Ron Edwards at the Forge did this. It made a lot of people angry.
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What is *worldbuilding* for?
- Thread starter pemerton
- Start date
As [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] and I have already pointed out - and even if we ignore the paternalistic assumption that the GM knows better than the players what would be fun right now (which in my experience is a dubious assumption at best) - this thing that you and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] keep saying is silly.
Players: We want to do X.
GM: Ah, but wouldn't you prefer Y?
Players: OK, let's do Y.
GM: Ah, but wouldn't you prefer Z?
Players: OK, let's do Z.
GM: Ah, but wouldn't you prefer . . . <and so on ad infinitum>
GM: Ah, but wouldn't you prefer Y?
Players: OK, let's do Y.
GM: Ah, but wouldn't you prefer Z?
Players: OK, let's do Z.
GM: Ah, but wouldn't you prefer . . . <and so on ad infinitum>
Does the game ever actually get to happen? If the answer is yes, then why not just go with X?
If you're buying a car, or a house, it makes sense to hem and haw a bit, make a few comparisons, weight up some options, seek out the advice of reliable others. But we're talking about playing a game! If the players say they want to do something with giants, there's a pretty good chance they do. What does it add to second guess that? (Other than GM control running roughshod over expressed player preferences.)
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The bolded phrase is key here. Exploring the game world and finding new things = making moves that trigger the GM to tell you stuff. (Because there is no actual world that is actually being explored. There is just the fiction, which is being authored by - in this case - the GM.) Of course if you have never met players who don't enjoy that, then you wouldn't play "story now" RPGs. But I can tell you one player who doesn't really care for that - me.
If I want to "explore a world and find new things" then I'll read a fantasy story written by a better writer than my GM. When I play an RPG, I want to learn the fate of my character - so if my character is a knight of a holy order, who is committed to defending the innocent and upholding the values of his god and the honour of his family, then that's what I want to learn about.
And as a GM I don't want to tell my players a story about stuff I made up. I want to learn the fates of there characters. What will and won't they do to achieve their goals? How will they reconcile seemingly incompatible aspirations? If they don't, what conflicts will result?
Maybe you're not familiar with how 4e works. The DMG has a table indicating the treasures that are to be distributed at each level - so-called "treasure parcels".
As I've already posted several times, my 4e game was several treasure parcels behind. So I provided some parcels, as gifts from the Raven Queen.
The treasure would not have been more earned, the players more worthy of it, if - instead of handing out in the way I did - I had (say) narrated them finding a treasure storeroom when they tore up Torog's Soul Abattoir. It's still just treasure parcels correlating to encounters resolved and hence XP accrued and hence levels gained.
As far as player satisfaction, the players in my 4e game seem not to have objected to the narrative of treasures and powers being bestowed as gifts. The first such gift happened at 1st or 2nd level, when a member of a household whom the PCs saved from goblins gifted one of them a neck ornament which (it turned out) was a +1 amulet of protection.
This is hardly at odds with the genre literature. In The Phoenix on the Sword, Conan is gifted a magical sword. The Fellowship is gifted magical items by Galadriel; and Narsil/Anduril is inherited by Aragorn, not taken as loot. Etc, etc. (Even the Foreword to Moldvay Basic described the slayer of the dragon tyrant as having received a magical sword as a gift from a mysterious hermit, although - unlike 4e - the rules of the game don't actually support that mode of treasure acquisition.)
You are looking at the game through a very narrow lens if you treat treasure that - in the fiction - is a gift, as "unearned" in comparison to treasure actually taken off the body or from the treasuries of defeated foes.
One of the PCs is a demigod. One of the PCs is Marshall of Letherna. One is an Emergent Primordial. One is an Eternal Defender. The last is a Sage of Ages. These are epic tier PCs. They have already killed a god (Torog) in order to further the Raven Queen's interests. They obtained the destination they teleported to by outwitting and deceiving Vecna, the god of secrets.
I'm not sure you're appreciating the situation as an epic tier one.
I want every movie I watch to be great. The greatness of a movie is not primarily comparative, it's primarily inherent - story, editing, acting, staging, etc. I don't make sure I watch a re-run of Ace Ventura in between each decent movie I watch.
I want every novel I read to be great. Sometimes that doesn't happen, but it would be my ideal. If every fantasy short story I read was as good as Tower of the Elephant, that would make my life better, not worse. I every serious novel I read was as good as 9say) The Quiet American, that likewise would make my life better, not worse.
I want every academic paper I read to be great, full of clever insight and skilled argument. If every paper I read was as good as Hilary Putnam's "Dreaming and 'Depth Grammar'", that would make my life easier and happier, as I wouldn't have to wade through mediocre contributions to the literature.
This is also true of my RPGing. If every session was absolutely awesome then that would just make my RPGing better. I don't need boring interludes to remind me of why I enjoy the good stuff - the good stuff speaks for itself.
Now if what you meant was not the above, but that - for instance - pacing is important, well my games have pacing. I'm not a pacing genius, but I think I'm moderately competent. Spending time telling players about intersections and potential allies and stuff that no one cares about isn't any sort of solution to pacing problems - or, at least, if there's a problem to which it is a solution I don't know what that problem is, and certainly don't have it in my games.
This is treading very close to being an Unwarranted Generalisation - who are these "many people" (clearly there are some, eg you and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and your friends)? It is also treading very close to a Truth-obscuring Projection - because you (for whatever reasons) regard it as "unrealistic" to elide significant periods of time, so that must be unrealistic per se. But obviously that's not true - quite naturalistic novelists, film makers etc do this all the time. For instance, in LotR there are extensive time cuts in the first few chapters, and the last couple, but this doesn't make it "unrealistic" - the reader (correctly) infers that nothing interesting happened to Frodo in that time.
Likewise, there is nothing "unrealistic" about saying "OK, you travel through the underdark and arrive at a cave filled with lava . . . etc, etc . . .". No doubt the PCs passed numerous intersections, even crossed some flagstones and descended some stairs, but no one at the table cares. Those are not things anyone is interested in authoring, and so they remain unauthored.
No. The crazy person doesn't exist, and isn't declaring any actions. So let's try again: In the fiction, a crazy person is trying to fly to the moon; and, at the table, the player of the crazy person declares "My PC flaps his/her arms trying to fly to the moon." That is not an action declaration of an attempt to fly to the moon - and given that it doesn't need resolution, it's probably not even an action declaration of any sort - it's simply a description of what one's PC is doing.
This is like the crazy PC example. If the player knows that there are no swords to be found, then s/he can't meaningfully declare "I go to the market to buy a holy sword", because she knows that there is no action to resolve! S/he can describe the PC frantically hunting for one if s/he likes, but there's no actual declaration to be resolved there as the player already knows what is going to happen. It's just colour!
(Not everything a player says about what his/her PC does is an action declaration. "I tighten my belt to make sure it doesn't slip off" isn't an action declaration in D&D, given that the game has no rules for belt tightness nor belts falling off. It's just colour, like "I lick my lips before taking the shot" narrated by a player whose PC is in an archery contest; or "I wear a headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes", given that D&D has no rules for being blinded by one's own sweat.)
Here are the rules from pp 71 of the 5e Basic PDF (I choose these because they're ready-to-hand, but earlier editions aren't wildly different in this respect):
When you take your action on your turn, you can take one of the actions presented here, an action you gained from your class or a special feature, or an action that you improvise . . .
The most common action to take in combat is the Attack action, whether you are swinging a sword, firing an arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists.
With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack.
The most common action to take in combat is the Attack action, whether you are swinging a sword, firing an arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists.
With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack.
How much clearer could the game be that "I attack the 10 orcs in front of me!" is not a permissible action declaration?
Here's another example, from p 78:
Before a spellcaster can use a spell, he or she must have the spell firmly fixed in mind, or must have access to the spell in a magic item.
So the player of a fighter, or the player of a 1st level wizard, who has no magic items, can't declare "I cast a Wish spell" - because the conditions for that action declaration (namely, that the character - having access to the spell in a magic item - must have the spell firmly fixed in mind) are not satisfied.
There are all sorts of limits on action declarations in D&D. (Another example I just remembered: in 1st ed AD&D Unearthed Arcana, only a fighter or cavalier-type can declare an attempt to disarm.) Given that it actually has one of the more intricate action economies of any RPG (a legacy of its wargame roots) this is hardly surprising!
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Again with the misrepresentations of the playstyle. It has nothing to do with anything paternalistic, or the DM knowing best. And when you get down to it, X+2 is greater than X, right?
If I'm buying a car, I'm driving to the car lot to view and test drive. On the way I pass a great food place and I didn't realize that I was hungry, so I stop and get food. Alternatively, I pass a great food place, make a note of it since I'm not hungry and might be later, and keep driving. That could not have happened if Scotty had just beamed me to the car lot. Nobody is running roughshod over anyone else. It's not about DM control or any other misrepresentation you'd like to come up with next.
I'd love it if for once, rather than misrepresenting the playstyle and responding to your own misrepresentations, you'd actually respond to what we are saying.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Except that we've already determined that making moves to trigger the DM to tell you stuff is also what happens in your game, so that doesn't mean anything. If you aren't making moves that trigger the DM to tell you stuff, you aren't playing a game that has a DM. It's just a game with players at that point.
I never realized that the only way to learn about that was to reach the destination. There's NEVER an innocent that needs defending anywhere along the way. The values of your got and honor of your family can't possibly come to the fore during the journey.
It's not as if you can't engage in that during the journey. Why is it that you think that the end point of the journey is the only place that will be accomplished?
I don't trivialize gods by having them hunted down and killed, so that's not really a viewpoint I had considered. That said, even if I was a demigod or person of equal stature, I'd still tread very lightly near a full god, especially one like the Raven Queen. Even epic PCs are still less than she is. In fact, it's a testament to being epic that I'd try to talk to her, rather than just pee my pants and pass out like a lower level PC would likely do.
What I meant was that if everything is important, then important is reduced to common place and average. Again with the misrepresentations, since I wasn't talking about bad, boring or anything else negative. I'm just saying that if every moment shines with importance, the moments drown each other out in the light. It's okay, even good for there to be average moments that allow the moments that shine to be seen in the best light.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Again with the semantics. Just let it go. You understand that some of us play deeply in character, so just go with it and respond. Now on to the rest, actions whose results are not in doubt still need to be resolved. That resolution is the narration that the action failed. Given that the PC acted(attempted to fly to the moon by flapping his arms), there must have been an action declaration involved.
First, what makes you think that there has to be meaning to actions or action declarations. Second, given that in my example it's part of the PC's character to go looking there, it is in fact a meaningful declaration. Third, there is an action to resolve, as the PC is taking an action that I as the player declared. Automatic failure does not stop an action or action declaration from happening.
Earlier you and [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] were referring to what I was doing as absurd. I guess it's your turn. Trying to take actions and action declarations and cause them to somehow not be actions or action declarations just because they automatically fail or aren't meaningful is patently absurd.
Where does it say that you need rules in order for actions or declarations of actions do be actions and declarations of actions? If I declare that my PC is walking to the bar, that's an action the PC is taking and a declaration of that action on my part.
One, it's pretty disingenuous to try and reduce this to just combat. And two, you can indeed declare the act of attacking 10 orcs. Your combat action(different than other actions) just can only be one orc at a time. Two different actions are being declared there.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Sure sounds like one to me.
An impossible*-in-the-fiction one, mind you, but still a declaration of an attempted action.
* - and who's to say - maybe some trickster god happens to be watching and when the character flaps its arms, it's up up and away......
The player meta-knows this but the PC in the fiction doesn't know it, and thus if one is to play in character as if one's player knowledge equals their PC's knowledge "I go to the market to buy a holy sword" becomes a perfectly valid - if perhaps naive - declaration of action...to which the DM goes through whatever motions she goes through and then narrates some version of "You don't find one", and the game moves on.
Ah...but remember the founding tenet of 5e is "rulings, not rules", which opens up absolutely anything to be a possible declaration of attempted action and then expects the DM to rule on it.
You're looking at this all backwards, I think.
A player is never - NEVER! - bound by the rules in what she can state as an attempted action.
The DM, however, IS bound by the rules (as amended by her own rulings and possibly as amended by the in-game situation) when determining what results from said declaration. This comes back to the fact that part of the DM's role is that of referee.
Hence the player of a dumb-like-ox fighter is quite free to declare "Trog see Fizban wave hands and make fire. Trog wave hands and make fire too. Trog burn them all!"; and the DM is quite free to respond to this with some variant on "Nothing happens" without recourse to the dice.
This is one of the great attractions of tabletop RPG play: a player is free to try anything, no matter how absurd; and it's down to the DM to adjudicate and say no. It's the one big advantage TTRPGs have over computer-based RPGs which have built-in limits on what players can attempt.
Lan-"and a fighter trying a wish every now and then is never wrong: who knows what that new magic ring might have in it"-efan
tomBitonti
Adventurer
So ... how much of this is setting the "scale limit" to which players (and the GM) are able to change the game world?
The GM may set a basic outline, while leaving player declarations so long as they fit within that basic outline.
Then, absent powerful magic, the rules of physics are "basic D&D": Falls and lava hurt (but not as much as they should); normal people can't fly, and so forth. A player cannot make a declaration which affects these rules.
On the other hand, while the GM may have placed two major cities a ways apart on a coastline (say, Boston and NY), that is a very coarse level of detail: Perhaps a play can "create" by declaration a village somewhere in-between.
With "scale limit", this likely changes over time: Initially, larger scale issues must be determined. As those issues are settled, the focus turns to issues of a smaller scale. Maybe, backing up at times to reset an issue which wasn't working out so well, but mostly not allowing large, previously settled issued to be changed. (But, allowing for re-interpretation!)
Also, similar to a "scale limit" there are likely "breadth of impact" limits: A player can only go so far to make a declaration which affects other players:
Player 1: My parents were killed in a raid by Evil Draconians. I have a deep hatred for dragons and their ilk.
Player 2 (who is the brother of player 1): Say what?
Then there are "don't offend grandmother by being one of these" limits: This would be, say, a player declaration made solely to mess with the GM or other players. But also, a GM who changes the scene on the fly to confound players.
I think that in any system that allows action declarations, there will be reasonable limits to what can be declared, and we need to be careful to focus on what is reasonable. Otherwise, the arguments are just spinning straw.
One notable point from a recent post was the question of whether the GM's fictional world and plot were sufficient to the player's interest. In a lot of games, players very much want the GM to provide a plot outline which details the adversity and challenges that the players will face. In other games (as expressed above), players want to have more of a part in detailing the fictional world. That seems to me to be a basic control with a slider reaching from Player on one end to GM on the other.
Thx!
TomB
The GM may set a basic outline, while leaving player declarations so long as they fit within that basic outline.
Then, absent powerful magic, the rules of physics are "basic D&D": Falls and lava hurt (but not as much as they should); normal people can't fly, and so forth. A player cannot make a declaration which affects these rules.
On the other hand, while the GM may have placed two major cities a ways apart on a coastline (say, Boston and NY), that is a very coarse level of detail: Perhaps a play can "create" by declaration a village somewhere in-between.
With "scale limit", this likely changes over time: Initially, larger scale issues must be determined. As those issues are settled, the focus turns to issues of a smaller scale. Maybe, backing up at times to reset an issue which wasn't working out so well, but mostly not allowing large, previously settled issued to be changed. (But, allowing for re-interpretation!)
Also, similar to a "scale limit" there are likely "breadth of impact" limits: A player can only go so far to make a declaration which affects other players:
Player 1: My parents were killed in a raid by Evil Draconians. I have a deep hatred for dragons and their ilk.
Player 2 (who is the brother of player 1): Say what?
Then there are "don't offend grandmother by being one of these" limits: This would be, say, a player declaration made solely to mess with the GM or other players. But also, a GM who changes the scene on the fly to confound players.
I think that in any system that allows action declarations, there will be reasonable limits to what can be declared, and we need to be careful to focus on what is reasonable. Otherwise, the arguments are just spinning straw.
One notable point from a recent post was the question of whether the GM's fictional world and plot were sufficient to the player's interest. In a lot of games, players very much want the GM to provide a plot outline which details the adversity and challenges that the players will face. In other games (as expressed above), players want to have more of a part in detailing the fictional world. That seems to me to be a basic control with a slider reaching from Player on one end to GM on the other.
Thx!
TomB
What's the misrepresentation? Your argument against "going where the action is" - in this case, a fairly light-touch narration of the trip to the giants' cage - is that the players might have forgotten something. Hence the GM needs to interpose various possibilities between the players' decision to go to the giants' cave, and the narration of their arrival there.
I'm asking, what is the basis on which the GM decides that enough such additional possibilities have been interposed? When are the players to be allowed to actually act on their decision?
You haven't answered that question. As is obvious, I think there is no principled answer, and that this whole line of argument is silly.
The argument that "I narrate extra possibilities because my players enjoy them" is one that I'll buy. You know your players better than I do. The agument that "I narrate extra possibilities because my players might have made a mistake about wanting to go straight to the giants' cave", though, just makes no sense.
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