System matters and free kriegsspiel

[overgeeked]

I can tell you I don't have money.

Well of course you don't. You're a gamer.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

"Don't be a weasel" is a Player Best Practice for Blades in the Dark. It addresses the fact that players should be principled in their choice of what Action to use in a given situation. So in Blades, the GM doesn't say "give me a Stealth roll" or the like, it's actually the player who chooses what Action they will use. So the player may say "I'm going to Prowl to silently sneak up on this guard" or they may say "I'm going to use Finesse to carefully pick my path toward the guard". It's up to the player to choose which Action they use.

"Don't be a weasel" is telling them that this power comes with responsibility, and they should choose the action with integrity, and not just based on their highest score.

Ooh oh oh oh oh!

This is something I've been meaning to write about! So until I get the full post up, I thought I'd mention this briefly-

The two areas that I find interesting when it comes to this are as follows:

1. Here, for example, we have a written principle. Which is great and all, but would that be any different than a norm? In other words, imagine a game that has the same division of authority (with players getting the choice) that doesn't explicitly say "Don't be a weasel." Absent that explicit principle in the game, is the default to be a weasel, or not to be a weasel?

2. Given that principles cannot be enforceable rules (don't be a weasel is not exactly black & white, and who knows what horrors lurk in the hearts of the various lizard people we play with), do we provide the same general understanding of the principles for being a DM as we would for ones for players, whether written or unwritten? Be fair? Don't be a weasel? That sort of thing?

Not sure when I'll have this in full, but this is something I've been meaning to write about for a while ...

 

[hawkeyefan]

Ooh oh oh oh oh!

This is something I've been meaning to write about! So until I get the full post up, I thought I'd mention this briefly-

The two areas that I find interesting when it comes to this are as follows:

1. Here, for example, we have a written principle. Which is great and all, but would that be any different than a norm? In other words, imagine a game that has the same division of authority (with players getting the choice) that doesn't explicitly say "Don't be a weasel." Absent that explicit principle in the game, is the default to be a weasel, or not to be a weasel?

Sure, it very well could be. Absent that principle, many folks may go the route that @overgeeked has described. I agree with him in that when presented with a game and here are the rules and this is the goal, people are going to try to achieve the goal through the rules, and part of that will be in testing the rules or seeing if they can be usurped or subverted in some way.

I think this is why having such principles clearly stated for the players and not just for the GM can be a big mitigating factor toward the kinds of issues that have been described, i.e. gaming the system, optimizing the fun away, etc.

I think it also depends on what the goal of play may be. In D&D, it's to win. We often say that's not the goal and talk about how there's no winners or losers in the game.....but that's kind of BS. The goal in D&D is to win....to beat the monster, to navigate the dungeon, to get the treasure....and so on. That's been so conditioned into players that the idea of seeking any and all advantages may become their default approach. Hence, 10' poles and door protocol and trap-springers hirelings and so on. These are all born of the need to win. These are all part of the game world, but they largely exist and were so common because of the game.

So I think that it really is a combo of many things that may lead to the kinds of concerns we've been discussing.

2. Given that principles cannot be enforceable rules (don't be a weasel is not exactly black & white, and who knows what horrors lurk in the hearts of the various lizard people we play with), do we provide the same general understanding of the principles for being a DM as we would for ones for players, whether written or unwritten? Be fair? Don't be a weasel? That sort of thing?

Not sure when I'll have this in full, but this is something I've been meaning to write about for a while ...

Right. This is the question I posed.....what makes the GM so capable of being neutral and trustworthy while the players are considered incapable of it? I do think that we can hold all participants to some kinds of play standards. Some would be universal and some would be specific to the role of GM or player. And although they may not be as codified as rules....they may fail at times or we may fail to achieve them in some instances of play....I think they go a long way.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Right. This is the question I posed.....what makes the GM so capable of being neutral and trustworthy while the players are considered incapable of it? I do think that we can hold all participants to some kinds of play standards. Some would be universal and some would be specific to the role of GM or player. And although they may not be as codified as rules....they may fail at times or we may fail to achieve them in some instances of play....I think they go a long way.

Oh, as I will elaborate on further, I don't think that it's the case that the GM can or should be considered more trustworthy. As I always say, "People suck. They listen to Coldplay and play Bards."

I think it comes down to a variety of factors-
1. What does the table prefer?
2. What are the relative desires/skills of the participants?
3. Is there some inherent advantage with a particular division of authority?

I think one way that (some) people look at it is at a very basic level- with a GM-centric model, you have one point of failure; with a table-centric model, you can have multiple points of failure. Of course, the flip-side of that is that with a GM-centric model, the point of failure is usually catastrophic, whereas it tends to be less-so with a table-centric approach.

Maybe. Still working on it.

 

[Fenris-77]

Meh. Approaching topics like this with an assumption of bad faith play is pretty pointless. Pretty much any RPG falls apart with bad faith play on either side of the screen. Assumptions about player drives and actions, like the ones above, don't even pass the smell test for me. I don't play with munchkins and I don't play with jerks, so subversion of the game/rules by way of optimization really isn't a problem at my table. On the occasions where it does happen (almost always as a result the unforeseen synergy between rules ) we have a little chat as a group, decide how to handle it, and move on. I also don't generally believe that players are out to subvert the game, an idea here which seems to have been welded on to the idea of optimization without good rationale. They aren't the same thing, nor do they inevitably happen together.

 

[Campbell]

I think there is massive value in enumerated principles for both players and GMs because it helps us to establish explicit boundaries and expectations for play. Sure they are not enforceable in the same way explicit procedures are, but they can be useful for ongoing conversations about what we all expect from play. I know it has been useful to me when running/playing Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, etc. Sometimes you alter the list a bit for the specific group, but having them out in the open is immensely useful.

I am used to this sort of thing though. It is a big part of scouting, martial arts, sports, and active duty military life so it was formative to me.

 

[pemerton]

I think there is massive value in enumerated principles for both players and GMs because it helps us to establish explicit boundaries and expectations for play. Sure they are not enforceable in the same way explicit procedures are

To be honest, I don't think I agree with that last sentence.

In my 4e game, the PCs won a skill challenge - a social encounter. That was the end of that session. The next session began with me framing the combat that followed on from that challenge. As I was stating part of my framing, one of the players pulled me up, and reminded me that as a result of the players' success in the skill challenge, it was established in the fiction that everyone knew the evil advisor, and not the PCs, was responsible for the bad stuff that was happening.

That's enforcement of a principle (in this case, of respecting the established consequences as binding). To my mind it's no different from pointing out that someone added up their AC wrong. In both cases - given we're talking about a leisure activity - the process and sanctions for "enforcement" are purely informal social ones.

Another example: in the BW game where I'm a player, the GM had framed a scene involving elves (he loves elves!). I could see what he was doing - it evoked memories of other games and sessions we'd played together - but it didn't connect to my own priorities (Beliefs, etc) for my character. So, following the advice to players set out in the rulebook, I declared an action that would reorient things - I tried to persuade the elf captain to accompany me back to my ancestral homeland so he could help me deal with the evil that festers there! I knew that I had little or no chance of winning this Duel of Wits - and that turned out to be the case! I didn't even get a compromise - but the process itself was enough to bring the game back onto its principled focus: my PC and his struggles.

I think it distorts our understanding to trot out cliches like the players only recourse is to quit the game or there is no solution to principles-violating play other than not to play with d*ckheads. I mean, of course not playing with d*ckheads is a good idea, but people violate principles all the time, in all areas of life, without being fundamentally unworthy people. (My BW GM is one of the best GMs I've known.) And there are all sorts of ways we handle that short of ragequitting!

 

[pemerton]

A sequel to my reply to @Campbell just upthread:

I find references to trust or suggestions that sceptics of some or other sort of RPGing are imputing bad faith play basically unhelpful.

Good faith play of snakes and ladders means not cheating on your dice rolls and being honest in your counting of squares. I played snakes and ladders (in so many variants - the worst was a Bob the Builder one) with my kids when they were little. But we don't play it any more, because it does not deliver a fun experience. Finding out what happens when you roll a die, and practising your counting, just don't cut it anymore as a leisure activity.

Good faith play of chess means not knocking over the board so that no one can remember the position, and - even if playing other than touch-move - not engaging in so many ums and ahs and takebacks that the game really turns into one person's practice workshop. I don't play much chess, because I don't enjoy it all that much. (And there is a causal interrelationship there to the fact that I'm not that good at it.) Now someone could come along and tell me how great chess is, and how I'd really love it if I just played more of it. And maybe they're right! But maybe they're not. And whether or not they're right, and whether or not I'm going to try and play a bit more chess, has nothing to do with anyone's good faith. And it's not going to change the fact that I still want to play whist-type auction-and-trick card games.

As Vincent Baker has said, at the core of RPGing is negotiated imagination. So what is fundamental to any particular approach to RPGing is who gets to say what, when, in accordance with what rules and principles, and make it part of the shared fiction. One answer to that question is the GM. But obviously that's not the only possible answer. There are many possibilities, particularly once we think about all the different sorts of things that we might want to say in the course of our RPGing (what happened before? what happens next? what are things like here-and-now? what will happen if I (as my PC) do this thing rather than that thing? etc).

My enjoyment of a RPG experience, and the particular nature of that enjoyment given the particular nature of the experience, will depend on the answers to those questions about who gets to say what when. References to trust and to good or bad faith do not go even a single step, as far as I can see, to providing those answers.

 

[chaochou]

My fundamental issue is that the play loop for this style is zero agency from the player point of view. People are absolutely free to enjoy it, but I don't.

1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
3. The DM narrates the results of their actions.

If the goal of the game is to announce actions then I can achieve that, but the moment the goal of the game is defined in terms of affecting the gameworld this loop only gives power to do that to the DM.

This isn't theoretical. I've years of experience of zero agency play. You are, at best, an advisor and at worst an irrelevance or irritation.

And no amount of 'trust' or appeals for the DM to 'not be a douche' raises you from advisor to player. The construct doesn't allow it. The DM gatekeeps everything.

It's an interesting theme amongst dictators through history that they always claim to be absolutely essential. Personally, I've never been convinced.

 

[Manbearcat]

To riff off of what @chaochou has just written above, I wonder what would happen at the following FKR table:

* 4 players + 1 GM

*1 player is interacting with the GM exclusively in a protracted scene

* During the protracted 1 on 1 scene, the other 3 players start to talk to each other while inhabiting their characters and faithfully "playing the world" based on the conceits of character design and play (looking at Dark Empires Dark Empires by D3B4G , they're using all of the stuff on the bottom page 2 to page 3 and the outlined premise of play).

* After the protracted scene that the 1 player + 1 GM plays out, the conversation of those 3 players (not overseen by nor vetted by the GM but entirely hewing to "playing the world" and the conceits of the game's character building, theme, and premise) has established a few layers of fiction. They now make a collective action declaration that is contingent upon that fiction that the 3 of them have established being true.


What happens? Is this a violation? Is this principled play? Is there no normative statement about FKR play that can categorize this event?