Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9318536" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, we have a word in RPG play for that GM - Railroader.&nbsp; Hop on board the choo choo train.&nbsp; At its worst, No Myth becomes the validation for keeping a game on the rails because the GM believes that the story he envisions is the most interesting and thematic one available.&nbsp; And so of course he doesn't let &quot;stuff&quot; happen unless it's that thing he thinks is interesting and thematic.Committing to some fictional positioning you intend to stick to and resolving tests through fortune are two of the most powerful ways to limit GM power and thus share the fiction with other participants.&nbsp; A GM committing to some fixed fiction is the least control the GM can have over the scenario, and not the most.&nbsp;&nbsp; If the GM doesn't commit, everything because &quot;mother may I&quot; and any action that isn't considered desirable can be countered.&nbsp; The reason for not committing is to increase GM control ostensibly for the good of the story, but that can so go wrong.Only slightly worse is that No Myth encourages GMs to believe that worlds you don't put thought and effort into generate better stories than ones that do.&nbsp; I've been running a bounty hunter campaign and an implied part of that is, &quot;There is someone to catch which is non-trivial to locate, else someone else would have already done it and not be paying someone else to.&quot;&nbsp; Which means part of each adventure involves gathering clues to find the acquisition, often with forces trying to stop you from doing so.&nbsp;&nbsp; Often, I have to have detailed timelines of events leading up to the present so as to imagine what clues have been left behind to find.&nbsp; There is just no way I could do a good job with these sorts of things trying to event everything on the fly.&nbsp;&nbsp; If you'd look at my notes, you'd see I've left a lot of things pretty vague and if you could compare my notes to my games sessions, you'd see that I was improvising a lot.&nbsp; But also, there are some things that involve concrete details that are just hard to improvise.You mention that you think having fixed consequences leads to the theme &quot;stuff happens&quot;.&nbsp; I think rather in your example the theme is, &quot;Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to blow up a building.&quot;As a player I really struggle with No Myth or Low Myth games because they are so transparent to me and I can't invest any belief in them.&nbsp; Even with a GM screen up, I can generally &quot;see&quot; what another GM is doing &quot;behind the screen&quot; and so know how hard the reality I'm exploring is.&nbsp; And if it's not hard at all, and the notes consist of just some vague sentence fragments and lists meant to be evocative then well, I have a really hard time sitting through that for more than about 2 hours.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9318536, member: 4937"] Well, we have a word in RPG play for that GM - Railroader. Hop on board the choo choo train. At its worst, No Myth becomes the validation for keeping a game on the rails because the GM believes that the story he envisions is the most interesting and thematic one available. And so of course he doesn't let "stuff" happen unless it's that thing he thinks is interesting and thematic. Committing to some fictional positioning you intend to stick to and resolving tests through fortune are two of the most powerful ways to limit GM power and thus share the fiction with other participants. A GM committing to some fixed fiction is the least control the GM can have over the scenario, and not the most. If the GM doesn't commit, everything because "mother may I" and any action that isn't considered desirable can be countered. The reason for not committing is to increase GM control ostensibly for the good of the story, but that can so go wrong. Only slightly worse is that No Myth encourages GMs to believe that worlds you don't put thought and effort into generate better stories than ones that do. I've been running a bounty hunter campaign and an implied part of that is, "There is someone to catch which is non-trivial to locate, else someone else would have already done it and not be paying someone else to." Which means part of each adventure involves gathering clues to find the acquisition, often with forces trying to stop you from doing so. Often, I have to have detailed timelines of events leading up to the present so as to imagine what clues have been left behind to find. There is just no way I could do a good job with these sorts of things trying to event everything on the fly. If you'd look at my notes, you'd see I've left a lot of things pretty vague and if you could compare my notes to my games sessions, you'd see that I was improvising a lot. But also, there are some things that involve concrete details that are just hard to improvise. You mention that you think having fixed consequences leads to the theme "stuff happens". I think rather in your example the theme is, "Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to blow up a building." As a player I really struggle with No Myth or Low Myth games because they are so transparent to me and I can't invest any belief in them. Even with a GM screen up, I can generally "see" what another GM is doing "behind the screen" and so know how hard the reality I'm exploring is. And if it's not hard at all, and the notes consist of just some vague sentence fragments and lists meant to be evocative then well, I have a really hard time sitting through that for more than about 2 hours. [/QUOTE]

Verification