Theory: Coming to the Table

[apoptosis]

That sounds like you prefer games other than RPGs. And I'm not suggesting immersion is somehow the be all and end all of RPGS either. What a strong wall between IC and OOC thinking allows is a breadth and depth of play you just cannot get from non-RPGs IMO.

SNIP

This kind of game need no rules to decide who gets to be "The Hand of God". IMO those are whatever table rules agreed upon so arguments don't arise for who has "The Power" each time. You could feasibly do it round robin.

This is the part I am apparently not conveying well. These games all have very strong and codified rules that delineate who gets narrative control. Their rules are actually more codified and rigid than "traditional" games.

They have very fiddly rules, feats, powers, spells etc. that all impact narrative control. Sometimes the rules might have strong simulationist/gamist aspects (range, duration, damage) and still have very strong narrative characteristics (i control the narrative in a limited way for this long).

An example...TSOY has a feat that allows me to say I produce any object that I have carried recently no matter how thoroughly i am searched. It is meant to represent a rogue like ability to hide objects on the body or in the area. Even if my character is strip searched and magically x-rayed i can produce this item. It is not a magical effect and is not explained as one even if the result would seem 'magical'.

If i use this power, i as a player can narrate exactly how i managed to hide this item. The GM can not overrule this authority with his narrative. It is a very detailed power that has specific uses and costs (1 reaction pool) but is also very narrative and is all about authoritive control.

 

[apoptosis]

Yes, there may be games for Hera and Zeus to play that are very, very complicated and require all kinds of competition, but in the end these two (i.e. the Players, not characters) are the ones making the decisions. Whether they flip a coin or not is secondary. They are decisively not the mortals they are toying with. Nor do they "take their roles" when narrating Fate. This kind of game need no rules to decide who gets to be "The Hand of God". IMO those are whatever table rules agreed upon so arguments don't arise for who has "The Power" each time. You could feasibly do it round robin.

This is my point. Characters are not real. They cannot make decisions. Players make decisions.

 

[howandwhy99]

It was an honest question - I wasn't trying to pin anything on you!

I still don't really understand, though. What happens when I, a player, think something should happen in the world as a result of my actions and the DM disagrees? We can't consult the world to tell us what will happen. In my play experiences, that's been left up to the DM. I don't see that as anything but authority to say what happens.

Okay, but you are asking the same question over and over again. That's why I said what I did.

Let's put it this way. Do you see a Judge as the authority on what happens in a courtroom? Or the law? It's the law.

Yes, it can get complicated. DMs sometimes have to make judgment calls. They have to base things on their own hard fought readings and best intentioned judgements. They're trying to be tough, but fair.

Players can meet with a DM after the game (court case) and review what they think was a mistake. But really? Is it that big a deal? If so, talk about it.

Saying things like: "There is no world" is like saying there is no Law from which authority derives. Authority can only come from Law. In the same way, rules and GM judgments can only gain authority from the world.

Just because people made the law (the world) doesn't mean that it has no authority. They all give up their authority by agreeing to participate under it. Their citizens. The same thing happens when you play in an RPG world. You are subject to its design.

Things like, "I think this is too tough. I'd prefer an easier game with less chance of dying every time we screw up" is a perfectly legitimate suggestion for changing the world (law). And everyone can agree and move on.

RPGs have never been dictatorships. Misuse withstanding. The opinion that they are was derived by a small cadre of people who hated what accounts for nearly the entirety of RPGs. I'm sorry they had such horrible GMs. But that doesn't mean you destroy the whole system. Or seek revolution. It's bad experiences informing bad philosophy constructed out of spite.

 

[howandwhy99]

You pretty much have only three sources of authority (i think maybe i am wrong)

The rules, the GM or the players.

You'd be missing one. The world. The world dictates the rules, not vice versa.

 

[pawsplay]

We are really far apart in what we in enjoy in an RPG. I actually think the worst advice given in many RPG books is the idea that immersion is the ulitmate achievement in an RPG (some more infer than say this).

I think rules that encourage story and meta-gaming can (not always depends on the rules) make the game better.

When I wrote my first theory post, of which this is a spinoff, I explicitly divided the two main domains into immersion and decision-making. Obviously, metagame has to preceed immersion, or how does the first event even happen in a game? But without immersion, the metagame is trivial. Even something as simple as Monopoly has an imaginary goal, which is a very thin immersion.

 

[howandwhy99]

Option 2 actually doesnt really exist.

So what have RPGers been doing these many decades? Kidding themselves?

I don't know of one game that says what the rate of fire spreading is, how much fuel is required for the building to burn down vs getting scorched a little, how much fire is required, what is the chance that the building will actually go up in flames versus just petering out and doing smoke damage. What is the chance that it will burn if it has recently rained or if someone washed it yesterday and if so how much water was applied and how is this represented in chances that the building will burn down. How much will nearby wind increase/decrease the chance that the entire building will burn down (not to mention someone/something had to determine if it rained yesterday or what the wind speed is presently).

You really are swamping yourself in completely unnecessary details. Are the PCs asking about these things? Are they attempting to control the rate of fire? Measuring the fuel? Checking for degree of smoke damage? Are they honestly interested in any of this stuff? If yes, then as a DM you better do your best to simulate what happens during a fire. The players are telling you "this is fun for us, let's keep going!" And to the best of one's ability the DM tries to keep up. A good ruleset will allow for this. But plenty already have rules that cover certain cases like this. Coin tosses or dice based statistical probabilities or any number of randomizing mechanics can allow for representative play. You don't need to be a fireman to guess how fires burn down houses. Just do your best based upon what you know.

This is generally just determined by some authoritative power. Traditionally it has been the GM's area; they controlled all those factors and the player just determined whether they succeeded in their firebuilding skill, or if there is no firebuilding skill they just said they built a fire. The rest is all the GMs authority (or fiat).

Again, this is determined by the world. There is no such thing as GM authority or Player authority. I've explained in the above two posts.

Newer games have rules that allow the player to have some power in determing outcomes. I spend a drama point, or the result of my successful roll allows me the player to decide "the building burns down."

These are very shoddy game mechanics when used in an RPG. They force players to think out of character and "game the system". They are antithetical to roleplaying because they cannot be used while roleplaying.

These are indeed roleplaying games but with shared narrative control. Actually the newer games have more rules (game) associated with outcome than the older style as there are rules to govern narrative control while in the other version it is just GM controls everything.

Not saying the newer games are better or worse but they are games and they do involve who controls the narrative.

As I've said before neither the Players nor GM have authority. If this is the same as narrative control, then the same holds true. If you are saying, "who gets to determine what the PCs do?" That's easy. Each PC decides for his or her self. You act in character. Sometimes its hard (as anyone reading here can attest as frequent roleplayers), because PCs don't always want to do what we the players want to when playing the game.

The games you are describing are at best minimally roleplaying games. They have roleplaying secondary to their main goal. That would be narration as my guess. It's the Mt. Olympus thing again. You're not your character, so no need to think about what your character wants. These may be games. And they may require narration. But neither aspects as you've defined them require roleplaying or winning or losing through roleplay. Those are the two essential elements for being an RPG.

 

[howandwhy99]

This is the part I am apparently not conveying well. These games all have very strong and codified rules that delineate who gets narrative control. Their rules are actually more codified and rigid than "traditional" games.

They have very fiddly rules, feats, powers, spells etc. that all impact narrative control. Sometimes the rules might have strong simulationist/gamist aspects (range, duration, damage) and still have very strong narrative characteristics (i control the narrative in a limited way for this long).

An example...TSOY has a feat that allows me to say I produce any object that I have carried recently no matter how thoroughly i am searched. It is meant to represent a rogue like ability to hide objects on the body or in the area. Even if my character is strip searched and magically x-rayed i can produce this item. It is not a magical effect and is not explained as one even if the result would seem 'magical'.

If i use this power, i as a player can narrate exactly how i managed to hide this item. The GM can not overrule this authority with his narrative. It is a very detailed power that has specific uses and costs (1 reaction pool) but is also very narrative and is all about authoritive control.

What you are describing is more aptly called a Narration Game. Something like this:

Okay, everyone. We're going to tell a story. Only in this story you all get to add a little bit as it goes along. The person who adds to the story is called The Narrator. But instead of just going in a circle we're going to make it a game. When you win at the game you get to be the Narrator for a little bit, got it?

My point is not that Narration Games can't or don't have "very fiddly rules". My point is they have no need of them. You can get the same effect round robin. What does any of this have to do with roleplaying? You're not pretending to be someone else, you're telling a story.

This is my point. Characters are not real. They cannot make decisions. Players make decisions.

If you're actually bothering to roleplay, you are making decisions as the character. The character is making the decison, the player is only bringing them to life. This is why one character can be played by different persons at different times. The character is a distinct identity from your or I.

If you constantly force yourself to think in terms of what you want as a player, you're going to have an awfully hard time roleplaying. But I honestly don't believe that is what most of the posters in this thread actually want. Who is talking about how we can roleplay better? Or design a game that will aid us in this endeavor? I don't think what many here are describing are RPGs because none have the main goal of achieving simply, easily, and at long last roleplay.

The point you bolded in the quote was a negative feature of what you are describing. Not positive. Players having to make the decisions (having been forced out of character) is antithetical to roleplaying (i.e. playing in character).

 

[LostSoul]

Okay, but you are asking the same question over and over again. That's why I said what I did.

I'm having trouble understanding something in our conversation. How do you get the world to wield its authority?

I appreciate your patience!

<snip legal analogies>

That all sounds right to me.

Saying things like: "There is no world" is like saying there is no Law from which authority derives. Authority can only come from Law. In the same way, rules and GM judgments can only gain authority from the world.

Just because people made the law (the world) doesn't mean that it has no authority. They all give up their authority by agreeing to participate under it. Their citizens. The same thing happens when you play in an RPG world. You are subject to its design.

I didn't say there was no world; I said that we can't consult it to see what happens. It doesn't have a voice. I guess what we have to do is interpret what we have established as the world to determine what happens.

When I look in our campaign book and it says, "Elves live in the woods," does that mean that elves live in The Dread Woods? How does the world tell us that they do, or that they don't? (That leaves aside the question of how many elves live there, how they feel about the PCs, and a host of other questions that are relevant to our PCs.)

In my experience - and I think this shows what I don't understand - the DM decides if elves live in The Dread Woods. The players may call him on it, an appeal to his ruling. Maybe that's a key point? I don't know.

Let me try and put it in my own words, let me see if I am starting to understand: The world weilds its authority in a gut-check on the part of the players (including the DM), who feel that something "just fits", or doesn't fit, as the case may be. When the rules don't fit with our world, we discard them in favour of something that does. When a player (or the DM) takes an action that doesn't fit, we call him on it. When we all have a shared understanding of the world's authority, then we are really kicking ass.

Am I reaching some kind of understanding here?

 

[pawsplay]

I'm pretty sure howandwhy99 is claiming that worlds spring into existence at the behest of the players, and thereafter have their own existence which no one can reasonably disagree about. Seemingly, the world either has elves in the Dread Woods or it doesn't, and people are just supposed to realize this is true. Without any decision-making process. No one is allowed to force their opinion on each other, but no one is allowed to just do whatever they want, either. Everyone just magically agrees what is true.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm having trouble understanding something in our conversation. How do you get the real world world to wield its authority?

How do you get the law to wield its' authority? It's people following the law, or in this case the design aspects of the world. Are you asking a rhetorical question about how authority is agreed upon before it's enacted? Or where does authority truly come from? The barrel of a gun? Or platonic ideals "out there"?

I didn't say there was no world; I said that we can't consult it to see what happens. It doesn't have a voice. I guess what we have to do is interpret what we have established as the world to determine what happens.

Bingo. GMs do this to run the game. Players do this to play in character. Each has their own individual notes. GMs strive for consistency and Players strive to achieve the best sense of what has so far been discovered.

When I look in our campaign book and it says, "Elves live in the woods," does that mean that elves live in The Dread Woods? How does the world tell us that they do, or that they don't? (That leaves aside the question of how many elves live there, how they feel about the PCs, and a host of other questions that are relevant to our PCs.)

In my experience - and I think this shows what I don't understand - the DM decides if elves live in The Dread Woods. The players may call him on it, an appeal to his ruling. Maybe that's a key point? I don't know.

Players can certainly make something up about how their PC was in The Dread Woods as youth and was stolen away for a year and a day by elves who taught him how to sing. The DM will incorporate this into the world as he knows it as best as possible.

With this assistance, DMs flush out the remaining and make sure it makes sense in accordance with what came before and what is in other places. The world as it has existed so far so to speak. This pregame creation or game prep is in part a joint endeavor that happens between pretty much all game sessions. But it doesn't require player input most of the time. That input generally comes from actions in character during play.

Let me try and put it in my own words, let me see if I am starting to understand: The world weilds its authority in a gut-check on the part of the players (including the DM), who feel that something "just fits", or doesn't fit, as the case may be. When the rules don't fit with our world, we discard them in favour of something that does. When a player (or the DM) takes an action that doesn't fit, we call him on it. When we all have a shared understanding of the world's authority, then we are really kicking ass.

Am I reaching some kind of understanding here?

The world operates as personal knowledge according to how the real world operates with whatever changes were agreed upon before play and are consistent with previous play in the world by that group. Our own real world knowledge allows for easy decision making by the GM and an simple to understand interface for the players. Players have a good idea of how the world works this way enable them to portray character better by having some equivalency in knowledge. "What is grass again?" etc.

Of course, PCs could have goofy ideas their players have decided upon for their characters to have all their own (grass is mama earth's hair), but whether or not other players agree this is the truth (including the GM) is their own decision.

When decidedly unreal things like magic are added these are mentioned upfront. Stuff like this isn't that hard. It's like saying "we're playing in the Star Wars universe". People understand ahead of time that The Force exists and there are wookies and droids and such. Playing an exotic PC, but still genre relevant isn't difficult for the players to decide.

Is this helping you at all. This seems like pretty basic stuff for RPGs.