the information, then (iv) the players can infer from the NPC told the PCs that X to it is the case that X.

Commitments attach to diegetic disclosures such that asserting X sans caveats justifies reliance on X.

GM: "Tommy tells you they straight-up saw the Supervillain put the Will into the safe before they left for Frankfurt last night."​

​

The right person said the right thing at the right time, so it's added to fiction without further negotiation. By contrast

GM: "Tommy kind of squirms and tells you they saw the Supervillain put the Will into the safe... just before they left for Frankfurt. Umm, that's right... must have been last night. Yeah, last night. For sure."​

​

It is (in whatever way is effective at your table) squarely signalled that Tommy's testimony is unreliable, an effective caveat. This could be reasonable where locating the Will was going to be interesting. Such as - the Supervillains MO is traps and ambushes, set up by dupes. Are you really going to walk into one for the Nth time?

Absence of caveats up front doesn't necessarily prevent twists between now and cracking the safe, but such twists will themselves be disclosed. Not hidden. So the way in which it is "binding" is, provided nothing changes it between now and such time as player puts it at stake. Given nothing changed it, it's still reliable. And hidden changes are not permitted. (Intuitively, exceptions are always going to be possible, given the boundless scope and versality of imagination. Maybe a special circumstance comes up where it works out for information to be hidden?! If it did, we could probably analyse it to derive a principle.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I mean that was not the scenario as I originally imagined it. I assumed that the papers never were there, but the NPC who the players trusted said they were there to lure the PCs in a trap. Now it could go like you say, but that is rather different scenario.

Now in my scenario the no myth is not related to the papers, it is related to the NPC. Because I think it is far more interesting if the betrayal is revealed (both to the players and the characters) when they are at the safe, and not when they interact with the NPC much earlier. Because if we reveal it to the players (but obviously not to the characters) already when they interact with the NPCs, then we just have the players to go though motions of walking into a trap and pretending to be shocked that it happened. It is more fun for it to be a genuine surprise, either because that's how GM set it up in a high myth game, or because that's how the dice decided it at the safe at a low myth one.

Well, there's this way of looking at things schematically which leads to "it doesn't technically matter." Either you say "you know he's lying" or you say "you go look and you find out he's lying." Schematically it is the same thing, which just tells us what we should already know, its the fiction which matters, and how it plays out in a dramatic sense. Neither way is right or wrong, and either one might be 'better' depending on the context. This is where a good bit of the skill lies, in understanding the 'feel' of things so you can judge based on pace and the level of tension etc. so that the game 'comes off'. Maybe some GMs are simply reluctant to try their hands at this.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, there's this way of looking at things schematically which leads to "it doesn't technically matter." Either you say "you know he's lying" or you say "you go look and you find out he's lying." Schematically it is the same thing, which just tells us what we should already know, its the fiction which matters, and how it plays out in a dramatic sense. Neither way is right or wrong, and either one might be 'better' depending on the context. This is where a good bit of the skill lies, in understanding the 'feel' of things so you can judge based on pace and the level of tension etc. so that the game 'comes off'. Maybe some GMs are simply reluctant to try their hands at this.

That definitely does matter though, it’s the difference in actively revealing and not actively revealing.

Actively revealing was one of the major points brought up - so definitely matters.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. Outside Meta channels I don’t see how players can be made aware of what is binding myth. The most common meta channel for this being resolution of a knowledge or sensory ‘skill’. Are there any methods that don’t rely on resolution mechanics or dm meta speak. If not what does that say about being able to actively reveal binding myths to players through fictional narration?

The GM can simply convey the information without any resolution mechanics being engaged. "You see the building is on fire!" This seems pretty binding, and generally it would be pretty weird for the GM to deceive a player with such an utterance. I suppose an illusion spell might be such an instance, but then there probably WOULD be some mechanics involved in that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Non binding

*assuming you mean disclosures to the characters in the fiction.

Why are they non-binding? I mean, actually I agree that if a disclosure does not involve anything being put at risk by the character, then maybe it isn't binding, but it is still subject to the usual rules of fictional acceptability.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yup, that is what I meant.


Commitments attach to diegetic disclosures such that asserting X sans caveats justifies reliance on X.

GM: "Tommy tells you they straight-up saw the Supervillain put the Will into the safe before they left for Frankfurt last night."​

​

The right person said the right thing at the right time, so it's added to fiction without further negotiation. By contrast

GM: "Tommy kind of squirms and tells you they saw the Supervillain put the Will into the safe... just before they left for Frankfurt. Umm, that's right... must have been last night. Yeah, last night. For sure."​

​

It is (in whatever way is effective at your table) squarely signalled that Tommy's testimony is unreliable, an effective caveat. This could be reasonable where locating the Will was going to be interesting. Such as - the Supervillains MO is traps and ambushes, set up by dupes. Are you really going to walk into one for the Nth time?

Absence of caveats up front doesn't necessarily prevent twists between now and cracking the safe, but such twists will themselves be disclosed. Not hidden. So the way in which it is "binding" is, provided nothing changes it between now and such time as player puts it at stake. Given nothing changed it, it's still reliable. And hidden changes are not permitted. (Intuitively, exceptions are always going to be possible, given the boundless scope and versality of imagination. Maybe a special circumstance comes up where it works out for information to be hidden?! If it did, we could probably analyse it to derive a principle.)

Careful though! If a player 'wins' some piece of knowledge like this, and doesn't put it at stake (IE see @pemerton's example from BW play earlier) then 'yanking away' their fairly won gains is not really fair play. So, for instance, you COULD subvert something in DW as a hard move, but that assumes the players open themselves up to such a move, and at least implies that there's some linkage between their actions and the thing being subverted. Again, the example of Thoth's prisoner escaping works here as clearly leaving a prisoner unguarded for an extended period of time begs for things to go wrong, AND Thoth's player chose to act carefully, handing the consequence to the GM pretty much gift-wrapped.