Theory: Coming to the Table

[LostSoul]

I think you are confusing the difference between world content and world functioning. If I put a new monster in the world called a Magyuar, I make sure it fits into the world as designed so far. I don't change the world to fit it. To do so would invalidate everything the players and their characters know about the world regarding my changes.

That makes sense to me, so I think (hope) I was just not communicating well!

Honest question:

In Burning Wheel, you have an attribute called Circles. You roll it when you want to find an NPC. The target number is based on a chart in the book. You state who you are looking for, in general or specific terms (e.g. "I need to find a guy to repair my armour," or "I seek an audience with the King"). The roll resolves if you meet up with the NPC or not.

Okay, now here comes the question (finally! ). A player is using the mechanic to bring a NPC - who was not written down in the campaign notes beforehand - into the game. Do you think this qualifies as authorial privilege or narrative resolution?

I am thinking no. If it's reasonable that such an NPC exists in this world, then he can be found - although if such an NPC is rare or hard to reach (e.g. a King or reclusive wizard) success is harder to achieve on the die roll. It's the world, reflected and abstracted by the game mechanics, that have the authority here.

 

[howandwhy99]

So according to you is the GM not playing a roleplaying game.

He is doing many narrativist activities. He is doing a lot of things that are not immersing himself into a character.

Correct. He is running one. Players play, Judges judge.

I have to admit I find your thoughts on roleplaying so alien that it is taking me awhile to try and see things from your perspective.

I am not the only one so I am guessing that there is a disconnect between you and several of us.

No problem. I'm going to have to head to bed sooner or later here though.

You seem to be stuck in the idea that all players get to do is control their characters and if they do anything else that it is not roleplaying.

You seem to be stuck in the idea that acting Out of Character still qualifies as roleplaying. With the vast majority of RPGs in history agreeing with me and not you, I feel odd being the one misunderstood here.

I find that kind of ridiculous. Players (like the GM) can both play a character, involve themselves in the story from a authorial position completely separate from their character as well. The GM is having to do this all the time. Heck there are games where there is no GM, everyone is playing a character and there are tons of rules. Every player has to also step outside of character to help move the game and story along. How is this not an RPG.

The GM's NPCs are not DMPCs. He is not trying to vicariously feel the enjoyment of exploring a world he himself created. Doing so is pretty flat fare. It's dull. Continually swapping GM duties all session long is like a henhouse full of roosters. No one going to get any sleep, if you know what I mean. Everyone is continually taken out of character, having to act like they don't know something they do, and basically thoroughly losing the experience of what it is like to roleplay.

Are they experiencing it on a very peripheral level? Sure, maybe. But it's just weak sauce IMO.

Frankly all RPGs require some level of metagaming, the idea that this is necessarily bad are honestly ideas about gaming that I thought went away in the 80s. I admit I do find it odd that this is what you consider all RPGs to be about (and this is coming from someone whose favorite game is probably Rolemaster the most unwieldy simulationist heavy nonnarrativist game you can play)

Rolemaster was called Rulemaster for a reason. It's like 3E, all about "playing the rules" instead of playing the world. Pardon me, if I can't see the desire to play such a thing on your part. I think people started "playing the rules" to such a degree that overwhelming rule consensus on how everyone is allowed to follow them took over in some areas. To gaming's detriment.

I disagree that all RPGs require metagaming. You don't have to know the rules to play the game (be a Player).

 

[apoptosis]

You've got it backwards. The world dictates the rules, not vice versa. There is no "official" ruleset. Rules are completely secondary and GMs can take or discard them as desired.

The GM adjudicates based upon the design of the world. Like a judge making decisions based upon the Law.


The world, like the law, doesn't "do or react" it uses others to act on it's behalf. When they do the law/world can gives them the authority to do so. If your ruleset isn't accurately portraying the world you've created to the degree your players enjoy, toss those rules and use different ones. There are plenty out there. Overriding poor functioning rules is not just an authority given to the GM by the world, it's a obligation.

I feel we at an impasse as the world doesnt exist. It is just a product of the GMs narrative control. In a normal D&D game, it burns down because the GM wants it to or doesnt it want it to. It might be based on some concept of the world or it might be based on the fact that it burning down is cool and dramatic.

The world is like a law that is commpletely mutable to the GM. As someone said earlier, what you are using for the World is basically the GMs narrative control. It is a product of the GMs choices (or in other types of games PC and GMs choices).

We are at the impasse where you think games with narrativist elements and rules are not RPGs while I think that idea is not correct and that the best RPGs are ones with narrativist elements.

A real question. Have you played games like Sorcerer, Burning Wheel, Shadow of Yesterday, Dogs in the Vineyard. I am just asking because all these games have such elements and are all games where you also play characters.

 

[howandwhy99]

How and Why

Sorry if I sound frustrated, I am really trying to understand your perspective.

Hey, no problem. Looking back I got off on the wrong foot with Pawsplay too back there. I'm not trying to say you are playing whatever game you are playing wrong. Or are wrong to enjoy them. I'm saying that for the history of RPGs, nothing like what you are suggesting comes close to qualifying as an RPG. (well maybe some are closer than others, I don't know each one's specifics). Attempting to enlarge the definition instead of just calling these things Storygames, something where story is the priority, not roleplaying, makes everyone one outside of the RPG community scratch their collective heads.

 

[hong]

Hey, no problem. Looking back I got off on the wrong foot with Pawsplay too back there. I'm not trying to say you are playing whatever game you are playing wrong. Or are wrong to enjoy them. I'm saying that for the history of RPGs, nothing like what you are suggesting comes close to qualifying as an RPG.

History includes time more recent than 1985, you know.

 

[apoptosis]

Hey, no problem. Looking back I got off on the wrong foot with Pawsplay too back there. I'm not trying to say you are playing whatever game you are playing wrong. Or are wrong to enjoy them. I'm saying that for the history of RPGs, nothing like what you are suggesting comes close to qualifying as an RPG. (well maybe some are closer than others, I don't know each one's specifics). Attempting to enlarge the definition instead of just calling these things Storygames, something where story is the priority, not roleplaying, makes everyone one outside of the RPG community scratch their collective heads.

I am now understanding what you are saying. I just think you are wrong. Which as I mentioned probably puts us at an impasse.

 

[howandwhy99]

I beg to differ. The "free and clear phase", to stick with that term, happens whenever a party has finished an adventure or storyline, divided its treasury, done its training, and is deciding *in character* what to do next.

Sometimes, one or more characters have something specific they want to do; be it something arising from an earlier story, a desire to explore a part of the world they haven't seen, or whatever.

Other times, the DM might have something cooked up behind the scenes that the characters will eventually run into no matter where they go.

Wow, you're right. I missed that stuff. I'm not a big Schrodinger fan myself, but I agree it is possible in an RPG run a game that way.

Plus, I just thought of a way "God Play" could exist as an RPG. Just make the RPG about being a God. Everything the players do is now IC and the mortals that end up doing what is fated to them get stuck being roleplayed out by the hapless GM

Yet other times, the players might go out of character, turn to the DM, and ask "do you have anything planned for us?".

that seems really too pointed to me. Like the sessions over and you're starting a one shot or tourney game or something. Something deliberately meant not to arise from both PC choice and what happened before.

As for authority...to me, saying that authority rests in "the world" is the same as saying it rests in "the DM", as the DM creates the world. The judge-courtroom angle holds no water, as the judge did not create the laws. The DM, however, did create the world...and is also free to amend the written rules as she sees fit as to how things work within it. A judge can't change the law on a whim.

The DM can't change the world on a whim either. That's bad DMing. That's taking something we know about the world to be true and changing without an in game explanation. Or staying true to what we all decided we wanted to play at the beginning. The rules are secondary to the world not the other way around. Otherwise you'd have worlds that exist by extrapolation of the rules. We saw that at the end of 3E because the rules were so inflexible it was simply easier to limit our own world creations to remain good representations.

And as for who does the narrating (and some must be done, or there is no story at all; and by definition there must be some story unless the characters have merely Done Nothing) there are two answers. On a broad scale, most of it falls to the DM via deciding what the greater world does and how such affects the characters - if at all. On a small scale, however, more of it falls to the players/characters via the in-the-moment decisions they make (which quest do we undertake? Which hall do we go down? Do we free the slaves or kill them? Etc.) And the reverse is also true: on a broad scale, the characters often find themselves reacting to the world, while on a small scale the DM is often reacting to the characters/players.

Lanefan

If you're saying GM Narration equals determining how the world plausibly reacts to the players' actions, I agree. Following its' "authority" or its' pre-constructed and learned-through-play functioning is just something GMs are supposed to do.

 

[howandwhy99]

That makes sense to me, so I think (hope) I was just not communicating well!

Honest question:

In Burning Wheel, you have an attribute called Circles. You roll it when you want to find an NPC. The target number is based on a chart in the book. You state who you are looking for, in general or specific terms (e.g. "I need to find a guy to repair my armour," or "I seek an audience with the King"). The roll resolves if you meet up with the NPC or not.

Okay, now here comes the question (finally! ). A player is using the mechanic to bring a NPC - who was not written down in the campaign notes beforehand - into the game. Do you think this qualifies as authorial privilege or narrative resolution?

I am thinking no. If it's reasonable that such an NPC exists in this world, then he can be found - although if such an NPC is rare or hard to reach (e.g. a King or reclusive wizard) success is harder to achieve on the die roll. It's the world, reflected and abstracted by the game mechanics, that have the authority here.

Excuse the religious outburst, but Praise Jesus! I think we completely agree on something.

I wouldn't tell the player how the mechanic worked though. As long as it made sense every time it was rolled. And I could adjust to stay true to the world (e.g. in a city, a town, field, volcano pit), then the player only gets to learn such through play. That's a personal preference though, I know lots of folks who believe mechanics should be as equally known by the players as by the GM. I find them utterly distracting when playing and off putting to anyone who doesn't want to do math all game long. 5 year olds can play if you remove the mechanics for them.

 

[howandwhy99]

I feel we at an impasse as the world doesnt exist. It is just a product of the GMs narrative control. In a normal D&D game, it burns down because the GM wants it to or doesnt it want it to. It might be based on some concept of the world or it might be based on the fact that it burning down is cool and dramatic.

The world is like a law that is commpletely mutable to the GM. As someone said earlier, what you are using for the World is basically the GMs narrative control. It is a product of the GMs choices (or in other types of games PC and GMs choices).

I think the problem here is too many GMs play like they are Gods over the whole game. And that they don't have an obligation to follow constructed world. The only reason anyone would ever allow a GM to run a game is if they properly judged the world.

We are at the impasse where you think games with narrativist elements and rules are not RPGs while I think that idea is not correct and that the best RPGs are ones with narrativist elements.

A real question. Have you played games like Sorcerer, Burning Wheel, Shadow of Yesterday, Dogs in the Vineyard. I am just asking because all these games have such elements and are all games where you also play characters.

I just sold Sorcerer. It was basically like FUDGE, virtually no rules to help players sink their teeth into the reality of the world. Everything was monotone. One roll boring. The other rules were metagaming and otherwise just some "the author declares all backgrounds must include" rules. --not to mention it seemed unsavory in trying to be edgy. Or what it called "Intense" roleplaying. Silly really.

I've read TSOY online and it is almost entirely "the author declares... yada yada". Tons of metagaming mechanics with many variations of mechanics that can only be used OOC. Like action points.

Burning Wheel I played online and that wasn't half bad, but it was more akin that old Aria game for which I still have the Worlds book. It wasn't quite roleplaying until you got down to the situational level and then we pulled back up to skip ahead through the future or to other PCs of the world we jointly created. It pretty much felt very contrived. Very much situational play that didn't focus at all on the world itself. BWIM, we already know what the world contained. No surprises, just play out the scenario like practicing endgames in chess. We might have played it "wrong" though.

 

[Lanefan]

that seems really too pointed to me. Like the sessions over and you're starting a one shot or tourney game or something. Something deliberately meant not to arise from both PC choice and what happened before.

It's more that the players don't have any ideas of their own and are asking to be fed something. It happens, now and then.

The DM can't change the world on a whim either. That's bad DMing. That's taking something we know about the world to be true and changing without an in game explanation.

Assuming it's a change, and not an add-on. I won't make changes that invalidate something that has gone before...I'm quite anal about that, in fact. However, anything's open to change until and unless the game runs into it.

Or staying true to what we all decided we wanted to play at the beginning. The rules are secondary to the world not the other way around. Otherwise you'd have worlds that exist by extrapolation of the rules. We saw that at the end of 3E because the rules were so inflexible it was simply easier to limit our own world creations to remain good representations.

I'm trying to rationalize this to the world I've just started running, and...can't. The world I've dreamed up is what it is. The rules are what they are...and they are never "so inflexible" that they can't be bent sideways by an old-school kitbasher...and the two are to me almost independent of each other. The world and its physical rules (gravity, weather, etc.) are in-game constructs, while the gameplay rules are metagame constructs; and though they occasionally meet, it doesn't happen often.

If you're saying GM Narration equals determining how the world plausibly reacts to the players' actions, I agree. Following its' "authority" or its' pre-constructed and learned-through-play functioning is just something GMs are supposed to do.

I'm also saying GM narration on a larger scale includes determining how the world does things the characters have to react to. Some examples that would (normally) generate PC reactions:

- a long-dormant volcano erupts near the party's home base, or
- the rumoured invasion by the northern hordes is no longer just a rumour - the kingdom is in peril, or
- when you took to your tents the weather was clear, but by dawn there is heavy snow - travel may be impossible, or
- the party-supported candidate for the throne has just lost the election and the winner has vengeance on her mind, or
(etc.; you get the idea...)

All of these are GM narration. What the PCs/players do with it is up to them.

Lanefan