I think innerdude's example shows that there is no special connection between a "real world" that is "dynamic and living" and "hidden backstory". The whole point of innerdude's example is that the backstory is known to the players, as part of the framing of the situation which they are engaging via their PCs.
It shows nothing of the sort. Of course it's possible to have things that the players know. However, the metagame implications of the players knowing
every possible meaningful bit of information, not just some information some of the time, is hard to swallow.
What you state is not the rule for 4e, and I don't see why, when discussing the next edition of D&D in a public space I should assume that 3E rather than 4e rules apply (after all, there is a reason I play 4e and do not play 3E).
Despite this point's tangential nature, it is interesting that even the 4e text you quote directly undermines what you are saying.This is exactly what you're saying you don't/won't do, and exactly what I'm saying is part of the game:
However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. If a player asks, “Can I use Diplomacy?” you should ask what exactly the character might be doing . . . Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge.
When I play an RPG I am not setting out to learn what the GM had in mind.
Most people aren't, I imagine. That's why it's a secret.
What do you have in mind? I've just reread LotR - very little is hidden from the reader. Whatever its virtues, suspense is not really one of them.
Given how much action takes place off-screen, how much setup takes place in other material that was not published with the trilogy, and how much important information is in appendices, I don't see how you could possibly reach that conclusion.
And the reason why it is wrong for the GM to have a pre-defined result in mind, for me, is the same as the one that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has stated: it substitutes GM narration for playing the game.
You're implying that there's a distinction between the two. I don't see how that could be true, given that the DM is the players' window into the world. Without him narrating the outcomes of their actions, they would be unable to participate at all (let alone his narrations of everything else).
This is so true that I've quoted it twice! The idea that the GM must veto players' declared actions for their PCs, or rule those actions automatic failures, in order to preserve consistency, strikes me as misguided. The players' conception of the ingame situation, and hence of what is possible within it, is as important as the GM's. Part of the GM's job is to translate that into mechanical framing, using the resources that the game provides.
The DM's conceptions are, by definition, more important than those of the players.
If the prospect of failure is so self-evident, then why is the scene even being framed? Why bring the king into the ingame situation at all if the players can't meaningfully declare PC actions in relation to him?Tell the players in advance so they can do something else worthwhile with their play time.
That's called metagaming. The reason to frame it this way is because this is how play unfolds. There is a whole world out there, some of which can be meaningfully interacted with, some of which cannot. Players often try to do things that are, for any number of reasons, inappropriate, wasteful, subversive, etc. One of the most important challenges of DMing is figuring out how to deal with it when they do.
Telling them that it's impossible is essentially playing the game for them. There's an element of discretion there; sometimes it's best to do that to make things go faster or more clearly. But fundamentally, it's something for the players to find out themselves.
But in fact I don't see why no reasonable player would expect to be able to meet and influence a king. Gandalf and Aragorn do so, repeatedly, in LotR. Conan does so, repeatedly, in the REH stories. And these are the ostensible models for our RPGing. I don't think it's at all inappropriate for players to want their PCs to engage in similar sorts of adventures.
Context does matter. One could easily come up with scenarios where the PCs' request would be entirely reasonable. However, those are the exceptions, not the rule.
D&D may aspire to those types of fantasy, but its characters develop slowly and the guidelines for creating them push us towards the ordinary, no towards epic heroics. Can a DM create something more auspicious? Sure. But a typical D&D character is just a treasure hunter, which is a far cry from Aragorn/Conan/etc.
I've just recently re-read LotR, following a re-watching of the movies. Both experiences were a pleasure. (If I didn't enjoy them, I wouldn't watch/read them.) I want RPGing to be comparably pleasurable.
I shudder to think of anyone describing the books as a pleasure. They're dry, endless, and virtually devoid of emotion. They read like a history textbook.
And that's why they work. Because the writing style conveys a sense that these events actually happened and are being chronicled in some way, as opposed to the books being enjoyable in and of themselves.
For me, there is a pretty clear difference. The players getting what they want by the GM saying yes is not a railroad. It's letting the players steer the engine.
Letting. If there was perfect transparency and the players knew what decisions were being made and why (as we know in the hypothetical) there really isn't any difference.
It's true that the players are driving the action. Of course they are! They're players, that's what they're supposed to do. That's why DMing by the book is not "fiat", it's not some kind of spiteful game of trying to screw the PCs. Setting meaningful restrictions does not deprive the players of the degree of agency they're supposed to have. It's not like anyone's being told what to do.
The situation in question was not a "hostile encounter".
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Whether or not you like the game system, I don't possibly see how you can be saying you don't think it was the right decision. I'm not sure what the normative framework is that you're using, but I don't see any in the neighbourhood that can yield that conclusion. At the worst, it could be a case of "saying yes" that led to anti-climax, but as someone who was there I can say that no anti-climax ensued.
Somebody died. Sounds hostile to me.
It sounds wrong because the creature was denied a fair opportunity to live by engaging a variety of combat mechanics that it sounds to me would have been helpful. It's wrong in the same way as it is, for example, to have some characters roll Survival to forage for food and come back with a dead animal they killed (possibly one they could not have killed), except in this case, instead of killing a creature we've never heard of before, they killed a specific, identifiable one.
This bears basically no resemblance to how I GM RPGs, nor to what I am looking for when I play an RPG.
Which is probably why you use the generic "GM" and not DM. And also why we're discussing the game, not your game (or my game, or any of the others around).
I have not had this experience. Perhaps it is more localised than you think.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. The default behavior of D&D characters has often been defined as "killing things and taking their stuff", and they're called "murder hobos" in some circles. D&D encourages violent, aggressive behavior, and a great portion of the rules are devoted to it.
Moreover, the basic nature of roleplaying allows people to act in an alternate world that poses different sets of consequences. (Or, in the absence of strong DMing, no consequences for anything). People naturally have an id, or whatever you want to call it. They have desires that do not conform to our social reality. The game environment is an opportunity to indulge them.
Will there be some variation? Sure. I'm referring to examples largely with teenage boys, which is going to result in fairly reckless and antisocial behavior. Not atypical for D&D, but not universal. However, it seems to me that the forces above transcend demographics.
And this is one of the reasons why visionary and authoritative DMing is so important. People need supervision. The natural outcome of throwing several of them together into a violent, consequence-free world is ugly. The DM can provide one or both of a dose of realistic consequences for actions and a moral center. I try to do both. You may have some experiences with older adults or experienced RPGers, but if beginners were allowed to run rampant on a widespread basis, it would be fuel to the fire for all the moral panic people who hate D&D.
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Interestingly, the whole getting to see the king example is a bit of a microcosm here. The players aren't attempting to act out some version of the aristocrats joke, to be sure, but they're doing something that's completely socially inappropriate in a real-world context. You generally cannot just walk up to some important person and expect them to interact with you. Showing the players that this is no more true for their characters than it would be for them prevents them from getting too full of themselves.
