Why we like plot: Our Job as DMs

[Korgoth]

Gotcha covered there.

Thanks!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hey! That's my job too!



If Batman knows he is going to win, why should he give up anything? Wouldn't that make him crazy? Even a game that is about how much the PCs are willing to sacrifice in order to win requires that they must sacrifice something, or lose, and that the exact degree of sacrifice needed is unclear at the start.

I think there are two components to it:
1) There is always a way to win. The question is, do the players want to take that way?
2) Death or Survival for the character does not mean failure or success.

Maybe that is insufficient to you to determine it's not about "winning or losing". Treat this description as a short-hand to describe the upper two components. It is to be distinguished from a game where your goal is to come out alive and maybe get XP and treasure in the process, and you lose if your enemies or traps kill you, and win if they don't.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I absolutely know that if I walk into my local 7/11, I can give up 179 yen to buy a can of beer. If I want that beer, I have to sacrifice my money.

Yes, but would you call that a game?

How does knowing that you will win negate the chance of having to sacrifice in order to achieve that?

If you have to give up 179 yen to buy a can of beer, you give up 179 yen or you do not. Game over.

Knowing that negates the chance of having a game, not the chance of making a sacrifice.

 

[Korgoth]

Yeah, that was fun. Back in 1979. When I was like, 14. For about three weeks.

Frankly, a good game of Descent sounds like a more engaging RPG than what you're describing.

Don't get me wrong, I like a good game of Descent. Or the occasional dungeon delve that just pits a page full of stats against some tough monsters for an hour or two.

But a dispassionate "tester of skills" is the last thing I want in my GM, or that I want to be as a GM.

Still fun for me and my group now, tough guy.

It's a game and I'm the Referee. The players get to test how clever and resourceful they are, and when they succeed they reap great rewards.

It's one reason why there's not a huge amount of combat in my game. Combat is just one type of challenge, and really a fairly boring kind. More rewarding challenges test the players' ability to solve puzzles, overcome traps/obstacles, thread the needle of complex social interactions and politics, and of course handling encounters with powerful entities of mysterious motivation (i.e. the "weird stuff").

 

[pawsplay]

That's fine, so long as you are only willing to entertain a single purpose to playing an RPG - a fairly traditional way that is certainly loads of fun.

However, you should realize that that's not the only way to play. Maybe I want to delve into the psychological ramifications of being Batman. Taking down the Joker is simply the vehicle for that examination, not the focus of the campaign at all.

That sounds like a potentially interesting exercise. However, here's the thing: If the Batman is not permitted to die, that either constrains Batman's potential actions or the Joker's permitted responses, probably both. If there are no actual restrictions, but actions that are obviously lethal to Batman occur and he does not die, the result is farce. Disallowing one potential outcome, despite the logical potential for it to occur, is an incomplete game. It's like a video game where you can walk off the map and fall forever.

Imagine a situation where Batman drinks a bottle of Drano. After a sufficient number of suicide attempts for his remorse over killing the Joker's minions, for instance, the GM will eventually, sadly let Batman die, despite his other intentions. His only other choice is to suspend the player's control over Suicidal Batman.

Thus, illusionary play is illusionary even to the GM. If the player cannot make a meaningful choice with his PC, play is likely to degenerate as soon as this is sensed or discovered. The only way for this play out with a satisfying ending is for the GM to surrender their role of impartial arbiter of the game world and for the player to surrender their role of impersonating a character through actions, and for both to become collaborative storytellers. That is not "a different play style" or a "personal preference" but actually playing a different sort of game. Collaborative storytelling games, or freeform roleplaying, is a hugely popular hobby, and in fact, Google will find just as many of those "role-playing game" as the kind played here in EN World. But it is a different kind of game with different constraints.

What I call "storytelling RPGs," like Vampire or most heavily rule-zeroed games, are distinct from "fantasy wargames" like traditional D&D or Champions. One emphasizes poetric tropes, the other realistical resolution. Many games, in actual play, vary between the extremes on a continuum. They are both, however, members of the same family of games, traditional RPGs.

The big umbrella definition of role-playing includes not only traditional RPGs, as well as freeform games, roleplaying activities used in therapy, improv acting, and lots of other activities. Only traditional RPGs relate to the game as found between pages the pages of a roleplaying game.

It is certainly permissible to write a traditional RPG that precludes death in all but certain predefined circumstanes. You can run just about any RPG with modifications to work that way. For instance, you might deliberately fudge die rolls to keep PCs alive on their last legs except in dramatic conflicts. However, if PC actions that are out-of-bounds for the story are actually impossible, you are no longer playing a RPG. If Batman is immortal, caught in some Groundhog Day like situation where he must defeat the Joker at some point, the assumptions have been changed. While on the surface, it looks like a tabletop roleplaying game, in reality, it is a freeform roleplaying game more akin to a play-by-post game on some Harry Potter fansite somewhere than to D&D, Vampire, or Fate.

Illusionary game are not liberated RPGs, or higher-level RPGs, or more story-oriented RPGs. In the extreme, they are misleadingly packaged freeform roleplaying games. Why not put the cards out on the table? But even with more moderate illusionary devices, there is a practical limit to how much you can bend before it breaks. Unless you are actually willing to make it impossible for Batman to die or for Frodo to start fleeing for the farthest corners of the world, you cannot privilege your plot without breaking the game.

 

[Hussar]

Knowing that negates the chance of having a game, not the chance of making a sacrifice.

Totally disagree.

Knowing that you will beat the Joker isn't going to negate the chance of having a game. It negates the chance of having the kind of game you want to play, maybe, but, not the chance of having a game.

If I want my game to be about what choices the player has to make between various sacrifices in order to defeat the Joker, then that's my game. I could totally see a game focusing on the sacrifices the Batman is forced to choose between. Does he use deadly force, thus sacrificing his humanity? Does he sacrifice an innocent bystander? Does he give up a love interest? Does he give up something else of importance?

I don't really care about the finale. "Batman catches Joker" has been done to death. I've seen variations on it a million times. It's not what I'm interested in.

I've no problem that you're interested in that. That's fine. But, my point is, it's not the only possible thing to be interested in.

 

[the Jester]

The game/game+ statement came from the fact that I thought we were talking about story vs. the absence of story, not player pampering vs. tough love. Because of that, when you disagreed with me I figured you were in the DnD-dungeon-crawl-minis-combat-board-game camp. Some people don't like to mix their fiction with their tabletop gaming, and thats fine, but I think we both agree that there is a lot more to it.

Well, to be absolutely clear, in my campaign there really isn't a story at first. There are actions and consequences, there are choices and aftereffects. The story is what you talk about after the game, once the pcs have made their choices and taken their actions. The story is what happened with the pcs- not what the dm has planned. And I vastly prefer it that way.

 

[Hussar]

Imagine a situation where Batman drinks a bottle of Drano. After a sufficient number of suicide attempts for his remorse over killing the Joker's minions, for instance, the GM will eventually, sadly let Batman die, despite his other intentions. His only other choice is to suspend the player's control over Suicidal Batman.

What in what I wrote precludes Batman from offing himself?

Well, I suppose the part where it's a forgone conclusion that Batman will catch the Joker. But, then again, that's where buy in comes into play. It would be pretty seriously out of character for Batman to off himself. I would find that just as unbelievable as immortal Batman honestly.

But, I reject the idea that only tradional RPG's are "real" RPG's. We constantly limit what PC's can do in order to play. How often do you let your D&D PC's create gunpowder for example?

However, if PC actions that are out-of-bounds for the story are actually impossible, you are no longer playing a RPG. If Batman is immortal, caught in some Groundhog Day like situation where he must defeat the Joker at some point, the assumptions have been changed. While on the surface, it looks like a tabletop roleplaying game, in reality, it is a freeform roleplaying game more akin to a play-by-post game on some Harry Potter fansite somewhere than to D&D, Vampire, or Fate.

Wow, people who disagree with you are now writing Harry Potter fanfic. Nice way to completely misrepresent how a different playstyle actually plays out in order to pave the way for your one true way.

Knowing the resolution of a situation in no way precludes a game from being a role playing game. Just because you know that you will catch the Joker in the end does not preclude all sorts of avenues being explored.

 

[pawsplay]

Wow, people who disagree with you are now writing Harry Potter fanfic.

That's not an insult.

 

[pawsplay]

Example of what I am talking about (you can Google harry potter play by post rpg):

PoA's RPG Play by Post Topsites List - Rankings - All Sites