Suggestions for a "what are RPGs"/"how to play RPGs" resources

[AbdulAlhazred]

Non-sequiteuer stakes/conditions are a real problem for many. Triggered a player revolt a couple weeks ago in Star Wars...

Yes, this is exactly what I'm speaking to when I note that trad style play generally tries to limit these things to immediate, proximate, events and consequences. You knock over the rocks, orcs hear you and come. In a Narrativist system like, say Dungeon World, the GM would be perfectly justified in having something totally unrelated, causally, as a move made in response. It would have to be something that followed from SOME PART OF the fiction, and obeyed the other principles of DW as explicated. It would not have to have a cause and effect relationship to the rocks falling down. That being said, probably the strongest GM moves WOULD relate causally to the situation, and even the most disconnected ones at least must follow from some doom or the results of some Discern Realities check, or respond to a bond, or other element of some PC, something like that.

One of the important consequences of this is the agency of players. In strictly trad play, the universe of following consequences is heavily shaped by preexisting content, where consequences are much more open to development and player input in Narrativist type games that are scene-framed on the basis of things about the characters.

 

[pemerton]

What reasoning is permissible from a starting point to a conclusion in fiction was touched on in a previous conversation

Fiction, like counterfactuals, involves disciplined/non-arbitrary reasoning despite denying truths and asserting falsehoods.​

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The reasoning involves inferring from an asserted (but not doxastically asserted) starting point, to the conclusion, by drawing upon permissible background assumptions that are not themselves excluded by the entertaining of the initial falsehood. (This is a version of Nelson Goodman's co-tenability requirement for counterfactual reasoning.)​

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The key question, in RPGing (and perhaps fiction more generally) is, what background assumptions are permissible.​

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The reason I cite this here is that I hopefully accurately take a related key question to be, what moves from starting point to conclusion are permissible. I am not aware of any common modes of play in which the move from starting point to conclusion can be a non-sequitur. P's succumbing to locusts was, as it turns out, explained by P's losing her car when she lost the race.

Seeing as I'm being quoted, I thought I would post a response.

My post, that you've quoted, was about reasoning in a fiction.

@AbdulAlhazred is posting about something different, namely, what is a fair or appropriate fictional state of affairs for a GM to narrate, that is consequence on a player failing a check?

In AbdulAlhazred's example, the GM introduces, as a consequence, mutant carnivorous locusts are swarming towards you. That is permissible in the fiction, in that it follows from the background assumption that apocalypse world is full of the consequences of the apocalypse, including mutated animals. The rulebook even gives examples of this.

But that doesn't mean, in itself, that it is a fair or appropriate consequence narration.

The relevant principle that underlies it as fair narration is "barf forth apocalyptica". The question being discussed is whether another principle also applies, which might be loosely described as only narrate consequences that pertain to something the player has expressly or implicitly put at stake by way of their action declaration.

When posters in the past half-dozen posts have been discussing "non sequiturs", they're discussing consequences that don't satisfy that latter candidate principle.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Seeing as I'm being quoted, I thought I would post a response.

My post, that you've quoted, was about reasoning in a fiction.

@AbdulAlhazred is posting about something different, namely, what is a fair or appropriate fictional state of affairs for a GM to narrate, that is consequence on a player failing a check?

In AbdulAlhazred's example, the GM introduces, as a consequence, mutant carnivorous locusts are swarming towards you. That is permissible in the fiction, in that it follows from the background assumption that apocalypse world is full of the consequences of the apocalypse, including mutated animals. The rulebook even gives examples of this.

But that doesn't mean, in itself, that it is a fair or appropriate consequence narration.

The relevant principle that underlies it as fair narration is "barf forth apocalyptica". The question being discussed is whether another principle also applies, which might be loosely described as only narrate consequences that pertain to something the player has expressly or implicitly put at stake by way of their action declaration.

When posters in the past half-dozen posts have been discussing "non sequiturs", they're discussing consequences that don't satisfy that latter candidate principle.

Right, this is my understanding of the discussion as well. I might add some criteria in terms of what I would introduce. So in AW we might think "well, I haven't ever foreshadowed these locusts, so maybe I shouldn't have them eat a PC!" But I think that can easily be addressed in terms of whatever mechanics are invoked to handle this GM move. So, if the driver in my example simply has to abandon her car in order to escape (IE take away their stuff) that seems reasonable, and I don't see why it would be bad form to require some move(s) be made to escape unscathed either, like an Acting Under Fire (CON) to successfully run away fast and far enough to not get eaten.

As I stated in my later post where I responded to @clearstream though, I see the nature and origin of consequences, and thus of checks/moves and their function, as being fundamentally different, and having different rules/conventions, in different styles of play.

 

[clearstream]

Yes, this is exactly what I'm speaking to when I note that trad style play generally tries to limit these things to immediate, proximate, events and consequences. You knock over the rocks, orcs hear you and come. In a Narrativist system like, say Dungeon World, the GM would be perfectly justified in having something totally unrelated, causally, as a move made in response. It would have to be something that followed from SOME PART OF the fiction, and obeyed the other principles of DW as explicated. It would not have to have a cause and effect relationship to the rocks falling down. That being said, probably the strongest GM moves WOULD relate causally to the situation, and even the most disconnected ones at least must follow from some doom or the results of some Discern Realities check, or respond to a bond, or other element of some PC, something like that.

Well, the AW text spells it out

Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fiction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does have to make at least some kind of sense​

Following logically from what's going on in the game's fiction means it's a sequitur.

The question being discussed is whether another principle also applies, which might be loosely described as only narrate consequences that pertain to something the player has expressly or implicitly put at stake by way of their action declaration.

When posters in the past half-dozen posts have been discussing "non sequiturs", they're discussing consequences that don't satisfy that latter candidate principle.

Yes, that is why I wrote "some play cultures limit that badness to what's in sight before the roll". It's not a matter of non-sequiturs, it's a matter of immediacy or transparency.

As an experiment, last year I designed and playtested a modest RPG that includes literal non-sequiturs... much to the mystification of my players. The term has meaning, and that meaning can apply to RPG play, but it is not what folk in this thread are discussing.

Oh, I agree that the two things can be closely related, possibly even identical in some cases. I would generally see those as less interesting. I'd also point out they're more 'trad'. In an AW game it would be perfectly OK for a PC to wager her car, and the consequences of losing a race are getting stuck and having to abandon your vehicle because a horde of carnivorous locusts just swarmed from the east. A consequence entirely causally disconnected from a bad roll to drive.

Most trad GMs would never go for that disconnect IME. They'd want to fiddle around and try to explain everything in terms of something else. So, yeah, crashing your car will only ever produce a crashed car. Now the GM has to have some kind of key or something to get the next story going. This is why I say that it's this consequence loop that is so key to narr vs trad.

These are the words I was responding to (emphasis mine.) I've no disagreement with a claim that some play styles norm "only narrate consequences that pertain to something the player has expressly or implicitly put at stake by way of their action declaration." @AbdulAlhazred's later amendment to "the GM introduced the locusts without justification rooted in the specifics of the failed check" in response to my comments made better sense to me.

 

[clearstream]

My post, that you've quoted, was about reasoning in a fiction.

@AbdulAlhazred is posting about something different, namely, what is a fair or appropriate fictional state of affairs for a GM to narrate, that is consequence on a player failing a check?

I see these as connected, not different. What counts as fair or appropriate for GM to narrate depends on the norms in play for reasoning in a fiction. As I wrote, there is a question of - what moves from starting point to conclusion are permissible [in a fiction].

What are your grounds for excluding that from reasoning in a fiction?

 

[clearstream]

I've no disagreement with a claim that some play styles norm "only narrate consequences that pertain to something the player has expressly or implicitly put at stake by way of their action declaration." @AbdulAlhazred's later amendment to "the GM introduced the locusts without justification rooted in the specifics of the failed check" in response to my comments made better sense to me.

Bringing the conversation back to "stakes", which I defined up thread as "consequences we care about that we agree to involve in success and failure": the quoted principles don't quite speak to my meaning.

When I refer to consequences resolution with stakes, I mean that GM will be required to narrate something that matters to the player. If their car doesn't matter to them, but being nibbled to death by locusts does, then for a mode of play to incorporate stakes it will be inability to escape the locusts and not losing the car that is at stake.

Accepting that for the sake of argument, one can then see that the putative differences between modes implementing stakes, are down to timing of choice of stakes and to who chooses.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Bringing the conversation back to "stakes", which I defined up thread as "consequences we care about that we agree to involve in success and failure": the quoted principles don't quite speak to my meaning.

When I refer to consequences resolution with stakes, I mean that GM will be required to narrate something that matters to the player. If their car doesn't matter to them, but being nibbled to death by locusts does, then for a mode of play to incorporate stakes it will be inability to escape the locusts and not losing the car that is at stake.

Accepting that for the sake of argument, one can then see that the putative differences between modes implementing stakes, are down to timing of choice of stakes and to who chooses.

Responding a bit to both of your posts:

I think when Baker/Meguey talk about what follows or is sequitur I feel that I addressed that a bit more in my last post. It does NOT have to involve each thing being a simple logical consequence of the proximate elements of fiction. It can be drawn from fronts/clocks/threat maps, or even just principles, as @pemerton noted (barf forth apocalyptica).

I agree, whatever the stakes are in a given situation they'll have to matter to the players, and the consequences, or maybe we should say outcome, should move us to further wagers.

The difference, as I see it with trad is profound, and surfacing that guided my use of terms. Again, I freely admit I don't use them exactly like Baker, but that may reflect a focus on different scope.

Trad centers the introduction of new story elements on adherence to a plot, some sort of setting which is used to generate a set of constraints and trajectory of narrative that is independent of story considerations.

 

[pemerton]

Well, the AW text spells it out

Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fiction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does have to make at least some kind of sense​

Following logically from what's going on in the game's fiction means it's a sequitur.


Yes, that is why I wrote "some play cultures limit that badness to what's in sight before the roll". It's not a matter of non-sequiturs, it's a matter of immediacy or transparency.

I see these as connected, not different. What counts as fair or appropriate for GM to narrate depends on the norms in play for reasoning in a fiction. As I wrote, there is a question of - what moves from starting point to conclusion are permissible [in a fiction].

What are your grounds for excluding that from reasoning in a fiction?

It seems to me that of the following two things, the second is a special case of the first, and is of particular importance for RPGing:

*Reasoning in a fiction - that is, extrapolating or adding in ways that permits falsehoods (ie it's a fiction) but that conforms to appropriate background assumptions;

*Narrating a consequence for a player's failed move/check.​

The discussion of non-sequiturs, at least as I've followed it, is about the second of these, not the first.

Apocalypse World says the following (p 117):

Here are guidelines for choosing your moves:

Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fiction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does have to make at least some kind of sense.

Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move, and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.

However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect opportunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.

When a player’s character makes a move and the player misses the roll, that’s the cleanest and clearest example there is of an opportunity on a plate. When you’ve been setting something up and it comes together without interference, that counts as an opportunity on a plate too.

But again, unless a player’s character has handed you the opportunity, limit yourself to a move that sets up future moves, your own and the players’ characters’.​

As I read it, it does have to make at least some kind of sense is about permissible reasoning within the fiction. Whereas setting up a future harder move is about appropriate consequences (ie avoiding "non-sequitur" as it has been used in this thread. The latter is under a tighter constraint.

For instance, while carnivorous locusts coming from nowhere might make sense within the fiction, if the move you're being nibbled by carnivorous locusts hasn't been set up (eg by seeing the cloud of locusts approaching over the horizon) then it is probably not a good GM-side move in AW.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For instance, while carnivorous locusts coming from nowhere might make sense within the fiction, if the move you're being nibbled by carnivorous locusts hasn't been set up (eg by seeing the cloud of locusts approaching over the horizon) then it is probably not a good GM-side move in AW.

Exactly so! Sally is driving like mad, she's got to get the blood to the shelter before Bob dies of shock. As she tools down the road she sees a weird cloud moving in from the East, noting that the wind is blowing TOWARDS the east. A couple of strange bugs land on her windscreen, they look nasty. As she rounds the corner she comes right up against one of Joe's stupid mule carts, and the mule is going crazy! It lurches right into the road, and she ends up in the ditch.

As she gets out of the car, she notices that she hit the mule, it is lying dead in the road, the cart overturned, and those damned bugs are dropping out of the sky right on it!

There's no causal relationship between the bugs and the car, particularly. The bugs didn't even specifically cause a crash, they're just set dressing for that. But now they're here, and Sally will have to deal with it, somehow. Where did they come from? Who knows, its Apocalypse World! Why are they here now? Because it puts pressure on Sally and further develops the weird apocalyptic vision of the game. No other reason.

Note, there wasn't a random encounter table, there isn't some kind of map with a bug lair on it, nothing like that. It would be fine if the GM had already threat mapped the bugs, or maybe even if some other event in play someplace had provided a cause for a bug swarm, but it isn't NEEDED.

I think this is a rather fundamental part of the character of Narrativist play. Now, in a TB2 game it will manifest differently, but there's still that element of things being driven by what pushes the game along a path that fits with that specific games overall agenda.

 

[pemerton]

I think this is a rather fundamental part of the character of Narrativist play. Now, in a TB2 game it will manifest differently, but there's still that element of things being driven by what pushes the game along a path that fits with that specific games overall agenda.

Right. So here is a brief extract of the actual play report of my most recent Torchbearer 2e session:

Telemere then decided there must be some other secret room or cache, and tested his Beginner's Luck Stonemason to find it. Golin - whose Creed is that Elves are lost in dreams, and need grounding in reality - declined to help him; but Fea-bella - whose Creed is that These are dark times, so all Elves need help! - decided to help, even though she thought it was hopeless.

The test failed, and so Telemere found nothing. Rather, Golin - watching from atop the shrine - saw a vessel sailing down the river towards them. He recognised it as a pirate river galley, especially when it ran up the Jolly Roger! He also thought he heard some words drifting through the still air, something like "Is that Golin the Beardless?"

The PCs decided to flee.

The test being performed is a search of a Dwarf-built stone structure, by Telemere the Elf.

Golin the Dwarf declines to help (at the table, the player is confident Telemere will fail and doesn't want to pick up any more conditions; in the fiction because he thinks that Elves need grounding in reality, in this case in the reality that there is nothing more to be found).

So the fictional situation is that Telemere and Fea-bella are poking around at the base of the structure, while - as I confirmed with Golin's player, but in a pretty cursory fashion - Golin is looking out from atop the structure. This then provides the set-up for the twist consequent on the failure: Golin sees the priates sailing down the river towards them!

Of course there's no in-fiction causal connection between Telemere's search and pirates turning up, other than the loosest one possible: the search involves hanging around by this place on the river, creating time for the pirates to get there.

But the pirates are thematically highly salient - Telemere had earlier been taken prisoner by them; the other PCs had bargained with them as part of brining them into a relationship with Lareth and his cult; when the PCs had taken a recent town phase in Nulb, they had to sleep on the streets because all the accommodations were full of pirates; and Telemere had picked up some gossip at the Nulb docks that the pirates were angry at some Dwarf called "Golin the Beardless" a rumour-mill's combination of the names of (i) the PC Golin and (ii) a pirate-associated NPC Fori the Beardless.

As you've been posting, this sort of GM decision-making, unmediated by random encounter checks, might be out-of-bounds for typical "trad" play. But it's of the essence of Torchbearer! It's how the GM makes the game go!