Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7336146" data-attributes="member: 42582">Well, options (2) and (3) aren't really very good descriptions of how I prefer to play a RPG.There are games that work like that - roll to assign narration rights, then narrate - but I've never played them, and I would think of them as borderline cases of RPGs.Here is my preferred method - it is implicit in <a href="https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">Eero Tuovinene's account of the "standard narrativistic model"</a> and many RPGs use it in some form or other (eg Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, 4e skill challenges, HeroQuest revised):Step (1): The GM frames a scene/situation - the material for this is drawn from established fiction (at the start of play, this will be PC backstory/motivation plus general thematic/genre elements of the game); Step (2): The player declares an action for his/her PC that bears upon the framed scene/situation - if the GM has done his/her job properly at (1), the scene/situation will provoke the player to a choice; Step (3a): If the GM doesn't want to apply further pressure (eg because the player has already relented; or because there's no other direction for things that seems salient) then the GM says "yes" and the player's action declaration succeeds; Step (3b): Otherwise, the GM frames a check in accordance with the system rules, and the player rolls the dice; Step (4): If the player succeeds on the check, the player's intention for the action declaration is achieved (ie the fictional situation unfolds as the PC hoped things would); otherwise the GM narrates consequences that are adverse to the PC, having regard to what was at stake in the framing, the intention of the action declaration, etc; Step (5): return to step (1) - the processes above mean that the newly framed situation should continue to speak to the players and provoke action declarations for their PCs.The main "risk" in this sort of game is that the GM narration (at (1), or at (4) in the event of failure) will fail to engage the players and provoke them to declare actions for their PCs. If that happens, the situation falls flat and the game loses momentum. In practice, if this happens I feed more elements into the framing trying to get the fire re-lit. It doesn't happen all that often.The difference from your (2) and (3) is that you make no reference to framing or action declarations in your account of those approaches - they really are presented by you as dicing for narration rights.What do I think the functional differences are?Here's one, between (i) your (2) and (3) and (ii) my preferred method: As I already said, I personally see dicing for narration rights as a borderline case of RPGing, because it's far less clear in what sense the player is playing his/her PC. Whereas in the method that I prefer, the player is clearly and unequivocally playing his/her PC, making action delcarations that engage with the situation that has been framed by the GM.Here's another, between your (i) and both (ii) your (2) and (3) and (iii) my preferred method: method (1) means that the shared fiction is a story told by the GM, already written. (2) and (3) mean that the shared fiction is something narrated on the spur of the moment, in a shared storytelling enterprise among friends. My preferred method means that the shared fiction is also established on the spur of the moment, but not as shared storytelling but rather by resolving action declarations that are driven by the way a scene framed by one participant grabs the (imagined, and "inhabited") motivations of the "avatar" or vehicle of another participant.My method pyshes towards an ideal that, at every moment of play, the shared fiction that is being established speaks to what the participants in the game have, together, established as the stakes of the unfolding story. Initially it is the players who contribute more of that, but as the GM frames in relation to it, and narrates consequences, the shared fiction takes on elements that the players didn't anticipate, and they find themselves having to confront - in their play of their PCs - challenges to their values/concerns/goals that they didn't anticipate arising.In my Traveller game, the player of a PC decided that that PC was travelling the galaxy to find evidence of alien life and civilisation. I'm the one, as GM, who presented his first hint, in play, of alien life as being on a planet that also happens to be the home of a source virus for a bioweapons program that other PCs are concerned about. It's the players, in turn, who decided to look for artefacts of alien origin at the tourist market on the world. And in the course of that, it was I who introduced the information that the artefact they found had been sold by the local bishopric to raise funds (and it was the random world generation that had established that the world is a religious dictatorship, and hence has significant bishoprics). Etc.I don't play shared storytelling/narration games, so I can't say that what I've described is better than them. But I certainly think it's a fun thing. The player only has to play his/her PC, not worry about the big picture. And as long as the GM keeps framing scenes that speak to the PC's motivation/dramatic needs, story will happen without anyone having to take charge of authoring it. The contributions of fictional elements according to the distinct roles I've described in steps (1) to (4) above - the GM providing framing; the players providing starting material and action declarations; the GM providing consequences for failure - generate a story, and - relevant to this thread - a shared world, with no one having to take charge of it.Well, as I've said I prefer to play in a RPG where none of them is utilised.What do you think (1) involves? It involves the GM reading stuff from his/her notes.When some posters - the "folks" you refer to (although you have since dissacotiated yourself from some posters whom I would have taken to be among them, eg   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], so I'm not 100% sure who you mean by that term) - talk about the players exploring the gameworld, what can that mean except that the players declare actions for their PCs which trigger the GM to read more stuff from his/her notes?In a CoC-style mystery scenario, getting the GM to read you bits of his/her notes is the whole point of play: get the clue from here, find the tome there, find the cultists' ritual headquaters, etc. This is all about learning what is in the GM's notes.It's not (or need not be) the GM reading a story: the sequence may not correspond to any particular pre-planned sequence, and there may not be any particular structure of rising action, complication, climax, etc.Well, I make do with the examples I have. I don't believe that you've posted any actual play examples. (If you have, and I've missed them, I apologise - can you point me back to them?)The example of the map came (I think) from   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - at least, it has been established in lengthy back-and-forth with him.The example of the plot on the Duke came from   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].The example of the attempt to find bribeable officials came from   [MENTION=40176]MarkB[/MENTION].Are you saying that these are all examples of bad GMing? So what does good GMing look like, in this context? What is a good use of secretly-established fictional positioning being used by a GM to establish that a player's action declaration fails, without regard to the action resolution mechanics?So what would the pre-authorship be used for?Can you give an example of what you mean? For instance - and I am going to give an example I am familiar with, as I don't have much to go on from your game - I have a PC in my 4e game whose goal is to reconstruct the Rod of Seven Parts. He got the first part at the start of 2nd level. The campaign is now 30th level and he and his friends are in a fight that will determine whether or not they get the 7th part; he will then have to decide whether or not he tries to assemble the whole Rod (some of his friends may object to that).My main device for having him find the Rod has been to periodically narrate scenes in which the Rod, in its current state, feels the presence nearby of the next part. (At least one part - the second, I think - he obtained when refugees from his homeland gave him custody of the city's mayoral sceptre.) The period has been established roughly on the basis of the 4e treasure parcel system, which is to say about once every five levels (the Rod is also the character's main implement, stepping up +1 with each segment - it is the only +7 implement in the published rules as far as I'm aware).In the fiction, the challenge of assembling the Rod includes finding its parts - the PC (we imagine) is frequently communing with the Rod to see if it can detect the next part. But at the table, that has not been a challenge at all. From the point of view of play, the challenge has been (i) what is the player (as his/her PC) prepared to risk or sacrifice in individual situations to acquire and reconstruct the Rod (eg the hunt for the Rod brought destruction down upon the PCs' duergar allies), and (ii) what consequences of assembling and wielding the Rod is he prepared to endure (eg he finds himself led into arrangements with devils that he would prefer to avoid). (This is also relevant to the discussion with   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and   [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] about "abuse", Monty Haul, etc - the issue of Monty Haul simply doesn't come up, as locating and acquiring the Rod is not the focus of play - it's focused on the cost and meaning of this.)How have you handled stuff like this in your RPGing?</blockquote>

Verification