As a player: to make choices that will express one's character and shape the outcome of whatever it is that is at stake in play. As a GM: to work with the players to establish whatever it is that is at stake in play, and then push the players (and thereby their PCs) in respect of it.If the above doesn't happen then what's the point of playing?pemerton said:Obviously all RPGing involves the GM saying some stuff. My point about worldbuilding is that the GM spends a certain amount of time relaying those details to the players. For instance, the players have their PCs wander through a town and the GM narrates stuff about it. The players ask who their PCs' friends or contacts are and the GM narrates stuff about it. The players have their PCs look for a market that might sell a desired item, and the GM narrates stuff about the town, about NPCs, etc - triggering the players to declare more actions ("OK, I ask the gate guard if there is a market in town") which result in the GM narrating more stuff.
If the above doesn't happen, then what was the point of the worldbuilding?
Some people would rather have outcomes be determined by action resolution rather than dictated by the GM's hitherto-unrevealed and unilateral framing. I don't see how that is so hard to understand.That worldbuilding will have consequences in play, e.g. making it impossible to find a sage in a town that has none, is not in question.
What's in question is why this could ever possibly be seen as a bad thing...except by players who dislike not always getting what they want
Who do you think disagrees with this? Obviously if there is no shop, then no shop can be found.In real life, if I come into a town I've never been to before and look around for a shop selling crystals and incense, it's impossible for me to find one there if there isn't one there to find. Same is true in a game world
What we're discussing is how it might be established, as part of the preparation for and play of a RPG, that there is or isn't a shop.
You have participated extensively in the other worldbuilding thread. In that thread you've read the account of the bazaar- and-feather scene; and taken part in a lot of discussions about it.The GM still has to set the table, as it were, to give the players something to interact with even just on a scene-by-scene level; and the underlying action-resolution-narration-reaction cycle doesn't change.
Now recall how you and some other posters have said that you would handle it - include how you have been critical of the idea of opening the game with the PCs at the bazaar and an angel feather being offered for sale.
The fact that the technique is something you're critical of seems to suggest that it is not the same as what is involved in worldbuilding.
If the orc kills the PC, and the GM has decided ahead of tiem that this is what will happen, that mode of decision-making is irrelevant to the here-and-now result. Nevertheless, many RPGers think it matters to the play of the game whether the combat is resolved via the standard mechanics, or by the GM deciding the outcome in advance.if there's no sage, there's no sage - and that the GM has determined this ahead of time rather than it being determined on the fly by success or failure on an action declaration is irrelevant to the immedaite here-and-now result.
Action declarations aren't normally made on a whim - they pertain to the play of the game.It IS relevant, however, to the long-term overall results: the population and distribution of sages isn't left to the whim of cumulative here-and-now random chance.
But if the players thing that the presence of a sage is plausible (and if they didn't, they wouldn't have their PCs try and find one), then that seems to settle the question of verisimilitude. Doesn't it?
Given that there are no shortage of players who prefer APs to "story now", I don't think that published/shared settings are under any sort of threat!Which means no more published settings or even shared settings, then, if every setting is supposed to be uniquely built and tailored for the particular group of players/PCs being run at that time.
And how on earth would this work with any sort of shared "organized play" e.g. RPGA in the past or AL now, where characters can be and frequently are taken from one table to another? I ask because if you want your game genre to become at all successful then like it or not it'll have to be able to support this sort of thing.
Given that it is central to "story now" that there is no "the story", it doesn't naturally lend itself to tournament/convention-type play, although I have played in convention games that approximate to it: normally the first session is used for the players to establish their feel for the PCs while the GM sets the scene; and the second session is the crunch.
If this is not already obvious - for instance, if the game is "generic fantasy" then the answer to the questions about transport are horses, carts/wagons, and, if a port town, boats/ships - then if it is just colour someone at the table can make something up, and if it matters then checks can be declared and resolved.Without knowledge of what's around them beyond just the framed scene the players have no information on which to base...anything.
At campaign start you frame me in a market in downtown Karnos; you provide all sorts of detail about what I can see including that there's a merchant here selling feathers. For that immediate scene, that's fine. But by no means is it all I need.
Where is Karnos? What is Karnos - a mining town, a capital city, a village in the hinterlands, a seaport? What lives here? Who rules here, and how, and why, and for how long? Is this a pirate town, a farming town, a military town? Are thieves and muggers a known and frequent risk, or is the town generally safe? What's the weather doing (beyond your saying in the framing that it's a warm sunny day) - is it likely to rain later? Is there a drought? What's around Karnos - desert, forest, farms, mountains? What modes of transport are available beyond just foot, should I not find what I want here in Karnos and decide to try elsewhere? Are there any unusual local customs or modes of dress etc. that I need to be aware of? Etc., and I haven't even got to nation-region-world-astronomy questions yet.
If much of this wasn't provided ahead of time (i.e. this part of the world wasn't built) then I - as would, I suspect, many players - would be asking most of these questions before I ever get around to declaring an action! Even if the questions don't directly inform my action declaration right now they'll inform my general approach later; and very little of this is stuff players should be expected to just make up on their own
Here's an actual play example (sci-fi, not fantasy):
<snip details of PC generation>
Given that all the players had submitted to the randomness that is Traveller - and had got a pretty interesting set of characters out of it - I had to put myself through the same rigour as GM. So I rolled up a random starting world:
Class A Starport, 1000 mi D, near-vaccuum, with a pop in the 1000s, no government and law level 2 (ie everything allowed except carrying portable laser and energy weapons) - and TL 16, one of the highest possible!
So what did all that mean, and what were the PCs doing there?
I christened the world Ardour-3, and we agreed that it was a moon orbiting a gas giant, with nothing but a starport (with a casino) and a series of hotels/hostels adjoining the starport (the housing for the 6,000 inhabitants). The high tech level meant that most routine tasks were performed by robots.
Roland, having left the service and now wandering the universe (paid for by his membership of the TAS), was working as a medic in the hospital, overseeing the medbots. Vincenzo was a patient there - the player explained that Vincenzo had won his yacht in the casino, and the (previous) owners had honoured the bet but had also beaten Vincenzo to within an inch of his life (hence the failed surival roll).
Xander, meanwhile, had been marooned in a vacc suit in open space - but Traveller vacc suits have limited self-propulsion, and so he'd been able to launch himself down to Ardour-3 (burning up his vacc suit in the process, but for some parts which he sold for 1,500 credits - his starting money). He was hanging out at the starport looking for a job and a way off the planet.
Tony was also at the starport, working as a rousabout/handyman (no technical skills, but Jack-o-T-3) - and it was decided that he was the one who had bought Xander's vacc suit gear and fitted it onto a vacc suit that he modelled himself (paid for out of his starting money).
Glaxon and Methwit, meanwhile, were at the casion - Glaxon getting drunk and Methwit keeping his ear to the ground, having been sent to Ardour-3 as his final posting.
With the background in place, I then rolled for a patron on the random patron table, and got a "marine officer" result. Given the PC backgrounds, it made sense that Lieutenant Li - as I dubbed her - would be making contact with Roland. The first thing I told the players was that a Scout ship had landed at the starport, although there it has no Scout base and there is no apparent need to do any survey work in the system; and that the principal passenger seemed to be an officer of the Imperial Marines. I then explained that, while doing the rounds at the hospital, Roland received a message from his old comrade Li inviting him to meet her at the casino, and to feel free to bring along any friends he might have in the place.
That's just one example.
Happy as I am to be flattered, frankly I think you're exaggerating in both respects. Keeping track of the events of play is not that hard; and to the extent that it is, I don't think worldbuilding GMs are going to do any better a job of it.What I can and will dispute is that this sort of play can provide a campaign that is and remains sustainable for the long term (by which I mean anything beyond just a few sessions), without a ridiculous amount of work probably done by the GM to record everything about the setting that comes up in play so as to be consistent should it ever be encountered again. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's game logs - those that we've seen - are exhaustive in their mechanical detail as well as their events recording and probably do give enough info to provide at least some long-term consistency...and in this I maintain that he's so unusual as to possibly be unique. (that's supposed to be a compliment, in case you're wondering!)
<snip>
I dispute that it can continue to do so over time, as things get forgotten or numbers/time/distance/locations shift or morph in ways they shouldn't or things get skipped between scenes that end up needing to be retconned.
I've attached the chart that one of my players maintained for our RM OA game, in pretty much its final state (after about 10 years of play).if the players want to ramify their activities into a greatly complex plotline, say where they start dealing with LOTS of NPCs and complex plans and etc. then I'm going to make the PLAYERS start to keep all that straight.