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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9027125" data-attributes="member: 42582">As per the OP, Vincent Baker says that the point of rules is to oblige participants to author fiction that - if left purely to their own collaborative devices - they wouldn't. This is what he labels "the unwelcome and unexpected".Why do participants need to be "pushed" in this way? Because of the distinctive role-allocations in most RPGing: that is, some participants engage the fiction as characters within it; and another (the GM) is the orchestrator of the conflict and antagonism those characters face. Left to their own devices, players of characters will - somewhat by definition - only establish conflict and outcomes they are prepared to choose; and left to their own devices, orchestrators of conflict will not orchestrate conflict that they are embarrassed or otherwise unwilling to take responsibility for. Hence the utility of rules: rules which force the "unwelcome and unexpected" both (i) let GMs off the hook, and (ii) allow players to play non-masochists.(In passing: my understanding of neo-trad play, as per this thread - <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/thinking-about-the-purpose-of-mechanics-from-a-neo-trad-perspective.697190/" target="_blank">https://www.enworld.org/threads/thinking-about-the-purpose-of-mechanics-from-a-neo-trad-perspective.697190/</a> - is that the "unwelcome and unexpected" are not wanted in play, and hence the resolution of conflict is left to be done primarily consensually.)The upthread discussion about GM-as-referee, in conjunction with [USER=7027139]@loverdrive[/USER]'s comment about Apocalypse World, makes me think that there are two ways the GM can orchestrate conflict:(1) In advance of play, by authoring the puzzle/gauntlet/challenge. (2) During play, by a process of framing and consequence-narration.In case (1), the overarching rule that governs the GM during play must be follow through on what you've authored. The GM needs to be unflinching in this respect. (Here, I depart from what I said in the OP about "the unwelcome" not seeming applicable in this sort of play. I think that was wrong.) There are also very strict rules that apply to the pre-play authorship phase: the puzzle/gauntlet/challenge has to be, in some sense, beat-able. Because parts of it are not only hidden, but operate on the basis of "logical extrapolation within the fiction", the process of extrapolation must be sufficiently knowable to and learnable by the players that they can, if they pay attention and play well, beat the challenge. I continue to believe that this puts significant limits on what the fiction can involve, as per my (and @AdbulAlhazred's) posts upthread, as well as in other past threads.Players in case (1) have an incentive to minimize the risks to their characters, as part of the process of beating the challenge. This means that case (1) play is unlikely to produce a story in the literary/aesthetic sense, for two reasons:(a) The characters risk being somewhat incoherent, being risk-minimisers locally (always poking with their 10' poles, etc) but ludicrous risk takers in their overarching goals (always taking on these puzzles/gauntlets/challenges with insane kill rates). We can lampshade this by imagining that all our 1st level wizards also have the personalities of extreme sports enthusiasts, but I think the characters remain a bit weird. (b) The better the players play, the less that the game will produce rising action => climax/crisis => resolution. Although, in the fiction, the situation might involve intense physical stress and drama, at the table the challenge is essentially intellectual (like most other table-top games). And intellectual puzzle solving simply doesn't produce that narrative structure. It's true that in some cases there will be the thrill of the dice roll, but skilled play tries to minimise dependence on lucky rolls.In case (2), the overarching rule that governs the GM in play must be something like be true to the dramatic needs of these characters. (I won't lie: AW's "Always Say" rule has helped me clarify this.) The resolution rules both constrain and spell out this overarching rule: they toggle play between rising action, climax/crisis, and various sorts of resolution; and they establish limits to prevent the GM being too soft (no real challenges, no "unwanted and unwelcome") or too hard (crushing the characters altogether).Players in case (2) know that the process of play will generate new conflicts that they can't avoid. They need to have a degree of confidence that the resolution mechanics won't crush them.Are there other, or intermediate cases? Probably! But some problems and resulting tendencies can be predicted.For instance, consider case (1), but where the authorship of the puzzle/gauntlet/challenge is dynamic, during play. This will tend to reduce the knowability of the puzzle, and hence reduce the scope for skilled play. Lewis Pulsipher wrote cogently about this back in the late 70s, in White Dwarf.This sort of change also puts pressure on the rule follow through unflinchingly on what you've authored. If it's being authored during play, following through unflinchingly can seem tantamount to just flipping over the board, or decreeing victory. As rules are introduced to try and constrain the GM to reduce this sort of arbitrariness, it seems that we get something much closer to case (2) (eg MHRP with its Doom Pool; or 4e D&D with its complex interplay of encounter building, level gaining, treasure parcels, milestones, etc).Now consider a variant of case (2) that exploits the fact that RPG play happens over the course of sessions, and that therefore makes the orchestration of conflict an aspect of between-sessions-prep for the GM. During each session, though, the GM's role is more like case (1). I think at least some "trad" play uses an approach something like this. (I call on [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] to correct and clarify here, if he'd like to.)I see two sources of pressure that will tend to push this variant towards full-blooded (2). The first is that it risks being slow; and speeding it up, by allowing dynamic authorship during play, will generate the same pressure towards (2) as I noted would arise if case (1) is made more dynamic. The second is that this variant is likely to be very demanding on players in terms of knowability - as the fictional situation changes session to session with each new bit of prep - and once again that generates pressure to impose constraints (especially constrains that stop the GM going too hard) that will push towards full-blooded (2).A final thought: in long-running groups, informal understandings and familiarity may provide a type of ad hoc solution to the problem of "knowability" and the risk of GM arbitrariness, which means in those groups dynamic case (1) play, or the session-by-session variant on case (2), might be viable without experiencing the pressure towards full-blooded (2) at that particular table. (I get the impression that Gygax's game probably was an instance of the first of these possibilities.) But I don't think this means the pressures don't arise at a more systemic level.</blockquote>

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