Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8615480" data-attributes="member: 42582">In these sorts of cases, or Baker's imagined example of <a href="http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/460" target="_blank">the smelly chamberlain</a>, there can be uncertainty over the fiction.For instance, what happens if everyone "remembers" the door and then, an hour later, someone turns up an old map in their notes from a month ago that reveals actually the door was in another room that everyone had forgotten about? At some tables, the map prevails and we have to retcon the last hour of play. At some tables, the last hour of play prevails - it turns out the map was wrong (all along! even though it was "correct" - ie conformed to what everyone was agreeing vis-a-vis the fiction) when drawn a month ago). At some tables, it's the GM's job to reconcile all this, a bit like an old Marvel letters page "no prize" - the GM makes up some secret background fiction that explains why the door disappeared, and perhaps even explains why all the PCs forgot about it (I'm actually doing something similar to this in my current 4e game, though it's a carried item rather than a door, and the failure of record keeping is not on a map but on a PC equipment list).At some tables, maybe the argument over the door is enough to break the group up, just like one of the possible outcomes of the smelly chamberlain.But nothing like this is going on in the example of play in the Scholar's Guide.Here is what Baker has in mind (at least as it seems to me, and I think also to @AbdulAlhzared):* Dro has a conception of the fictional situation - Harguld in the cave mouth, crossbow ready to shoot; Gnolls are closing in. * Thor has a conception of the fictional situation, presumably similar - and adds to it: A Gnoll scout emerges from the shadows down the tunnel! Is Thor correct about the fictional position, that it permits a Gnoll scout to emerge like that? Thor can't be certain until he posits it and finds out - as Baker <a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">says</a> 'When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not." What if the PCs had earlier generated some sort of Magelight effect that made it impossible for there to be shadows, but Thor had forgotten it? Or what if Thor remembered it, but thought that the pillars in the area would create shadows despite the bright light? Also relevant here is Thor's authority, as GM, which is typically high when it comes to framing the arrival of NPCs like the Gnoll. * Dro accepts Thor's suggestion - thus retroactively confirming that Thor was correct about the fiction - and adds some more fiction - Harguld shoots! ("I put a bolt in his face!") Players have a high degree of authority over fiction about what their PCs are doing, but is there some other element of the shared fiction that's relevant here? When Thor progresses to action resolution, calling for a Fighter test, Thor reveals that he accepts Dro's understanding of his fictional position. Again, we see the "retroactivity" that Baker refers to - Dro can only know what moves are open to him, in virtue of the shared fiction, after he declares a move and no one objects that he's got the fiction wrong. * Dice are rolled, and tied, and Dro decides that Harguld waited too long. Is this consistent with his fictional position, or is it reaching? Dro only finds out that it is permitted, ie that it is not reaching, after declaring it, when no one objects. So now the fiction includes not only Harguld, and a Gnoll, and a crossbow shot, but the Gnoll having got close to Harguld because Harguld, trying to be cunning, waited too long. * Thor, using his authority to decide what happens on a failed check by a player, authors yet more fiction: the Gnoll is driven back by Harguld's shot, but Harguld feels fear. Notice that Thor is once again learning, after making the suggestion about what the fiction should contain, whether or not others accept it as consistent with the shared fiction. What would have happened if, rather than fear, Thor had suggested sick as the condition, or injured? Maybe Dro would have protested, and Thor would have had to backtrack? I can see angry (because of Harguld's frustration at having misjudged things), or even exhausted (from holding the crossbow, poised to shoot, as the Gnoll slowly slinked closer and closer before its final rush). I can't really see hungry and thirsty  but Dro mightn't protest because it's a light consequence.As I posted upthread, I think this is all fairly clear. I don't think it needs any departure from Baker's framework. Nor any account of what fictional position is beyond what Baker says: the fiction-derived/determined component of the set of legitimate moves open to a RPG participant.</blockquote>

Verification