Eyes of Nine
Everything's Fine
sigh And here I thought this thread would reveal FINALLY how to make the Creation College Bard actually good
D&D General The Power of Creation
dave2008
Legend
What I mean is that we all play in a shared world. Some DM's like to have complete control of that world, but that is not how we play. We make up house rules together, and we literally build elements of the world together. There is no need for me to make up everything, 6 minds are better than 1. During play I am the master of adjudication, but how the characters act and what they do is up to the creativity and description of the players. In that process, the can and do invent aspects of the game world I didn't think of.
This is a very weird thread. But, I'm feeling weird this morning, so:
The GM has absolute power. Sure. But if they abuse that power, they are going to weild it over an empty table. So they should probably dial it back a smidge.
I have noticed a return of an antagonistic relationship between players and GMs lately, but only online. So I can't be sure if it actually exists or it's just memery.
The GM has absolute power. Sure. But if they abuse that power, they are going to weild it over an empty table. So they should probably dial it back a smidge.
I have noticed a return of an antagonistic relationship between players and GMs lately, but only online. So I can't be sure if it actually exists or it's just memery.
Yora
Legend
Letting players define the setting their characters are interacting with only seem useful and practical to me to a very limited scale.
It can work for some games where nothing needs to have stats prepared in advance and the fun of the game comes from exciting action in the moment without much long term planning ahead by either the PCs or NPCs.
But in most games and most campaigns, the players are trying to understand and solve a complicated problem. Giving the players the information they need to be able to solve the problem becomes really difficult to outright impossible when the exact nature of that problem is not fully defined yet. You can't set up a long term logic puzzle if at some point down the line a player introduces a new technology or magic that means there never was a problem in the first place.
Players making things up as they go can work and can be fun, but only in campaigns where the GM makes things up and changes things on the fly as well.
It can work for some games where nothing needs to have stats prepared in advance and the fun of the game comes from exciting action in the moment without much long term planning ahead by either the PCs or NPCs.
But in most games and most campaigns, the players are trying to understand and solve a complicated problem. Giving the players the information they need to be able to solve the problem becomes really difficult to outright impossible when the exact nature of that problem is not fully defined yet. You can't set up a long term logic puzzle if at some point down the line a player introduces a new technology or magic that means there never was a problem in the first place.
Players making things up as they go can work and can be fun, but only in campaigns where the GM makes things up and changes things on the fly as well.
Oofta
Legend
I think there needs to be a healthy balance. As DM I occasionally have to say "no" even if I try to include "but here's what you can do" or "what are you trying to accomplish?" On the other hand I'll never have a giant hand come out of a wall that kills a random PC just because I can.
Whether there is a change in antagonistic DM behavior I couldn't say. I think it's always varied from DM to DM.
I am talking about antagonism between the GM and the players. I see it a lot in reddit threads (which I read mostly to stay current with the younger folks [insert "How do you do fellow kids" meme], so, again, I don't know if it is something real people are worried about at the table or something folks like to post about online.
Celebrim
Legend
The power to determine the game fiction is such an extraordinarily complete power that it is ultimate power.
As such, if you the GM have any intention of all of being fair, of empowering the PCs, of protagonizing the players, and not railroading the players then you do have to decide not to add anything to your creation in an improvisational manner except in the blank spaces that your players probe into. And even then, you need to have some sort of guidelines in your head as to how those blank spaces are filled in.
I do this not because my players demand it, but because I demand it of myself. Rule zero for me as a GM isn't, "I can do whatever I want", because while that's true it's not fundamental. Rule zero for me as a GM is, "Be the GM you would want to have if you were a player."
One of the reasons I am so picky about my rules is that if I show the rules to the players, then I consider that a contract between me and the players. I can amend it unilaterally if we find problems, but if I do I generally talk about why with the players and it's usually because the rules are failing in everyone's eyes.
So many times when I run a new system and I have problems with rulings and how to rule or run the system, I'll get in a discussion with a more experienced GM about rules issues (sometimes even the creator of the system!) and there answer to me about the problem is to just circumstantially ignore the rules if it makes the game more fun. After a bit of discussion with them, it generally becomes clear that the way they GM is pure illusionism. They are fudging everything in order to achieve their desired results and the results system exists - even in the eyes of the creator of the system - as a way to pull the wool over the eyes of the player and trick them into thinking that their decisions really matter. It's basically giving the player a fancy console full of controls and buttons to push, but secretly underneath the console nothing is really wired up and in fact you are controlling everything. It's like putting a small child in your lap on the tractor and pretending to let him drive, knowing that if he doesn't actually drive the tractor where you are happy to have it go, you can put your thumb or knee on the wheel and they'll be none the wiser.
In fact, it's become clear to me that some even particularly famous game creators have this relationship to the rules and the players, and as GMs are very very unhappy indeed if the players really have the slightest real control at all over what happens. Sometimes fantasy heartbreakers are really motivated because a game like D&D allows too much real narrative currency to the players.
Likewise, the reason I say that while it's not possible to run a game without some improv, it's not possible to run a lengthy improv game in that all improv games are pure railroads of this sort. You the player only think you are driving the tractor. Your actually only making inconsequential micro decisions. All the real controls are kept away from you by the infinite and regularly exercised power of the GM's fictional creation. In a very real sense, only if you prep can anything ever happen in the game that isn't what you wanted to happen. And as GM that has been doing this for nearly 40 years, I can tell the difference in the depth of play very very quickly between a game that has some real depth because the fiction actually exists, and a world where the fiction is entirely malleable to what the GM wants to happen at that moment. It takes me out of investment in the game really fast when I realize it doesn't matter what I do really, that I'm only adding a little color to a determined narrative.
As such, if you the GM have any intention of all of being fair, of empowering the PCs, of protagonizing the players, and not railroading the players then you do have to decide not to add anything to your creation in an improvisational manner except in the blank spaces that your players probe into. And even then, you need to have some sort of guidelines in your head as to how those blank spaces are filled in.
I do this not because my players demand it, but because I demand it of myself. Rule zero for me as a GM isn't, "I can do whatever I want", because while that's true it's not fundamental. Rule zero for me as a GM is, "Be the GM you would want to have if you were a player."
One of the reasons I am so picky about my rules is that if I show the rules to the players, then I consider that a contract between me and the players. I can amend it unilaterally if we find problems, but if I do I generally talk about why with the players and it's usually because the rules are failing in everyone's eyes.
So many times when I run a new system and I have problems with rulings and how to rule or run the system, I'll get in a discussion with a more experienced GM about rules issues (sometimes even the creator of the system!) and there answer to me about the problem is to just circumstantially ignore the rules if it makes the game more fun. After a bit of discussion with them, it generally becomes clear that the way they GM is pure illusionism. They are fudging everything in order to achieve their desired results and the results system exists - even in the eyes of the creator of the system - as a way to pull the wool over the eyes of the player and trick them into thinking that their decisions really matter. It's basically giving the player a fancy console full of controls and buttons to push, but secretly underneath the console nothing is really wired up and in fact you are controlling everything. It's like putting a small child in your lap on the tractor and pretending to let him drive, knowing that if he doesn't actually drive the tractor where you are happy to have it go, you can put your thumb or knee on the wheel and they'll be none the wiser.
In fact, it's become clear to me that some even particularly famous game creators have this relationship to the rules and the players, and as GMs are very very unhappy indeed if the players really have the slightest real control at all over what happens. Sometimes fantasy heartbreakers are really motivated because a game like D&D allows too much real narrative currency to the players.
Likewise, the reason I say that while it's not possible to run a game without some improv, it's not possible to run a lengthy improv game in that all improv games are pure railroads of this sort. You the player only think you are driving the tractor. Your actually only making inconsequential micro decisions. All the real controls are kept away from you by the infinite and regularly exercised power of the GM's fictional creation. In a very real sense, only if you prep can anything ever happen in the game that isn't what you wanted to happen. And as GM that has been doing this for nearly 40 years, I can tell the difference in the depth of play very very quickly between a game that has some real depth because the fiction actually exists, and a world where the fiction is entirely malleable to what the GM wants to happen at that moment. It takes me out of investment in the game really fast when I realize it doesn't matter what I do really, that I'm only adding a little color to a determined narrative.
Last edited:
While this is possible, it is hardly a truism. I run full improv games on occasion and when I do they are driven as much by random die rolls and player input as they are my whim. Unless you define "GM's fictional creation" so broadly as to include giving players input and allowing dice to dictate results, in which case it has lost all meaning.
Celebrim
Legend
So quite often I will make a comment on the board and someone will run off in an unexpected direction because in their sole experience what I said was a red flag and every time it has happened in their experience they got burned. It's entirely possible that the reverse is happening here. I'm speaking only from my experience. It could be that out there outside my experience is some GM capable of full improv on a lengthy basis who isn't running a full railroad consciously or unconsciously, and I've just never met the GM.
Being generous, the only way I can imagine this to be true is if the GM knows there setting so well after years of running it, years of research, years of thinking about the culture and demographics of the setting, that they have built in their head what amounts to hundreds of pages of meta strictures that shape their creation so that that improv is no different than what they would have written down beforehand if they had time to think about it. This is what I'm trying to do when I improv when the players "go off the map" (literally or figuratively). It's possibly that some GMs are like that when they say they are "improv GMs". They aren't really improvising so much as they are drawing from their well of understanding about how the setting has to work if it is to be consistent.
But, the very fact that you think taking player input and rolling the dice and letting dice dictate results means the players have any real narrative control makes me highly suspicious. The thing about high illusionism is quite often the GM is also allowing themselves to be deceived. Because in my essay on How to Railroad, I covered techniques that let you take player input, roll the dice, and let the dice dictate results while still fully railroading the players. It's not enough to do those things if you don't have something in your mind other than how you want the game to go or what you think would be good for the game limiting what you rule and create and improvise.
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
As an amusing side note, the notorious RPG The World of Synnibarr actually had this as a mechanic. Players were entitled to challenge the GM (Fate) if they thought he was fudging/changing stuff, and he had to show them his written notes. As I recall, if they caught him in such changes, they got double xp for the adventure.
Similar Threads
