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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8346308" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know why you say the players should have the opportunity to forestall the GM deciding that there is a haunted house up ahead. Why? (This also relates to the later parts of what I've quoted.) The question is not rhetorical. Here's <a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">a remark from Vincent Baker</a>, made in 2003, under the heading "Doing Away with the GM":You need to have a system by which scenes start and stop. The rawest solution is to do it by group consensus: anybody moved to can suggest a scene or suggest that a scene be over, and it's up to the group to act on the suggestion or not. You don't need a final authority beyond the players' collective will. . . . You need to have orchestrated conflict, and there's the tricky bit. GMs are very good at orchestrating conflict, and it's hard to see a rawer solution. My game <a href="http://lumpley.com/flood.html" target="_blank">Before the Flood</a> handles the first two needs ably but makes no provision at all for this third. What you get is listless, aimless, dull play with no sustained conflict and no meaning. In our co-GMed Ars Magica game, each of us is responsible for orchestrating conflict for the others, which works but isn't radical wrt GM doage-away-with. . . . GM-swapping, in other words, isn't the same as GM-sharing. Any solution to this is bound to be innovative. There's not much beaten path.Are you suggesting that the players get to veto any scene that the GM proposes? OK, but that overlaps heavily with "taking suggestions", which you seem to reject. Are you suggesting that situations might be framed without exercising content authority? That's almost impossible - where are you imagining the elements for framing the scenes will come from?In my post that you replied to, I discussed approaches to mechanically mediating the players' exercise of content-authority (eg BW-style Wises check; PbtA-style Discern Realities, Spout Lore, etc). Baker's remarks about framing conflict opposition are key to this. If the players are allowed unlimited content authority then it is hard to see why they wouldn't just say OK, we go and visit my uncle who lends us his Staff of World-Saving and then everything's resolved! You say "I wouldn't let a player declare that they're actually the currently-ruling sultan(a)" - OK, so you're saying that you in fact get to exercise content-authority at every point? Or that you never let the players exercise content authority when that would help them resolve a conflict or challenge? So eg if they want to climb an urban wall, they will never find (say) crates that they can stack to help with the climb? Or you sometimes let them but only if you think it's OK?This is the whole point of those mechanics in those systems - to lift the burden of content-authority from the GM's shoulders while not just handing it to the players on a silver platter. (One of the things I find frustrating in ENworld discussions of player "narrative control" is that it almost never engages with these mechanics, which are actually some of the leading example of how to reconcile player content-authority with someone else having control over framing adversity.)Re your question about Evard's Tower, if a player introduces the notion of Evard's Tower into play, and then expresses the hope that his/her PC correctly recalls its around about these parts, and then a mechanical process like the one's I've described is used, how are you seeing railroading? The actual sequence of authority in such a case is player narrational authority, followed by the appropriate check, which - if it succeeds - then underpins an exercise of player content authority ("Yep, I'm right in remembering that Evard's Tower is around here") and potentially a complementary GM exercise of situational authority ("You see, across the river, the two willows that frame the entrance onto the notorious Weeping shadows way"). If the check fails, then the GM exercises appropriate content and/or situational authority as suits the particular system and the context of the fiction (eg No, you remember that the tower burned to the ground years ago or Yes, and you see the Orcs already ahead of you, creeping down Weeping shadows way.) In DW, this is classic 6- revelation of unwelcome truths.In this approach to play - which, at a suitable level of generalisation, is typical of DW or BW played in accordance with the rules and principles of those games - no one is exercising plot authority unmediated by mechanics. The players can achieve desired reveals, moments of triumph etc by succeeding on their checks; and the GM can author downfalls, unwelcome reveals, etc, when the players fail on their checks. Content-authority is distributed and exercised by different participants in different contexts - the GM authors some content in preparation for and as part of framing; authors some as part of consequence narration; the players suggest some content as part of their narration of some of their checks and this crystallises as agreed/accepted content if those checks succeed. The fact that you refer to it as the DM is using poor practice in response to my description of player-driven RPGing, makes me feel that you are not really seeing beyond Edward's "easiest version" and really considering what it means to adopt other sorts of approaches. For instance, I'm not sure that you're really taking seriously that RPG might work where the players' don't need the GM's permission, but only need to succeed on checks, to exercise content authority.That takes me to me next bundle of quotes from your post:How do you earn trust? By demonstrating an ability to run interesting games! And how do you do that? By finding out what your players think is interesting! And how do you do that? By asking them and listening to their answers!Some examples:When I started my 4e campaign, in addition to the stated rules for PC building, I gave two additional instruction: you have to identify at least one loyalty for your PC, and you have to have a reason to be ready to fight Goblins. Armed with this information, I was able to frame scenes which spoke to those loyalties and which engaged with those reasons.When <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/prince-valiant-rpg-played-a-session-today.652393/" target="_blank">I started my Prince Valiant campaign</a>, the players wrote up their three knights. The build choices were made without collusion, but two of the PCs were very similar in build but about 20 years apart in age, leading the players to agree that they were father and son. The third PC had encountered them on the trail. Why were they riding together, I asked? Because they were on their way to a tournament. Fair enough, I thought, and then looked through the list of "episodes" (scenes, really, except in a small number of cases) and chose one - an encounter with an inexperienced knight in a forest clearing looking for some opponents to joust against. So the players had their PCs joust!As part of BW PC build, a player may purchase relationships, and has to author three Beliefs and three Instincts. When I started my first BW campaign (<a href="https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/burning-wheel-first-burning-wheel-session.736425/" target="_blank">this link</a> is to an actual play report, by me posting as thurgon on RPG.net), one of the players had purchased, for his sorcerer PC, an inimical relationship with his Balrog-possessed brother. One of that PC's Beliefs was (to the effect of) I will find the magical items I need to free my brother from possession. And one of his Instincts was Always cast Falconskin when I fall. I started the session, and the campaign, with the PCs at a bazaar in Hardby where a peddler was selling exotic wares, including a (purported) angel feather. The player had his PC haggle with the peddler (which also created an opening into the action for a second PC, who was broke but had Haggling skill, and hence was able to help with the haggling in exchange for an offer from the sorcerer PC to buy her lunch). And a failed Aura-Reading check to determine the magical properties of the feather gave me the opportunity to narrate that it was indeed an angel feather, and hence carried the trait of fire resistance, but it was also cursed! The player and I collaborated in establishing the great and ancient battle over the Bright Desert, between angels and daemons, that had led to this feather falling there and hence later being collected and offered up for sale. (In pure mechanical terms, this was part of the player establishing that his PC's skill in Ancient History, could serve as an augment for the Aura-Reading check.)Now, in purely structural terms, the feather here is no different from the haunted house: GM exercise of situational authority and concomitant content authority. And in purely structural terms, the fact that the feather is indeed an angel feather, but cursed, is no different from the GM responding to a 6- Spout Lore or a failed Wise check by agreeing with the player that the PC does indeed recall that Evard's Tower is around about here, and narrating the Orcs already making their way towards it. (In the feather example, it is the curse rather than the Orcs with their head start that is the "unwelcome truth".) As per my last full paragraph above this current bundle of quotes, content authority is being shared by player and GM in accordance with the system's processes and resolution rules. No one is exercising unbridled plot authority - the only plot moment is the revelation of the curse, and that is a narration of a consequence of the failed check: so the sequence goes something like GM content and situational authority (to establish the PCs' presence in the bazaar with the feather for sale) => player narrational authority (to establish that his PC is haggling with the peddler aided by the other PC, to establish that he is Aura-Reading  while recollecting Ancient History about the angelic battle) => shared player and GM content authority (as part of the resolution of the check, to confirm that it is an angel feather dating back to the ancient battle, with a useful ability - fire resistance - for combatting Balrogs) => GM content authority which also establishes a plot moment (but the feather is cursed!).There is no railroading here. No one - not me, not the player - knew what would happen going into that scene. Let alone that the upshot would be a cursed angel feather in the hands of the PC. Central to that process is the framing of an engaging situation, achieved by using the information provided via PC build; and the appropriate deployment of content authority during the course of play in accordance with the dictates of the systemIn DW a scene like this would have to play out a bit differently, because DW doesn't have anything identical to Wises, Aura Reading and similar abilities that allow player content authority via successful checks. But the use of Discern Realities together with an appropriate asking of questions and building on the answers might produce a similar trajectory and outcome.What's the difference between this and framing a scene blind? Framing a scene blind is just telling the players what they meet, and hoping it will be found interesting. If it is done on the basis of prior exercises of content authority - ie you as GM only frame scenes that can be extrapolated from your prior prep of backstory - then the need for hope becomes doubled, because not only to you have to hope that the scene will be interesting, but you have to hope that your prior prep will permit the extrapolation of something interesting!And if you hide all your scenes behind "breadcrumbs", so that the players can't get to the bit that you've pinned double hopes on until they first declare a whole lot of low-stakes actions that will trigger your to gradually reveal what further actions they'll have to declare to actually get you to frame the scene (eg first they have to ask around for rumours, and then sort the wheat from the chaff, before they can learn there's a haunted house to the north with such-and-such a backstory associated with it, and they they have to actually have their PCs ride north and go through so-and-so many random encounters before eventually you say "By the road ahead of you, you see a foreboding house") well now your need for hope has been quadrupled, because (i) you've also got to hope that all that breadcrumb-following is interesting rather than tedious, and (ii) you've got to hope that the players declare the right actions that will trigger you as GM to reveal what further actions they'll have to declare to actually get you to frame the scene. I've personally played in games - not for a couple of decades, thankfully - where whole sessions have been spent just hunting for the GM's plot in this fashion.Now you say that taking suggestions on scene-framing seems horrible, but I frankly don't see why. In my 4e game several of the players build Raven Queen devotees. This is, among other things, a suggestion that they want scenes involving conflict with undead and with Orcus. Plenty of such scenes were framed. When the PCs had defeated Orcus cultists in a town, and then one of the PCs went out into the wilds around the town looking for more signs of cultists, <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/underdark-adventure-with-demons-beholders-elementals-and-a-hydra.330383/" target="_blank">I had no hesitation in declaring that they found them</a>. In terms of technique, this is the same general process as the PbtA technique of asking questions and building on the answers.Which comes back to the quote above from Vincent Baker: the key role of the GM is to provide antagonism, through framing and where the process of resolution of declared actions calls for it (which in games like BW and DW is when the consequences of failed checks are narrated). The players can say, or signal, we want to confront undead and Orcus but they can't actually apply that opposition to themselves; they can say we are off to a tournament but someone has to actually frame the opposing jousters and decide how that opposition manifests and what follows if the opposition is victorious in the clash of arms; the player can say, or signal, I'm looking for stuff like angel feathers but it is the GM who presents the feather in the hands of a sharp peddler, and who establishes that what was unhappy about the Aura-Reading wasn't that it failed, but that it revealed a curse!This is how the most straightforward approach to player-driven, non-railroading and non-railroad-y RPGing works.I don't see anything here that suggests, let alone guarantees, that the situations that are framed will be interesting. You seem to be positing that you can frame anything you want provided it follows from your earlier exercises of content authority: ie the only constraint you are positing on your present authorship is your past authorship including your pre-play prep. When you say the players have latitude to frame scenes, I assume you mean that they are allowed to declare actions like we go north or we open the door or we climb to the crest of the hill or whatever, and then you tell them what they see and encounter. (I'm inferring this from your earlier remark about sailing the Sapphire Sea. I assume you're not saying that the players can just open a scene in which, say, they have successfully sailed across the Sapphire Sea and are now meeting with the Grand Vizier in his audience chamber.)What you are describing here - especially if my inferences are correct - seems to me to be utterly traditional refereeing, going back to classic D&D and exemplifying Ron Edwards' "easiest version" of the relationship between the various sorts of authorial power: the GM draws a map, writes up a key that includes salient content and backstory, and then frames scenes that are triggered by the location of the PCs on the map and that follow from that prior authorship. The PCs' location on the map is determined initially by a starting location (by tradition, an inn or tavern in a small-ish settlement), and subsequently by keeping track of the consequences of their action declarations like we ride north till we get to the woods or we go downstairs or we cast teleport to go the the City of Greyhawk.As per your reference to a "mystery" or the players having to ask you in order to know things, in this approach to RPGing a huge focus of the actual activity of play becomes the players declaring actions that will prompt the GM to reveal elements of his/her prep. In classic D&D this is moving through the dungeon, triggering descriptions from the GM, and recording them on the player map. In more contemporary versions of this approach, this is often the players having their PCs speak with NPCs to trigger them to reveal rumours or secret knowledge or whatever - the "breadcrumbs" which, as per what I said earlier in this post, will let the players know what further actions they have to declare in order to eventually trigger the framing of the scenes that will actually deliver the interesting content (like eg finding a haunted house, or an angel feather, or a temple of Orcus, or whatever).My own view, based on a combination of reflection and experience, is that once the scope of the map-and-key extends beyond the artificially austere dungeon to anything like a verisimilitudinous world, then the GM has overwhelming control over what (if anything) of interest is happening or may happen; very heavily determines the players' experience, by way of the parcelling out of "breadcrumbs" that - if the players declare the right actions for their PCs in response - may lead to them learning about those interesting events or possible events; and in general is in the driving seat. As I stated in my earlier post to which you replied, I regard this sort of play as quite railroad-y.This makes sense, insofar as (to repeat myself) it looks like a version of Edwards' "easiest version": content-authority is used, then plot-authority is exercised (eg the players are told that their PCs hear about bad things happening "back home"), then situational authority is exercised (the players tell you they're heading to the Sapphire Sea and you, or the group collectively, goes about describing scenes at the wharves, on the ocean, etc; and then narrational authority comes last (as the players tell you which direction they are sailing in, and you narrate the breezes and bright sunlight).What it adds is that, as well as a map and key, you author, in advance of play, a host of content and a host of possible plot moments ("a spectrum of results"; "intended enemies"). To me, this just reinforces the sense of GM-driven play. In saying that you can, in general, introduce whatever content you want, you seem to be excluding the possibility - found in RPGs like DW (as I understand its rules and principles) and BW, and illustrated by my actual play accounts earlier in this post - that content authority is in fact shared between players and GM, mediated via principle of play and mechanical processes of resolution.Given all this I am at a bit of a loss - given the preponderance of control over content you are exercising as GM - to understand your objection to narrating a haunted house on the road up ahead of the PCs as an objection to railroading. As opposed to, say, an objection to departing from your prep.No it's not. It's not true of BW. It's not true of Apocalypse World. I don't think it's true of DW played per the principles and rules. It's not true of 4e played in accordance with a clear application of the skill challenge, treasure parcel, and player-authored quest rules.Your assumption that it is true reinforces my confidence in my interpretations, stated above, of how you are approaching GMing.This puzzles me. It's a clear exercise of content-authority: it's establishing a bit of backstory (ie that there is a fairy grove here in the woods).This puzzles me too. You seem to be presenting unrequited prep as a positive thing! Whereas to me it seems like an illustration of one of the downsides of the traditional approach to refereeing - a map-and-key are prepared, but the players don't follow the "breadcrumbs" and hence the prep is never used.I'm finishing this post with a response to this particular paragraph because in some ways it stood out the most for me. I've bolded the bit that I particularly have in mind.In DW or AW, played in accordance with its principles, the MC/GM is not only expected but obliged to "metagame". When a player rolls a 6, you make a move that will conform to your principles and drive your agenda. This includes being a fan of the characters and filling their lives with adventure. So if a player Spouts Lore about (say) Evard's Tower, because s/he is hoping to find the spellbooks therein, and rolls a 6 or less, than the GM has to think what move, as hard as I like, will fill the lives of these characters, of whom I'm fans, with adventure? That's a metagame agenda! - it's not just extrapolation from the fiction so far. So you tell them, Yes, Evard's tower was here once, but it burned down years ago! Any books it once held will no longer be found in its ruined shell. Maybe they will go to the shell of the burned-down tower and try and find a secret entrance to its under-libraries. Or collect the ashes so that their Spell of Undoing Time's Wrath can restore the ashes into spellbooks. Or maybe they will try and learn if Evard, or someone else, saved the books before the tower was burned down. Maybe they will even give up on the hunt for books, although that seems like the least interesting outcome and probably not one you would be hoping for as GM.Or you tell them, Yes, Evard's Tower is near here. And as you gaze across the river you can see Orcs on foot, framed by the two willows that you realise must mark the start of the Weeping shadows way that leads right to the tower. They appear to have beaten you to it! And now maybe the players will have their PCs try and shoot the Orcs, or will try and stop them in some more subtle way, or will try and outrace them, or will steal themselves for an assault upon a wizard's tower newly-garrisoned by Orcs.This is all metagaming - leaning into both the fiction, and the themes and trajectory of play, to try and think up consequences - unwelcome truths - that will push play onward.Discern Realities seems even more straightforward: Player's Q: What here is not what it seems? <roll 6-down> GM's A: The floor beneath your feet! Roll d6 for the damage you take as it falls away and you land on your rump in the pit beneath! Or Q: What happened here recently? <roll 6-down> A: You can see signs of burglary. Someone got here before you, and the scroll you were looking for is gone!I don't see any difference here from any other player move, and don't see why you would either (i) have players earning "free XP" or (ii) need a special rule to govern narration of consequences for failed checks.</blockquote>

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