What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Emerikol]

Well, this is true only for certain values of what they do.

The players in your game, for instance, have 100% control over whether or not their PCs search for a secret door. They don't have 100% control over whether or not their PCs discover a secret door.

Well, I'm not sure what "force fit" means here, and nor what you mean by "doesn't make sense". I mean, if there is a stone wall in an elaborate architectural construction like a dungeon or a castle, why would a secret door not make sense? How is discovering one "force fitting" anything?

Of course if the GM has already written a story about a castle with no secret doors, then it would contradict that story to find a secret door. But that's why I don't like that sort of pre-authorship, which prioritises the GM's story over actually playing the fiction at the table.

It prioritizes a consistent world. I mean if as DM I have to make up what's behind a secret door on the fly all the time that world is going to lack verisimilitude. I've yet to meet an ad libber who ever offered a world with the level of verisimilitude I would accept. Maybe that is the difference. How high we prioritize a consistent world with lots of verisimilitude.

Well, anything the players can dream up seems slightly exaggerated language - but, putting that to one side, this is not my experience at all. In my experience players want to play the game and play the fiction. Not break it or make it silly.

I think the distinction can be summed up this way...
In my style the world exists and the players play characters in that world.
In your style the world comes into existence or takes form as the players play their characters.

I also wonder if your style even needs a DM. Why not just state what you see when it's your turn and the party can react to established fiction or create more of their own? Surely the group can determine reasonable actions for the monsters without need of a DM.

So for my style of play world building is a pillar of roleplaying. It's as essential as any other DM skill if not the most essential.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my original post. The players choose the easiest path to their CHARACTER's objectives. That may be a hard choice if you are staying at the Alamo to face the Mexican army. Staying in character is perhaps the crux here. A lot of metagaming seems to go on in your style of play.

In my 4e game, the player who is best at mechanical optimisation plays a drow sorcerer. From the first time this PC entered the game (at 3rd level), it has been established (by the player) that he is a member of a drow secret society, the Order of the Bat, whose members worship Corellon and have the goal of overthrowing Lolth and ending the sundering of the elves. At 28th level he finally had the chance to realise - the PCs killed Lolth. This particular player then sealed the Abyss at the 66th level (ie the Demonwebs), even though doing so cost him one of his four daily powers permanently (unless he wants to unseal it again), and also required him to change his paragon path (which was a power downgrade, given that his original paragon path - Demonskin Adept - is one of the most powerful in the game).

Whether or not that counts as cinematic (others can judge that), I don't think it counts as taking the easiest path.

If it is truly a character motivation, I'm fine with it.

 

[Emerikol]

I've come to the conclusion that what [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] really needs is to play in a No Myth Story Now mode for a month as a player and see for himself. Complete with GM explication of the reasoning behind framing specific scenes, etc. I think he's going to see that he's already trying to do it, and his issue is really just one of not having been really exposed to the technique in a way that is conducive to his understanding it. He seems to WANT not to understand, and yet at the same time to DO what he claims he doesn't do and doesn't want to do!

I really need to make good on my offer to [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] to do some kind of a demo game.

I agree 100%. This is a style and I'm glad it has a name. I personally don't enjoy it but it really is what pemerton should be seeking based on his discussion.

I jokingly called it the Iserith method because Iserith over on the D&D boards long ago was the greatest champion of that style of play.

I would like to interject here though that unless you are up front about it most people are not thinking No Myth when they think "roleplaying".

I've tended to use classical roleplaying for my style only because it seems it was Gygax's style early on. Even if not I think it was the dominant early style.

Perhaps I can come up with a list of game styles...
1. No Myth Story Now - Nothing is known that isn't stated in game. Crafting an epic story is a side effect of play and intentional.
2. Classical - Deep pre-designed world, DM is ultimate authority, Adventures as a contest of skill, Death happens sometimes because of bad luck. Very little metagaming. Character only focus. Sandboxes.
3. Modern - Make death harder, Fail forward, Metagame mechanics, Adventure paths.

Maybe I'm being a bit hard on modern gaming. Perhaps you can elaborate.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

By my definition, failure here means there's no door; with the obvious ensuing complication being that now our erstwhile Thief has to face whatever she was trying to avoid.

Yeah, we have the same fictional meaning, and we both understand that in terms of 'process of play' its different, but there is an equivalence.

And for a bunch of different reasons. My example earlier was the player/PC was trying to escape from a losing combat. But the same desire could arise from the player/PC trying to get into somewhere, and a secret door would nicely avoid all those nasty guards and their dogs. Or that the passage has come to what looks to be a dead end and the player/PC is testing whether it really is. And so on...

Or it could still be part of an attempt to achieve that important something. I think that has to depend on how much leeway is given in narrating what a success means and how far forward it can carry the fiction.

Right, by either your way or my way the player is going to make decisions and the character is going to succeed or fail based on the resulting fictional positioning and the outcome of checks. This is fundamentally why in HoML there are ONLY 'Challenges' and not single throw-away checks. You can face the challenge of making your way via the secret route, or the combat involved in overcoming the guards. One or the other may be easier, either inherently or due to some planning, etc. but if that wasn't the case then the game would be pretty dull. So, once I've decided that the level of difficulty of the task, the cleverness and luck needed to carry it out, as well as possibly specific character traits, then I'm good.

Finding a secret door (success) doesn't give the DM the right to frame someone waiting at the other end of the passage (a complication), does it? I mean, if it does there might be hope for this stuff yet! But the impressions I've been given is that the DM isn't allowed to mitigate successes, only add complications to failures.

I won't speak for anyone else. IMHO what that means is you don't literally reverse things that PCs have accomplished. However, they might not turn out to be, in the long run, the best outcomes. I think its perfectly OK to have a guard at the end of the secret passage. It seems to me that the most likely reasonable way for things to be is that finding the secret passage and sneaking up on the guard, etc. should provide the same tension and sense of danger and accomplishment as taking out the two guards in the foyer that you just bypassed. That makes sense from a dramatic standpoint, as its taking up the same part of the story arc and there's probably thus the same pattern of rising and falling tension.

Now, this hasn't touched on how one pathway might challenge a character's beliefs or put his agenda at stake. There could be moral considerations, for instance. Or maybe the character just thinks he's a bad ass and doesn't shrink from fights, or etc.

But if the DM knows ahead of time a) whether there's a secret door there, b) where and what it leads to, and c) what if anything awaits beyond it, then there's no need to think about how much leeway a successful action provides as the answers are already in place.

Lan-"this hypothetical castle we've built must have so many secret doors in it by now that its structural integrity is in serious question"-efan

Sure, the answers are in place, but then there's only one set of choices, and they weren't designed to speak to any particular interest or need of the story.

But honestly, once you're playing in a more Story Now kind of way there's a lot less of this tactical futzing around in a passageway kind of stuff. I mean, I noted there could be story implications to using a secret passage vs going in the front door, but truthfully a lot of that sort of tactical detail isn't all that exciting in a dramatic sense. It would be much better to say "I'm sneaky, can I find a way to sneak in?" and clever sneaky guy probably manages that. The secret passage is then simply framing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In 4e I may well just say "yes". Given the baseline assumption in 4e about the capacity of the players to have PCs spend gold for items, simply establishing an intriguing source of shadow walking (or whatever) potions probably doesn't do anything but add a bit of fun flavour to the game.

Whether the PCs can actually buy the potions is a different matter. By default gold in 4e can be spent freely, but I think it's fair game to require a skill challenge in the appropriate circumstances (eg buying unusual potions from a mysterious cult).

Yeah, you have quite a few options: you could say yes and just treat the Moon Cultists like the "buyer's and sellers" that 1e PHB's equipment section describes. They sell at 10-40% over baseline cost, and they buy at 20% of baseline cost. A lot of people never understood this particular element in 4e, as it was just sort of generically described as sort of 'the market', but in a fantasy world? The market is all sorts of crazy! In this case a single check to enable the transaction is pretty sensible.

Another option would be to make it an SC, in which case the party is due a TREASURE PARCEL at the end of the SC! This treasure parcel could obviously be a potion, or it could be discount on potions (IE you get them at base cost instead of the inflated cost you'd otherwise pay). Exactly what the details are probably depends on the fiction and the PCs.

Other options would include buying a potion formula (not really specifically a 'thing' in 4e, but PCs can only make 'common' potions by default, so getting around that restriction would be worth paying for). Or again as a reward after a successful SC, which could encompass a wide range of fictional possibilities.

Obviously there's also the old "kill 'em and take the loot" option as well!

This is what I REALLY like about 4e, structurally things are very interchangeable. You can slot in an SC, a combat, 'buying things' or even 'getting a boon' (a different sort of treasure technically) etc. My own game just takes this to its final logical conclusion. EVERYTHING is 'treasure'.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. Believe it or not, I understand what it is the player is trying to achieve by creating the secret door. My point with that statement is that if you need to get out of a place, there is tension in that. Am I going to get out? Am I going to get out in time? Am I going to live? How that ends is a climax. The creation of the secret door diffuses that tension and is fairly anti-climactic. Even if failure could result in ratcheted up tension, the player through ingenuity can keep attempting to create ways out. The tension is lost because the player knows he will eventually roll successfully.

I believe this is all still thinking subtly in 'classic' RPG methodology terms. What if the player fails the check? Then, as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says, just saying "eh, no door here!" is 'weaksauce'. No, the GM is going to introduce another problem. Heck, maybe there IS still a secret door, you really want to open it???!!! Even on a success I could easily narrate "Ok, the narrow door opens onto a cramped passageway which appears to slope steeply downward into darkness. A foul musty odor wafts past you, and the angles of the ceiling are tufted with cobwebs and spiders..."

To your last point. Yes, adding something else at the end of the passage to relieve the PC of the jewels can definitely add or replace the tension that was lost by the creation of the door. I say can and not will, because depending on what is there, your mileage may vary. My question to you about that sort of response to a successful roll is this. How is that not a form of blocking the player? The player made his intent known and succeeded. Taking the jewels away, or even trying to take them away on that success seems like blocking to me, at least as @pemerton and/or @iserith have described it to me in the past.

As our previous discussion of this point elucidated, there has to be something more than a single shake of a die which leads to utter unfettered success of the character for the whole rest of the narrative. Clearly that's just not how these things work. When you have a success you move somewhat closer to your goal. Now you have one guard to surprise instead of 2 guards to defeat in a frontal battle. You're still better off. Just as you would be better off if you took out your bow and slew one of those two guards with a successful attack (you see, attack roll and perception check are now equivalently balanced forward advances).

As I pointed out just before this in another post, there's really no likelihood that one path is just as hard as another. Difficulty isn't even the REAL focus here, but if everything was equally hard/easy then there would be no point in choosing, at least from a perspective of 'winning'.

 

[pemerton]

In my style the world exists and the players play characters in that world.
In your style the world comes into existence or takes form as the players play their characters.

I personally wouldn't use your descriptions here, because they elide the difference between reality and fantasy. I would say that in your style, much of the fiction is authored in advance. (And if the GM does have to make stuff up on the fly, s/he does her best to make it as if it had been authored in advance - so it should be "objective", neutral etc - rolls on tables are one popular way of doing this.)

Whereas in my style, more of the fiction is authored in the course of, and as part of, playing the game. (Of course, from the point of view of the PCs the world exists just the same as in your style.)

A lot of metagaming seems to go on in your style of play.

What have you got in mind?

The GM isn't "neutral" in coming up with content - that's metagaming. But the players are engaging the fiction from an in-character perspective - that's not metagaming. This came upon the other worldbuilding thread: another poster on that thread advocated for player "input" into the worldbuilding at the metagame level - talking to the GM about what they want. Whereas my approach emphasises action declaration and playing the game - "story now" - rather than negotiating the fiction at the meta-level in advance.

I also wonder if your style even needs a DM. Why not just state what you see when it's your turn and the party can react to established fiction or create more of their own?

As to whether a GM is needed, I would have hoped that it's obvious what the GM's job is: frame scenes that put pressure on the players via their PCs, and hence force them to make choices.

I woud hope that the difference between cooperative storytelling and action declaration and resolution is obvious. If not, the Eero Tuovinen blog that has been talked about a bit has a good discussion of it.

It prioritizes a consistent world. I mean if as DM I have to make up what's behind a secret door on the fly all the time that world is going to lack verisimilitude.

I've got no evidence to provide here but testimony. For what it's worth, I think you're overly worried about this. There are a range of techniques that get used to manage content-introduction, the most important two of which are "say 'yes'" and "go where the action is".

Remember, if the game is going well, then the player already has some goal or agenda in mind in declaring that his/her PC searches for a secret door. (And if the game isn't going well and has collapsed into random action declaration, than verisimilitude issues resulting from secret doors are the least of your worries - because you've already lost the core verisimilitude of genuine characters with genuine motivations.)

So that goal/agenda is the anchor and guidepost (to mix metaphors) for whatever gets narratied next. If the player succeeds, then they get what the want - which they alreayd think is verisimilitudinous, because they asked for it! If they fail, then you turn their agenda back on them - and, again, by drawing on the material the player has already made part of the situation, you are assuring it is material the player will engage with rather than reject on verisimilitude grounds. (More on this below - because it's really about "fail forward".)

Modern - Make death harder, Fail forward, Metagame mechanics, Adventure paths.

Maybe I'm being a bit hard on modern gaming. Perhaps you can elaborate.

"Fail forward" is used in two different ways.

One is its original meaning, as used by designers like Ron Edwardsm Vincent Baker and Luke Crane both in discussion and in their games. In this usage, the forward refers to pacing and narratie trajectory. It's an anti-railroading device. I'll explain how: in a traditional Call of Cthulhu or Dragonlance module, if the PCs (and thereby the players) don't find the clue, or the secret door, or whatever is the "ticket" to the next situation, then the game grinds to a halt.This gives the GM an incentive to railroad the players into the situation where they'll find the clue ("Are you sure you don't want to check what's in the desk drawers?"), and/or an incentive to fudge Search checks. "Fail forward", as an indie-designer response to this, is: don't frame the PCs (and thereby the players) into situations where there has to be a definite outcome for the game to progress. Instead, just "say 'yes'" to the players' action declarations (they get where they want to go, they find the secret doors they want to find, etc) until you come to a crunch point that actually speaks to the dramatic context of play. (Given the way these designers frame and present their games, that shouldn't take too long!) At the crunch point, you call for a check. If it succeeds, the player gets what s/he wants (so it's like saying "yes"). If the check fails, the GM narrates some adverse consequence which means the player and PC don't get what they wanted; but the adverse consequence drives the narrative on, by engaging with the dramatic context of play (whatever that happens to be in a particular game) and hence provokes more action declarations. Rinse and repeat.

The "fail forward" technique I just described is pretty fundamental to no myth play, or any other player-driven RPGing where the focus is on story and dramatic arcs.

However, the terms "fail forward" has now been co-opted by the very railroading designers it was meant to be an antidote to! So now "fail forward" gets used to mean something like the following: instead of fudging the Search check, even if they fail narrate a success but through in a tweak or a complication! And instead of railroading the players to have their PCs search the desk drawers, if they don't then have the clue arrive by carrier pigeon instead (or whatever other means takes the designer's fancy). I don't read that many contemporary modules, but the ones I've read seem to have quite a bit of this sort of thing. Perhaps the most common one is thta if the PCs kill the "big bad" early, then everything goes on just the same under the direction of a lieutenant.

Some RPGers, including some posters in this thread, say that this is not railroading, because the players are free to delcare whatever actions they like for their PCs, and the GM doesn't actually fudge any rolls. My own view is that it absolutely is railroading, because it means that nothing the players choose to do actually matters to hwo the fiction unfolds.

I find it amusing, but also a bit frustrating, that a temr that was coined to describe an anti-railroading technique is now most often identified with ultra-railroady AP RPGing.

(If it's not obvious already: AP-type RPGing is at the bottom of my list of preferences. Next is dungeon-crawling - and there I prefer "fun" stuff like White Plume Mountain or Castle Amber over something like Tom b Of Horros. Next is "sandboxing" with a sympathetic and usefully responsive GM - with a doctrinaire GM this is as railroad-y as an AP. At the top, obviously, is some form of "story now"."no myth".)

 

[pemerton]

Yes but the effect is that a secret door is created... since it doesn't already exist.

I don't know about you, but in my game when the PCs find a secret door nothing gets created except some new sound waves - as one person tells a story to another person.

In other words: at the table, a story about a secret door is authored. In the fiction, a secret door is discovered. No secret door is created.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree 100%. This is a style and I'm glad it has a name. I personally don't enjoy it but it really is what pemerton should be seeking based on his discussion.

I jokingly called it the Iserith method because Iserith over on the D&D boards long ago was the greatest champion of that style of play.

I would like to interject here though that unless you are up front about it most people are not thinking No Myth when they think "roleplaying".

I've tended to use classical roleplaying for my style only because it seems it was Gygax's style early on. Even if not I think it was the dominant early style.

Perhaps I can come up with a list of game styles...
1. No Myth Story Now - Nothing is known that isn't stated in game. Crafting an epic story is a side effect of play and intentional.
2. Classical - Deep pre-designed world, DM is ultimate authority, Adventures as a contest of skill, Death happens sometimes because of bad luck. Very little metagaming. Character only focus. Sandboxes.
3. Modern - Make death harder, Fail forward, Metagame mechanics, Adventure paths.

Maybe I'm being a bit hard on modern gaming. Perhaps you can elaborate.

I have little to add, actually Never met Iserith, but I only took to the D&D boards when 4e was released. Wreccan and actually I think one at least of the posters in this thread were common participants there at the time, along with many others whom I mostly don't recall the names of, since its been now almost 5 years since I bowed out of that scene.

 

[Emerikol]

...snip...

I just wanted to be clear I was replying to your post.

I think at the root of things is the fact that my games are more gamist.

Here are some examples of things true for my style of games
1. Preparation is important. The right spells, the right equipment, the right plan.
2. Caution is often in order. Sometimes only boldness will save you. No one will put their finger on the scale.
3. Like real life, sometimes you die. It doesn't have to be your fault even. Your job is to play the game well and try to avoid dying. If you play really well you will win a lot more than you lose. You will still occasionally lose and sometimes you'll get lucky. When you get lucky, it's a story that is told many times over the years.
4. There will be in game frustrations. Obviously as DM, I try to limit how often I put those sorts of things in an adventure, but they will happen on occasion. The sweet reward is ultimate triumph over that vexing villain that tormented the party for so long. I mean the classic adventure is save the princess right? So you have to find the princess and that can be a task on occasion. That is okay for us.
5. The players as their characters will try to impact and change the world which already exists. They will acquire power and wealth by adventuring. They will also often involve themselves in things outside of adventuring. Building businesses, ruling kingdoms, building a temple to their faith. Accomplishing these things in game will be hard. They players will have to strive hard to achieve these goals. Obviously acting as their characters but the players will have to think hard or they will lose.
6. So it's party vs the world. Doesn't have to always be a unified party but I tend to prefer those types of groups personally.

So for me roleplaying is not at all like a novel. In a novel, you never want the reader to be bored or frustrated by some repetitive obstacle. You are making your game adhere to the needs of a novel and that makes sense given your style. For me, without the chance of genuinely losing, winning has no sweetness. You know ultimately your party will do interesting things, survive or at least die in some notable way the player chose. You have your finger on the scale to make sure of it. Because what you enjoy is "being cool" which is fine. That is a lot of fun for many people. I prefer doing something genuinely hard and succeeding when I do it well and the luck of the dice (or favor of the Gods) are with me.

So I am not trying to convince you to switch to my style nor am I interested that much in your style. I think if for some reason it was a very limited low commitment campaign for me I might enjoy a few hours of your style in the right unusual genre but never as a long running campaign. I think I understand why you like it. To be honest I don't think even if we are using the exact same rules set that we are playing the same game. We are playing radically different games. I could see people enjoying both styles. Personally I'm far enough on my end of the scale to not like yours as much.

 

[Emerikol]

I have little to add, actually Never met Iserith, but I only took to the D&D boards when 4e was released. Wreccan and actually I think one at least of the posters in this thread were common participants there at the time, along with many others whom I mostly don't recall the names of, since its been now almost 5 years since I bowed out of that scene.

I remember Wreccan. I also think LaneFan was on. I came along about when 5e was announced but still proceeding into playtest. I think everyone was trying to influence the game their way. It got hot on occasion.