Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7342883" data-attributes="member: 37579">It takes some skill, but so does all GMing. Running a good railroad takes some gamemastering chops. But then so does an improv sandbox. The rabbit hole of “but what about bands GMs?” is bottomless and largely a distraction. Even leaving things to a roll involves some GM control, since they typically need to set the difficulty: picking a DC, telling the players the difficulty, setting the challenge, etc. Excluding the rare systems with set difficulty (All Outta Bubblegum, Honey Heist, or the Tearable RPG) where you always know the requirements for success.Is finding the clue a DC 5 or DC 10 or DC 25? Does it require 1 success or 3? Setting the difficulty too high is functionally the same thing as saying &quot;no&quot;.Shifting the decision maker to the dice is just making the efficacy of player agency random. The dice have the real agency.I‘ve been watching a lot of the Geek &amp; Sundry improv RPG The Adventures of Dick &amp; Johnson, which uses All Outta Bubblegum and is a great example of a “yes, but” RPG. But there’s a whole lotta times when the player’s really cool thing just gets shot down by a bad roll.But surrendering random change for DM fiat, you can paradoxically *increase* player agency. By not rolling and the DM just saying “yes” the odds increase dramatically. From &lt;100% to 100%. When running a pre-authored scenario, like my aforementioned investigation adventures, I often don’t make players roll. They ask questions and I tell them “yes” or “no. Rolling is for when they lack questions, and they need to look for extra clues to potentially give them more questions to ask.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 7342883, member: 37579"] It takes some skill, but so does all GMing. Running a good railroad takes some gamemastering chops. But then so does an improv sandbox. The rabbit hole of “but what about bands GMs?” is bottomless and largely a distraction. Even leaving things to a roll involves some GM control, since they typically need to set the difficulty: picking a DC, telling the players the difficulty, setting the challenge, etc. Excluding the rare systems with set difficulty (All Outta Bubblegum, Honey Heist, or the Tearable RPG) where you always know the requirements for success. Is finding the clue a DC 5 or DC 10 or DC 25? Does it require 1 success or 3? Setting the difficulty too high is functionally the same thing as saying "no". Shifting the decision maker to the dice is just making the efficacy of player agency random. The dice have the real agency. I‘ve been watching a lot of the Geek & Sundry improv RPG The Adventures of Dick & Johnson, which uses All Outta Bubblegum and is a great example of a “yes, but” RPG. But there’s a whole lotta times when the player’s really cool thing just gets shot down by a bad roll. But surrendering random change for DM fiat, you can paradoxically *increase* player agency. By not rolling and the DM just saying “yes” the odds increase dramatically. From <100% to 100%. When running a pre-authored scenario, like my aforementioned investigation adventures, I often don’t make players roll. They ask questions and I tell them “yes” or “no. Rolling is for when they lack questions, and they need to look for extra clues to potentially give them more questions to ask. [/QUOTE]

Verification