What is the point of GM's notes?

[Ovinomancer]

So we need a rule that states the agreed upon goal and the agreed upon threshold to successfully attain said goal when following the game mechanics as laid out in the books should be... Really agreed upon instead of fake agreed upon?? Are you serious right now?

Yes. Let's say that I've never run an RPG before, and I pick up 5e. It tells me that, as the GM, I choose what happens. It doesn't tell me that I'm playing wrong if I do not.

And, the examples that I gave are easy to find similar cases argued for in the 5e forum of this very site. If you want to make the case that the examples of play I provided are playing in bad faith, you have a much larger group of people to disagree with than just me. I agree with you, in that I strongly dislike the implication that the goal of a player action can be thwarted while the action succeeds, but there's examples of this in published WotC APs, so neither your or my preferences in this matter seem to be the accepted norm.

 

[Imaro]

I wasn't thinking of degenerate cases. Chess played in bad faith can include accidentally-on-purpose tipping over the board if one is losing, but I don't think we need to factor that into any general discussion of how chess can be played.

Illusionism is not in my view generally bad faith. The example the @Ovinomancer gave - of allowing the check to climb the wall to be resolved although the GM knows it won't result in being hidden because there is another guard atop the wall - doesn't look like bad faith to me. It seems like completely standard D&D-ish GMing.

Upthread a poster - @jmartkdr2, I think - said that in the right mood s/he might allow the players to have their PCs find a secret passage that wasn't on his/her map. That sounds to me like a type of illusionism, but not remotely bad faith. When you refer to your notes being "suggestions" - so you might use them to settle the outcomes of declared actions, but might not - I also see the possibility of illusionism. But where is the bad faith?

In these games with illusionistic features in action resolution, the player has the freedom to declare actions, and the GM resolves these applying the rules in good faith, which includes a permission on the part of the GM to adjudicate by reference to posited elements of the fiction which only s/he knows about and which, at the moment of resolution, s/he has unilateral control over.

Yes, I defined it previously, and game examples. Protagonism is where the focus of play is on the character's dramatic needs.

Dramatic needs are things that the character is about -- ie, things that are defining for the character -- and that you can hang a story on all by itself (ie, it can drive an entire story arc in play). I'm not talking about scripting, here, but that the dramatic need is the impetus for story. The examples I gave including such things as "I will get revenge on the murder of my family, no matter the cost." This is meaty -- it's defining, and it's something that a lot of story can hang on.

So, then protagonism would be that the game that features the character with the above example of a dramatic need would have play that focuses on that need, and not something the GM wants in play. IE, the protagonist of the story is the character, because the story is going to be about them.

This is clearly NOT D&D, as D&D is focused on a story/location/hexcrawl/sandbox created by the GM, often without direct concern for the characters. Sometimes the characters are built into a session, but only as the GM allows. This means the play is usually about something other than the dramatic needs of the PCs -- usually it's about the dramatic needs of some NPC, which the players then try to foil. This isn't a bad thing -- D&D does D&D very well, but that's just not protagonism. As I still run D&D (and am doing so now), this clearly isn't something that I think is, in any way, a bad or negative thing.

You have a very limited and incorrect view of the ways in which one can prep for and run D&D. It can easily be prepped by the DM around the goals, desires and dramatic needs of their PC's. You seem to be under a misguided assumption that pre-packaged adventure is the only way to run D&D. Its not.

 

[Imaro]

Yes. Let's say that I've never run an RPG before, and I pick up 5e. It tells me that, as the GM, I choose what happens. It doesn't tell me that I'm playing wrong if I do not.

And, the examples that I gave are easy to find similar cases argued for in the 5e forum of this very site. If you want to make the case that the examples of play I provided are playing in bad faith, you have a much larger group of people to disagree with than just me. I agree with you, in that I strongly dislike the implication that the goal of a player action can be thwarted while the action succeeds, but there's examples of this in published WotC APs, so neither your or my preferences in this matter seem to be the accepted norm.

Show me where someone advocated for agreeing to a players set goal, seting and informing the player of the DC for successful action resolution to attain said goal, have the player succeed at said DC and then negate the agreed upon goal... go ahead, ill wait because I don't thinkmost on this site would argue that its not bad faith DM'ing.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You have a very limited and incorrect view of the ways in which one can prep for and run D&D. It can easily be prepped by the DM around the goals, desires and dramatic needs of their PC's. You seem to be under a misguided assumption that pre-packaged adventure is the only way to run D&D. Its not.

Nope, I do not harbor this view you have attributed to me. If you actually run a D&D game where everything you do is always about the PC goals, and those goals are the dramatic needs I've highlighted (and not earn xp, get loot, and such), then you run an extremely unusual D&D game and I'd been keenly interested to hear a brief snippet of what you prepped for your last session and how it revolved around PC dramatic needs.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Show me where someone advocated for agreeing to a players set goal, seting and informing the player of the DC for successful action resolution to attain said goal, have the player succeed at said DC and then negate the agreed upon goal... go ahead, ill wait because I don't thinkmost on this site would argue that its not bad faith DM'ing.

There has to be a very bad communication breakdown, here. Let me see if I can find out where we've broken down, because this seems to be a very strange argument.

Which of these do you have the problem with (it can be more than one):

1. There is an undetected guard atop the wall, as detailed in the GM's prep.
2. This guard automatically sees the climber when then crest the top of the wall, because they have a clear view of them in this situation.
3. That this guard then raises the alarm that the PC hoped to avoid by climbing the wall.

I think that once we nail this down, we can probably proceed. I mean, I don't think that your position is that there cannot be a guard on the wall because that would violate the goal of the action declaration. If it is -- if you're talking about it being bad faith to NOT change prep because it would violate the player's goal for an action, then I'm struggling to understand why you're running D&D and not a game that does this kind of play better. Or, maybe it's that you think that the GM should just skip straight to the narration of the guard atop the wall raising the alarm, because you called for a check? That's an interesting take, although I'm not sure you're going to actually get a lot of traction on the with the D&D players -- there was a very recent thread about climbing a tower with a rope where the majority of posters felt that the physical act of climbing absolutely required the check, regardless of goal, so they'd absolutely call for the check to see if the wall was climbed and the goal to avoid notice wouldn't have been part of what the check was meant to resolve.

 

[Imaro]

Nope, I do not harbor this view you have attributed to me. If you actually run a D&D game where everything you do is always about the PC goals, and those goals are the dramatic needs I've highlighted (and not earn xp, get loot, and such), then you run an extremely unusual D&D game and I'd been keenly interested to hear a brief snippet of what you prepped for your last session and how it revolved around PC dramatic needs.

My personal game is a mixture of the two there are times where the game is about the dramatic needs (we just call them PC goals) and there are times where it is the PC's exploring, adventuring in the creation of the GM. The first is facilitated by our discord server where those who can participate for the coming weeks session (on Saturday or Sunday afternoon depending on the groups preference) let me know by Wednesday. It is also here, by Wednesday, that those who have specific goals, desires, dramatic needs, etc. in mind post in a dedicated chat room detailing what those goals they want to explore are. I'm open to broad suggestions but both I and my players leave the details of said goal exploration largely up to me as DM. They want an element of the unknown to be present. Honestly I rarely if ever (I actually don't remember a time where the entire group had personal goals they wanted to explore) have had to prep like this for the entire group. Usually 2 or 3 post in the forum and the rest either don't have a strong desire to explore their own goals this week or find the goals another player posted for their character interesting enough that they are willing to go along to see what happens.

That said I have had weeks here and there where all of the players just wanted to explore or weren't up for pursuing their goals or just wanted a low investment session and what I've found is, just like an ongoing tv show, those interludes serve as refreshers and to help them blow off steam at times while giving me a chance to flex my own creativity outside the boundaries of what my players have set as their goals.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My personal game is a mixture of the two there are times where the game is about the dramatic needs (we just call them PC goals) and there are times where it is the PC's exploring, adventuring in the creation of the GM. The first is facilitated by our discord server where those who can participate for the coming weeks session (on Saturday or Sunday afternoon depending on the groups preference) let me know by Wednesday. It is also here, by Wednesday, that those who have specific goals, desires, dramatic needs, etc. in mind post in a dedicated chat room detailing what those goals they want to explore are. I'm open to broad suggestions but both I and my players leave the details of said goal exploration largely up to me as DM. They want an element of the unknown to be present. Honestly I rarely if ever (I actually don't remember a time where the entire group had personal goals they wanted to explore) have had to prep like this for the entire group. Usually 2 or 3 post in the forum and the rest either don't have a strong desire to explore their own goals this week or find the goals another player posted for their character interesting enough that they are willing to go along to see what happens.

That said I have had weeks here and there where all of the players just wanted to explore or weren't up for pursuing their goals or just wanted a low investment session and what I've found is, just like an ongoing tv show, those interludes serve as refreshers and to help them blow off steam at times while giving me a chance to flex my own creativity outside the boundaries of what my players have set as their goals.

Yes, this sounds low protagonism to me. Contrast this with a game like Burning Wheel, which play is entirely funneled through the PC's dramatic needs, and you'll notice a large difference.

And it's perfectly fine for this difference to exist. Different games do different things.

 

[pemerton]

You have a very limited and incorrect view of the ways in which one can prep for and run D&D. It can easily be prepped by the DM around the goals, desires and dramatic needs of their PC's. You seem to be under a misguided assumption that pre-packaged adventure is the only way to run D&D. Its not.

I don't think I'm the one who brought D&D into the conversation. You did post an example of how you prep for D&D, and the notion of player-author PC dramatic needs didn't figure anywhere in it. That's not a criticism, just an observation.

Which means that players have a significant degree of authorship responsibility in respect of key NPCs, places and events in the shared fiction; and player provide the primary trajectory of play.

See this is where it falls apart for me because I don't see why the above stated playstyle necessarily needs to have this... especially the first part of your statement.

If the players aren't providing the primary trajectory of play, it follows that player-authored PC dramatic needs are not at the heart of play. Which in turn tells us that the play is not protagonistic in the sense that @Ovinomancer has talked about.

And players can't author dramatic needs for their PCs without enjoying authorship responsibility in respect of key NPCs, places and events. A player can't establish a revenge goal, for instance, without establishing that some or other NPC wronged his/her PC in some or other fashion. A player can't establish a goal to redeem a family member or family line without establishing the existence and dubious past of the relevant NPCs. Even a more abstract goal, such as being the greatest explorer of the age or showing that Elvish ideals can triumph over Orcish ones, can't be the focus of play without the GM paying significant regard to it in framing situations, meaning that the player is setting significant constraints on the GM's framing decisions.

I'm sure that some people play 5e D&D in something like this fashion. But I agree with @Ovinomancer that it has some features that aren't ideal for this sort of play, and that a lack of finality in non-combat resolution is one of those. To once again bring that back to the topic of this thread, 5e D&D tends to assume that non-combat resolution will take place in a context of, and by reference to, features of a fictional situation that the GM has already established independently of the declaration of the action. (A dungeon map and key is the paradigm in this respect.) And that sort of preparation tends not to fit that well with player-authored dramatic needs being at the heart of play. If you look at systems that are expressly designed for protagonistic play, one feature of them tends to be prising action resolution of any need to have already settled all the details of the fictional situation that would matter, in the fiction, to how things turn out. (This is sometimes lampooned as "Schroedinger's whatever".)

 

[AnotherGuy]

That's an interesting take, although I'm not sure you're going to actually get a lot of traction on the with the D&D players -- there was a very recent thread about climbing a tower with a rope where the majority of posters felt that the physical act of climbing absolutely required the check, regardless of goal, so they'd absolutely call for the check to see if the wall was climbed and the goal to avoid notice wouldn't have been part of what the check was meant to resolve.

Would you then make the same claim about 4e games who use the climbing check as part of a skill challenge, that they are facilitating a low protagonist game (at least at that point)?

 

[pemerton]

Would you then make the same claim about 4e games who use the climbing check as part of a skill challenge, that they are facilitating a low protagonist game (at least at that point)?

I don't know what @Ovinomancer's answer is, but the fundamental difference in 4e D&D is that skill challenge's are closed resolution that produce finality. They are part of a family of closed-scene resolution frameworks first found (I believe) in Prince Valiant in incipient form and in Maelstrom Storytelling in full-fledged form and perhaps reaching its apogee in HeroWars/Quest.