What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?

[Celebrim]

And, as I have a moment more to go back to this post and discuss your conjecture that such a game would devolve. This is actually well discussed as the Czerge Principle, and comes in when a player can both set the problem and propose the solution. It's most often avoided in games that allow the players the latitude to make such declarations by the reason you cite for Mouseguard -- the DM sets up the obstacles and the players' attempted solutions are tested. I find it interesting that you're familiar with Mouseguard to this extent but don't recognize a Circles test in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s example. I haven't played MG or BW, but I could easily see the Circles test lurking.

If D&D had anything like circles that a player had to spend resources for in chargen in order to obtain the advantage of, then sure, then sure. You have some sort of reasonable check and balance on the claim, including, as in Mousegaurd, that the GM can set the OB of the test. What bother's me about pemerton's example is less that you might test something not established in the myth, but that a player might try to invent background on the fly to justify overcoming an obstacle. In Mousegaurd, for example, you have character burner that very tightly establishes the limits of your character - where he is from and who he grew up with - which in turn means that the 'circle' of your circles test is delimited by your background. You can make circles tests in Mousegaurd precisely because the myth of your character is a pretty stable and knowable, and we can make inferences as to when it really is reasonable that you might know someone.

I should also tell you that for the last few months, I've been having a running debate with myself over which is the worst designed RPG - Mouseguard or RIFTS. Mousegaurd is the first thing I've tried to play that even comes close enough to be in such a debate.

There is a core of a great game somewhere in Mousegaurd, and there is a huge amount of imagination and creativity involved, but wow are the rules poorly thought out.

 

[Mort]

I should also tell you that for the last few months, I've been having a running debate with myself over which is the worst designed RPG - Mouseguard or RIFTS. Mousegaurd is the first thing I've tried to play that even comes close enough to be in such a debate.

And now I have to get and look at Mouseguard, any game that can compete with RIFTS for terrible design must really be something.

 

[Celebrim]

"Any outcome" is not and never will be as valuable as a "good outcome". Part of the DMs job is not just to ensure there is an outcome, but that the outcome is good and enjoyable for everyone.

That's such a broad claim I don't know how to engage with it. I don't know what you are really claiming.

What I am claiming is that good and enjoyable outcome for everyone almost never involves the DM using fiat to preserve his desired outcome, and certainly not to the degree that his actions are overt and persistent. If the GM uses his power of fiat to override disaster, then the players know that they've been let off the hook, and the outcome is artificial. It's not quite as deflating as discovering your chess opponent threw the game and let you win, but it's in the neighborhood. And if the GM uses his power of fiat to override success, then the players come to know that they really will only win when the GM lets them do so, and that everything is on rails. How well the players enjoy the destination depends on how they got there and why, and likewise the enjoyment of the GM tends to increase when they are using less and less heavy handed stage magic to keep the story going.

Which, again is why I used Gandalf as an example.

Let me put it this way. LotR is my favorite book. I've read it 18 times, and browsed it many times. I can recognize every passage in the book and quote a long with many of them.

So you can imagine how much I've wanted my little bookworm to share the joy of the story with me. Trouble is, she doesn't respond to the story in the same way that I do. For example, long before she knew that Gandalf was going to die, she was rooting for his death because she hated the character so much. In fact, she let out a whoop of glee when he died. (I don't want to break her heart by telling her the character won't stay dead.) Her reasoning? Because Gandalf was doing everything in the story, and as long as Gandalf was around they could rely on him for everything. And in a very real sense she's right: Frodo even admits and much once he's gone, and Bilbo does as well. Gandalf is a character that HAS to leave the story for long periods. Otherwise, there is no story except his story.

Heck, in the "big encounter" that IS supposed to be fought by a party member (namely: the Witch King), he loses, only for the Witch King to be defeated by a party-level character.

Technically, he never gets to fight the Witch King. It's a contest that never happens. He's about to confront the Witch King, when both are distracted - The Witch King by the charge of the Rohirrim and Gandalf by Pippin's plea to come and save Faramir.

 

[Celebrim]

And now I have to get and look at Mouseguard, any game that can compete with RIFTS for terrible design must really be something.

It's not obvious. You really have to start playing it to realize how inflexible it is, how terrible it's math is, how pointlessly complex its mechanics are, how much of it is pure random number generator, how little player choice matters, and so forth.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So the GM can set and adjust the difficulty in a whole variety of ways, it's just done in a slightly different fashion, success as by setting the level of success ("limited") that success will obtain and the degree of failure that failure will result in ("desparate"). Plus, you have an additional control in that you can claim that the action is one or more Tiers above the character, with a commiserate increase in the degree of success required. I don't know the rules, but I'd guess this is what prevents a player from just declaring that they summon lightning bolts from the sky and fry the guard. A high Tier character probably could, if they had the right actions, but then you'd be playing by agreement of the fiction some sort of demigod or superhero.

No, you're a bit off, here. The GM has to be open about how and why he's picking position and effect, and the Tier level is selected by the players as part of their choice of who to run their Score against, so it's not a freely set kind of thing. Also, I'm not sure that "difficulty" is the right term, because we were discussing probability of success -- which is fixed in Blades. The other things I mentioned to give a full accounting of how the stakes of the action are set, largely to address your claims of Czerge principle violations. I don't view those as 'difficulty' but rather explicit stakes mechanisms.

Also, you mention the character could "burn Stress to improve the Effect", which sounds like a case of narrative currency.

Only if you're okay defining the 5e Fighter's Action Surge as narrative currency. It's a broad mechanic in Blades that represents a pool of 'extra effort' and doubles as a rough hit point mechanism (rough because it's not used as a damage mechanic, but is often expended to mitigate things like damage).

Additionally, there is a huge panoply of other potential checks and balances here, not the least of which is that as with a traditional RPG full narration of the consequences is in the hands of the GM, as well as full rights to set the difficulty of the tasks, and in most cases the stakes (as the player can only set the positive stake, and then only is rarely going to achieve it, unless and until the GM wants them to or unless the player spends their narrative currency "Stress".)

Well, success is 50% of the possible outcomes of a single d6, and they'll usually roll 2-3 at a time. The thing is that the fixed success rates makes judging success chances for the players very clear -- it never really changes, actually. This puts the focus of play less on determining the success/failure breakpoints (a la DC setting) and more on the stakes of the action -- what's risked for what may be gained.

To a certain extent, I'd say that the "Blades" game empowers the GM far more than even I'm used to in my traditional play, it just compartmentalizes the player's narrative force less. Yes, the player can introduce Myth into the setting, but only at the cost of allowing the GM full rein to introduce whatever Myth that they want for whatever reason that they want at all times - something that when I'm running a traditional RPG I tend to see as cheating and misuse of my GM authority - metagaming against the player to obtain the result I prefer.

Um, huh? Where did you get this from my example? The GM can frame the scene, yes, but that's constrained by what the players have chosen for their Score -- they have a lot of leeway to determine the overall conditions of the session. From there, the GM is obligated to follow the fiction and not veer off into whatever they want -- the game is about a criminal gang conducting criminal escapades, so there's some fairly tight constraints on the GM. PbtA games have pretty good principles for play, and they aren't "The GM is empowered to introduce whatever they want."

Still, what you describe has boundaries and a GM in a role as referee, so it seems like it would be functional for a functional group. I really need to go to a Con and try a few of these games, if only to stretch my abilities as a player a bit.

Oh, I highly recommend it. If you do, the key piece of player advice for Blades is "play your character like a stolen car." Actually, this works for all the PbtA games.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's not obvious. You really have to start playing it to realize how inflexible it is, how terrible it's math is, how pointlessly complex its mechanics are, how much of it is pure random number generator, how little player choice matters, and so forth.

Huh, you're describing a very different game that the one I've heard about. I've not had the pleasure of reading up on Mouseguard, but I've heard very good things. I did read Burning Wheel, many years ago, and failed to understand it at the time. I should give it another look now that I've got a better grasp of the play it's meant to create.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Then, no offence, he's not the GM. He's a player.

And I'm not saying anything is wrong with that kind of play. But if the only functional difference between the GM and the players is that they defer to the GM for rulings, then all he amounts to is a player with two hats. His "PC"s are simply the opposing forces.

And I don't think talking about games where everyone is kinda the GM and also kinda a player, really applies to what I was describing, and it certainly doesn't sound anything like what Celebrim was talking about.



BZZZT! Judgement call detected! I've been there. I've played these games. If the players are skilled and up to the task of being a GM-lite, then yeah, it can. But if they're not? And quite frankly: most of them aren't, then it doesn't. There's a reason there are far more players than GMs. Most people A: don't wanna. And B: can't.


This sounds suspiciously like one of those statement reversals that people trying to steal your money say.
Like: In order to discover the love in others, we must have others discover the love.
Also: this isn't limited to non-GM-centric games. This occurs and only occurs when players (all of them, GM included) are willing to step up to the plate. Again, most aren't.


Sure, again if you've got players who are up to the task.


While I haven't played Dungeon World, I have played this a lot. Because this is how I run a great deal of my games. I provide a base world with some various details and work with my players to detail in more things based on their characters and what they want to see. It is not procedurally generated, or randomly generated as I find this terribly boring (on both sides) and no, my players don't have equal control to the DM, they have a lot more control than just "their characters".

Yep, I'm totally uninterested in engaging in a discussion where your basis for argument is that players are largely incapable of grasping the game and need to be coddled within your preferred style. Enjoy!

 

[pemerton]

That's longer and rambling than I wanted but then I am trying to compress s btoad sense of results across a lot of games over a lot of years - with both different and some old players, so... its what it is.

Thanks for the response.

 

[Celebrim]

No, you're a bit off, here.

Almost certainly to some degree. I've never seen the rules.

The GM has to be open about how and why he's picking position and effect...

Ok sure, but can the players except by DM wheedling/persuasion override his choices?

and the Tier level is selected by the players as part of their choice of who to run their Score against, so it's not a freely set kind of thing.

That's sort of interesting. I guess. So the player's get perfect information about the mark? You don't run into a situation where you are running a con or a heist, and whoops, you realize you've just stolen funds from the city's Kingpin?

Also, I'm not sure that "difficulty" is the right term, because we were discussing probability of success -- which is fixed in Blades.

It may not be the right term, since I recognized that the players had a limited ability to modify probability of success (basically only by attempting moves that they were 'skilled' in). However, just because the odds are fixed doesn't mean that there isn't a winning strategy. You win by convincing the GM that you have some edge which maximizes the success stake while minimizing the failure stake. That is to say, you win by consistently getting the house to put more on the bet than you do. Since the odds are fixed, but the payoffs are not, the side with the safest wagers wins in the long run. However, it's entirely up to the GM to determine the ratio of the stakes - whether something has a big payoff or a big risk. The players can try to be persuasive, but ultimately they don't get to rig the game in their favor, which would make the game pointless. And that's what I mean about the GM "setting the difficult". By how he weights the stakes, he's acting as the judge of the skillfulness of the player's propositions.

The other things I mentioned to give a full accounting of how the stakes of the action are set, largely to address your claims of Czerge principle violations. I don't view those as 'difficulty' but rather explicit stakes mechanisms.

I don't see any Czerge principle violations in what you described.

Only if you're okay defining the 5e Fighter's Action Surge as narrative currency.

I'm very happy to do so. It's just a really minor narrative element compared to the ones that show up in more Nar focused games. In my homebrew 3.X D&D game, I have destiny points that act as a minor sort of narrative currency in that they allow the player to mitigate luck and decide when they want to win or don't want to lose, and even to a small extent can allow the players to break the normal rules (such as asserting that they have a skill or feat in this scene that they don't normally have). Star Wars D6 has "Force Points". Mouseguard has not one but TWO types of narrative currency, and both are pathetically underpowered timid little things that don't do nearly enough or give the player nearly enough control over the action, especially compared to all the hassle that revolves around them.

Um, huh? Where did you get this from my example?

It's pretty much inherent to success with complications, which as you note the game is geared to produce as the most common result. Throw in that I'd guess that this is mostly a "No Myth" or "Low Myth" game were the GM is encouraged to just sketch an outline of the major points, and you have an inherently GM empowering system presumably balanced by the players initial agency - "choosing the Score" - and occasional narrative control (rolling 6's or spending Stress).

Oh, I highly recommend it. If you do, the key piece of player advice for Blades is "play your character like a stolen car."

Forgive me, but having never stolen a car I have no idea at all what that means, and I'm inclined to imagine that if I did steal a car, my feelings and concerns would be very different than the sort of people who normally steal cars.

 

[Immortal Sun]

Yep, I'm totally uninterested in engaging in a discussion where your basis for argument is that players are largely incapable of grasping the game and need to be coddled within your preferred style. Enjoy!

Cool I'm glad you're going to lie about my position and willfully misconstrue anything I say to be something it's not.

Reported.