The GM is Not There to Entertain You

[pemerton]

Your original example read as if the single PC pulled the gun and the next scene was the whole party captured and being interrogated.

@Campbell's example was of AW play. He referred to "a player character". In AW there is no "party".

 

[Lanefan]

Campbell wasn't clarifying, just reiterating. Here's the original post:
Campbell clearly used the singular "a player character", and was clearly using "they" and "them" as genderless singular pronouns.

Particularly in a context where the actual number involved is unclear, using "they" very strongly implies there is more than one.

 

[Lanefan]

@Campbell's example was of AW play. He referred to "a player character". In AW there is no "party".

It's solo-play only?

 

[pemerton]

A further thought on capture-and-escape.

Most RPGing involves larger-than-life adventure and/or drama. If action resolution procedures don't allow this to happen, then something is going wrong.

In D&D the combat procedures clearly do allow for it - eg mortal warriors going toe-to-toe with giants and dragons. If the procedures for resolving escape from captivity don't, that's a problem with those procedures!

 

[pemerton]

It's solo-play only?

No. It's a game - like many RPGs - in which the PCs are not members of a party or a warband.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sorry that I don't preface every post with the complete list of games I've ever played to allay your suspicions. Here's a thought. You could start a thread where you demand everyone on the forums posts every game they've ever played just so you can check to be sure when they disagree with you. I'm sure that would work. Of course that's self-reporting, just like your assertions that you've played these games. Your claims are just as valid as mine.

Oh, you don't have to provide a pedigree, by no means. But, you've suddenly chosen to do so. Such a claim would have been rather relevant in previous discussions, where you've listed other games you've played, but not these. So, the sudden appearance of a pedigree that's very clearly a claim to experience to bolster credibility seems interesting. You're, of course, welcome to post whatever you'd like -- I have no say on that.

Any chance we can permanently skip the bit where you feel the need to question other people's geek cred whenever they disagree with you? It's boring, really.

About the point people stop listing their geek cred as a reason to believe what they're going to say next, I guess. I question this cred because you've not previously shown any real evidence of understanding of how these games play -- sometimes very far off -- and I find that hard to square with your newly claimed pedigree.

So, to answer your question, sure, the moment it stops being used as a crutch. If you present actual play from these games, examples that show your understanding -- you know, like I do, and @pemerton does, and @Manbearcat does, and... so on -- then you'll escape the questions. Heck, a steelmanning of how these games are expected to play would suffice. Can you steelman the expected play of a PbtA game?

Of course you are. Because I disagree with you. And because I disagree you cannot believe I have read or played or run these games. How's the sequence go: If you disagree with me you must not have read it, if you've read it you must not understand it, if you claim to understand it the fact that you disagree with me proves you don't understand. It's the same thing every time.

Oh, no. Plenty of people disagree with me. My problem is that I've seen no evidence that you can make a strong argument for how these games are supposed to run. You haven't yet. So, if you have that knowledge, it's not something you've yet chosen to deploy. I await with bated breath. I'd love to have an actual discussion where we aren't argument about basic facts of how these games are supposed to work and so we can dive into differences (of opinion and play) with a solid foundation!

I've certainly done that with people that show they have a good grasp of the concepts but dislike them. You can dislike these games all you want -- I'd welcome that. So long as it's paired with understanding.

It is a salient point. Sorry you disagree, you must not have read the same PbtA games I have. Or you must not have played or run them as much as I have. Or...you know...we can both be real gamers and just have a disagreement.

Ah, you complain that I'm questioning your geek cred but now are flipping that script and saying I just must not have the depth of experience you do. I mean, totally devoid of actual examples of such, sure, but I'm following.

Because it's true. As seen from the example in the thread. One PC pulls a gun and the whole group is referee-fiat captured as a result. Removing the agency of the PCs to resist that capture in any way. That clearly causes problems with several posters' sense of agency. It's because the difference in resolution that some agency is removed. If the characters were real people in a real world facing that situation, they'd be able to do something about it. At least try. But PbtA games have a lower resolution, zoom out, etc and you lose granularity. You lose some agency as a result. It's not necessarily bad, but it's a bit weird to pretend it's not true.

Nope. Example misstated. And, had you had experience with the games you're claiming, the oddness of the structure of the misstatement of the example should have been obvious because it would violate the principles of play. The actual example was 1 PC and the outcome applied only to that 1 PC. No other PCs were mentioned, and, as @Campbell said about his example, even considered when the example was offered.

Right?

So? The players control their characters. The referee controls the world. Conflicts aren't resolved until both sides decide they are, something forces one side to relent, or one side ceases to exist.

That's the point. The PC don't want the conflict to resolve this way, they want to fight it...but they can't. Their ability to fight it...their agency...is removed and the referee simply declares something to be true that the characters reasonably would be able to act against.

The players in a D&D game have no authority or say in when a conflict resolves. None. If the GM is asking for their input, that's the GM sharing things out, which isn't required. And the GM retains full veto authority over any input that they do choose to loan out, thus retaining the full authority (basically asking for opinions before making their call). So, no, analysis of the authority of these games is different. Which is an interesting point because there's many complaints about how the GM is constrained in PbtA games, and not in D&D, and it's primarily this constraint! In PbtA, the GM is actually constrained to resolve conflicts in the players' favor when they succeed. There's some wiggle room in if it might take multiple actions to do so, but that's clearly laid out in play and understood among all players, but then, you already know this with your experience, right, so I really don't need to point that out.

Right. Up to a point. Players can make meaningful choices from a finite, curated list of moves. Anything not directly related to those is either out of bounds or up to the referee. PbtA certainly pushes things towards drama, I'm not claiming otherwise. But it does so by removing agency. You have to skip over agency to hard frame a scene. You have to skip over agency to make a sequence-of-events move in response to a failed player move.

Oh, good grief. You've just blown your entire claim to understanding and having experience out of the water. That's expressly NOT how the move lists work. The players declare actions for their PCs in the fiction -- they don't mention moves but say what their character does in the fiction. Then, if their action implicates a move, the GM calls for the move to be made. The players aren't picking from a curated list, and nothing is out of bounds. In fact (and, again, given your experience with these games you surely know this), the basic moves are incredibly generic. Things like persuade to try and get your way with words or deeds, or clash, where you get into a fight, or defend, where you're defending something. Or the one that shows up all the time, Defy Danger, which is when you act in a contested way to do something. You Defy Danger with every one of the attributes (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha for Dungeon World, which you've claimed experience with but may have forgotten this detail, so I'll remind you). So Defy Danger CHA can be called for if you declare an action for your PC to try and charm their way out of a dangerous situation!

Example from last night's Stonetop game: My PC, Dap, was trying to get to and heal a critically wounded person from another village. This wounded person (fall from a horse, broken neck) was being cradled by a capable warrior from that same village who was extremely distrustful of my PC (my PC had just displayed some magical power, and this warrior was extremely superstitious). What happened was that as I approached, the warrior rose to attack me, grabbing my shirt and cocking back a punch. I declared my PC was going to calmly look him in the eyes, not resist at all, and say, "peace friend, the darkness holds no sway here." (The PC was superstitious about the powers of darkness.) The GM called for a Defy Danger CHA move, which I hit (rolled a 10, +2 CHA, 12 result). The warrior let his fist drop as he realized I was not an agent of darkness using foul sorcery, but an agent of the light (which my PC literally is). Had I failed, the clear outcome here was harm to my PC from taking a punch without resisting. Had I hit with a 7-9, the GM has some options, like offering reduced effect, meaning the danger is passed, but there's still no way this guy is letting me near his dying friend.

This is pretty darned clear if you actually have experience with these games. If this is how you played those games, I'm deeply sorry for your experience. If you gleaned that from reading them, then I suggest a re-read is in order, looking for the blatantly clear direction on how the game plays.

A player rolls a failure on some check, now the referee gets a move. The referee picks hard or soft, say hard. The referee picks from a list or makes one up. The referee then spits that hard move out into the fiction...without the players being able to do anything about it. This is why I always start with soft move, to telegraph terrible things about to happen rather than just spring something on the players. It's such a cool idea that I basically stole it and use it to run all my games.

A separate example but shows the same thing. A player fails a move, the referee makes a hard move, separate the party. Cool. What form does that take? A wall falls between them. Okay. Sweet. Now, if you've played any RPG for more than five minutes, you know you'll have a table full of players shouting at you about all the things they're going to do to prevent this from happening before you can finish the sentence declaring the wall falls between them...or you have players gripe about how they wanted to do something but you won't let them. But nope. The wall falls, the party is separated. What agency do the characters have in that event? None.

I've played plenty of RPGs. I've never had that happen. Certainly not in a PbtA game, but also not in my D&D playing. If you've done the job of setting stakes, then these things don't happen.

Where I have seen that happen is when I've assumed actions for the players in a D&D game where I've declared their task attempt for them, or a detail about it that wasn't clarified prior to the resolution (like touching something when the player just said they pushed their "investigate" button on their character sheet. It's not an issue in games that stake conflict resolution because the stakes are known to be larger, and the failure is clear, and the result should be clearly following from the current situation. It's where the GM, in a task resolution system, assumes actions not declared by the player.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know it's fairly common to compare MHRP to Fate, but personally I don't really see it. It doesn't have compels (Limits can sometimes resemble compels, but they're much more targetted and "fine-tuned") and you don't earn Fate points for having your aspects invoked.

I think it's great for stylised and trope-heavy settings and situations. That's no surprise, given it's a super hero system. But has also made it easy to adapt for fantasy, including LotR/MERP.

The aspects thing is what I was focusing on. To me, its the most jarring part of the whole system for either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, you don't have to provide a pedigree, by no means. But, you've suddenly chosen to do so. Such a claim would have been rather relevant in previous discussions, where you've listed other games you've played, but not these. So, the sudden appearance of a pedigree that's very clearly a claim to experience to bolster credibility seems interesting. You're, of course, welcome to post whatever you'd like -- I have no say on that.

About the point people stop listing their geek cred as a reason to believe what they're going to say next, I guess. I question this cred because you've not previously shown any real evidence of understanding of how these games play -- sometimes very far off -- and I find that hard to square with your newly claimed pedigree.

So, to answer your question, sure, the moment it stops being used as a crutch. If you present actual play from these games, examples that show your understanding -- you know, like I do, and @pemerton does, and @Manbearcat does, and... so on -- then you'll escape the questions. Heck, a steelmanning of how these games are expected to play would suffice. Can you steelman the expected play of a PbtA game?

Oh, no. Plenty of people disagree with me. My problem is that I've seen no evidence that you can make a strong argument for how these games are supposed to run. You haven't yet. So, if you have that knowledge, it's not something you've yet chosen to deploy. I await with bated breath. I'd love to have an actual discussion where we aren't argument about basic facts of how these games are supposed to work and so we can dive into differences (of opinion and play) with a solid foundation!

I've certainly done that with people that show they have a good grasp of the concepts but dislike them. You can dislike these games all you want -- I'd welcome that. So long as it's paired with understanding.

Ah, you complain that I'm questioning your geek cred but now are flipping that script and saying I just must not have the depth of experience you do. I mean, totally devoid of actual examples of such, sure, but I'm following.

Nope. Example misstated. And, had you had experience with the games you're claiming, the oddness of the structure of the misstatement of the example should have been obvious because it would violate the principles of play. The actual example was 1 PC and the outcome applied only to that 1 PC. No other PCs were mentioned, and, as @Campbell said about his example, even considered when the example was offered.

Right?

The players in a D&D game have no authority or say in when a conflict resolves. None. If the GM is asking for their input, that's the GM sharing things out, which isn't required. And the GM retains full veto authority over any input that they do choose to loan out, thus retaining the full authority (basically asking for opinions before making their call). So, no, analysis of the authority of these games is different. Which is an interesting point because there's many complaints about how the GM is constrained in PbtA games, and not in D&D, and it's primarily this constraint! In PbtA, the GM is actually constrained to resolve conflicts in the players' favor when they succeed. There's some wiggle room in if it might take multiple actions to do so, but that's clearly laid out in play and understood among all players, but then, you already know this with your experience, right, so I really don't need to point that out.

Oh, good grief. You've just blown your entire claim to understanding and having experience out of the water. That's expressly NOT how the move lists work. The players declare actions for their PCs in the fiction -- they don't mention moves but say what their character does in the fiction. Then, if their action implicates a move, the GM calls for the move to be made. The players aren't picking from a curated list, and nothing is out of bounds. In fact (and, again, given your experience with these games you surely know this), the basic moves are incredibly generic. Things like persuade to try and get your way with words or deeds, or clash, where you get into a fight, or defend, where you're defending something. Or the one that shows up all the time, Defy Danger, which is when you act in a contested way to do something. You Defy Danger with every one of the attributes (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha for Dungeon World, which you've claimed experience with but may have forgotten this detail, so I'll remind you). So Defy Danger CHA can be called for if you declare an action for your PC to try and charm their way out of a dangerous situation!

Example from last night's Stonetop game: My PC, Dap, was trying to get to and heal a critically wounded person from another village. This wounded person (fall from a horse, broken neck) was being cradled by a capable warrior from that same village who was extremely distrustful of my PC (my PC had just displayed some magical power, and this warrior was extremely superstitious). What happened was that as I approached, the warrior rose to attack me, grabbing my shirt and cocking back a punch. I declared my PC was going to calmly look him in the eyes, not resist at all, and say, "peace friend, the darkness holds no sway here." (The PC was superstitious about the powers of darkness.) The GM called for a Defy Danger CHA move, which I hit (rolled a 10, +2 CHA, 12 result). The warrior let his fist drop as he realized I was not an agent of darkness using foul sorcery, but an agent of the light (which my PC literally is). Had I failed, the clear outcome here was harm to my PC from taking a punch without resisting. Had I hit with a 7-9, the GM has some options, like offering reduced effect, meaning the danger is passed, but there's still no way this guy is letting me near his dying friend.

This is pretty darned clear if you actually have experience with these games. If this is how you played those games, I'm deeply sorry for your experience. If you gleaned that from reading them, then I suggest a re-read is in order, looking for the blatantly clear direction on how the game plays.



I've played plenty of RPGs. I've never had that happen. Certainly not in a PbtA game, but also not in my D&D playing. If you've done the job of setting stakes, then these things don't happen.

Where I have seen that happen is when I've assumed actions for the players in a D&D game where I've declared their task attempt for them, or a detail about it that wasn't clarified prior to the resolution (like touching something when the player just said they pushed their "investigate" button on their character sheet. It's not an issue in games that stake conflict resolution because the stakes are known to be larger, and the failure is clear, and the result should be clearly following from the current situation. It's where the GM, in a task resolution system, assumes actions not declared by the player.

What is steelmanning?

 

[prabe]

What is steelmanning?

Generally, arguing as strongly as possible for a position you don't agree with. Kinda the opposite of a strawman.

 

[bloodtide]

Again [citation needed]. In many groups, the GM is not free to change the already established things in the setting just because he feels like it. He'll get called on it.

Sure you can say players might complain, but a DM can still do it. And like really......so the players encounter character Bob and "think" he is a human. The players can scream 24/7/365 that Bob is always and must be human....then the GM can "just say" that "oh Bob is a demon, shapeshifter, dragon, or anything else". The players can stomp there feet all the live long day, but they are just being silly when they say "Bob must be human".

Again, you're overly projecting from the games you're familiar with. To make it very clear, in many groups just doing that sort of thing for the hell of it is not acceptable.

But again, this is how many games with GMs work. The characters wake up in the morning and the Gm says it's raining. Sure I guess some players might complain and demand it Always Be Sunny in RPGs.

Just because there's some rationale he could pull out of his behind by no means means he won't be called on it.

Sure, you can be a hostile player and nitpick everything. That does not really make for a great game though.

This is the one place that is inviolate - the players are in control of their PCs in regards to their thoughts, intentions, feelings. (Outside corner cases like being controlled by magic or psionic.)

This isn't even really debatable, it's one of the cornerstones of RPGs. I can not picture someone who has actually played RPGs not understanding this.

Dare I say [Citation Needed] ........

Even the most BASIC "description" of things a GM might tell a player something feels strange or odd or off or comfortable or so on. So, that IS the GM telling the player what the character feels.