You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[pemerton]

I don't see any of your players leaping to support you either. "No evidence" is not the same as "evidence". I also see no one else who was involved in Hussar's game clarifying the views of the other players or the GM.

Because it was directed at Pemerton and not you and you've said considerably worse about others who approached this whole topic from a different perspective than you - glass houses and stones and pots and kettles and such.

I don't care how you are characterizing your argument. Pemerton usually doesn't sound like he's assigning blame in discussions of style but in this particular thread he seems to be doing what he accused others of doing and I pointed it out.

From my point of the view, here are the basic dynamics of this thread.

Hussar: I once had this bad play experience - I did this thing (centipede to cross desert) and this other thing (hirelings to get vengeance on grell), and the GM, rather than rolling with it and following my cues, insisted on running through pointless and boring stuff involving Use Rope and Ride checks (for the desert crossing) and job interviews (for the hirelings). I thought that was pretty bad GMing.

Multiple other posters: Actually, your GM was probably a fine GM and you're a bad player for thinking that the GM might have made bad calls in choosing how to adjudicate and resolve your ideas and frame scenes in response to them. Furthermore, if the GM tried to run the sort of game you seem to be calling for than that would be a type of pandering to players that would wreck the game. And still furthermore, you were probably wrecking the game for the other players involved.

Me: WTF? Maybe you don't want to play Hussar's way - after all, he's even talked about his preferred style and how it might be different from yours. But Hussar is talking about a completely coherent and viable way of playing an RPG, which I'm also a big fan of both as player and GM. And I can completely see why Hussar thought his experience was pretty bad. That sort of experience would make (and has made) me quit a game too.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I just read the 2nd ed AD&D PHB for the first time a few weeks ago (a friend was doing some house cleaning and offloaded a copy) and it has some comments that come very close to this.

And I can confidently say that the picture of play it puts forward in no way resembles the standard narrativist model!

I guess that means that you have a beef with the 2e PHB. Not that it's in this thread arguing for it, but okay. I accept your grievance, and it has been noted.

I don't think this is generally true, although it might affect particular techniques. For instance, if you want the twist or reveal to involve element A, you may have to frame the scene to also include element B which is a self-standing relevant element.

Which limits what kind of twist / reveal you can use, which means that I do think it is "generally true". Though, of course, you're right, you can certainly work around that, and use reveals where everything is relevant (the guy who has been helping us is actually the bad guy / an angel / a ghost / whatever).

The difference is as per Hussar's post quoted immediately below. The goal is the city - the siege is about the city. As @Hussar pointed out, the players can even potentialy exploit the siege to facilitiate their dealings in the city.

Depending on the context of the siege, yes. The same could be said of the desert (again, depending on context).

Whereas the desert has nothing to do with the city. Unless (to borrow Hussar's phrase) the GM drops some bread crumbs that lead the players to something with info about the city (eg the hypothesised prisoner of the hypothesised nomads).

Right... so it'd be a complication that stops you from interacting with the city, but is directly relevant to it... and both can be improvised or placed in advance (depending on preference or play style).

The siege can have absolutely the same effect on things that the desert can, it just has a different backdrop. They can both help / hurt your attempt to get into the city, and can both be planned for / decided in advance / randomly rolled / improvised. I'm trying to figure out why one is unacceptable, but the other is fine.

In dealing with the siege the players are in the action they want to be in. In dealing with the city they are not.

Um, not that I can see? The players want to be inside the city. The city and desert both stop this. Both are obstacles that prevent them from being where they want to be, and they both have to be dealt with before the players can be where they want to be. What's the difference?

To me, at least, this is crystal clear! In the terminology I've been using (borrowed from Eero Tuovinen) you want the GM to go where the action is, as flagged by the players. And that's the city, not the desert; the grell, not the intereview room.

So... make sure there's action in the desert? Right? I'm trying to figure out the difference here, and your post didn't have anything that clicked with me. And I don't mean resonate, I mean nothing really got clarified, even, as to why this is different. Is it the backdrop? That's my best guess, right now. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] - the siege is about the city. The desert is not about the city. If your goal is the city, then, one but not the other bears directly upon your goal. I don't see how I can make it clarer than that?

 

[Nagol]

[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] - the siege is about the city. The desert is not about the city. If your goal is the city, then, one but not the other bears directly upon your goal. I don't see how I can make it clarer than that?

Darn! to get to the Mcguffin in the city we first have to cross this desert, unfair!

Darn! to get to the Mcguffin in the city we first have to get past this siege, cool!

 

[JamesonCourage]

@JamesonCourage - the siege is about the city. The desert is not about the city. If your goal is the city, then, one but not the other bears directly upon your goal. I don't see how I can make it clarer than that?

Nagol just about summed up my thought process on it.

1) Our goal is in the city.
2) Desert stops us from getting to our goal.
3) This is not relevant, and should be skipped.

OR

1) Our goal is in the city.
2) Siege stops us from getting to our goal.
3) This is relevant, and is fine to play through.

I don't get it, still. The siege is at the city, but all its doing is stopping us from getting to our goal. The desert is on the way to the city, but all it's doing it stopping us from getting to our goal. The only difference that I see so far is backdrop. And, I'll accept that if that's what it is, but "about the city" doesn't seem like it should be the issue; both are blocking us from our goal inside the city, not at the city, or on the way​ to the city. Right? As always, play what you like

 

[Manbearcat]

One thought right quick about the two approaches at tension regarding PC action in task resolution and PC action in conflict resolution. Maybe (or maybe not) this will have some explanatory power.

Within the framework of task resolution, a PC tests their acumen in order to fascilitate their interaction with the physical world. Do I <open this lock, climb this tree, ride this horse, see anything> successfully? Yes, I do or no I do not.

Within the framework of conflict resolution, a PC deploys a resource in an effort to create content (oftentimes implanting a tangible thing in the gameworld to interact with) and have contextual, narrative framing rights (or have those narrative framing rights turned against them) with regards to the stakes at hand and the greater conflict being resolved. I think I've heard of this place; I use my "History or Been There Done That" to recall a secret trail that foils my pursuers who rush right by the obscured trail.

There is some overlap but there are subtle technique and system differences that have bearing on gameplay. Further, the latter will almost universally involve Fortune in the Middle while the former will not.

 

[Celebrim]

Actually, you used that word in your post 548. I quoted your use of it in post 566. Which is how it then got incorporated in my exchange with [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION].

I did? So I did. How utterly lazy of me. My apologies for using a word too lightly. I meant something like 'amorphous'. In fact, the word was meant to refer back to the point I had made in the prior sentence - "neither you nor the players knew what would happen until you improvised it". Whatever word I used meant to refer back to that idea.

I'd feel a lot worse about misleading you, if I didn't feel that you aren't reading my posts with the intention of finding something to misconstrue.

is not "morphic". But the description of it isn't known in advance by the participants in the game.

- emphasis mine

Is exactly the sense in which I was using the word.

 

[sheadunne]

I'm seeing this desert > siege > city discussion in two ways. Perhaps a visual?

 

[Hussar]

/snippage for great stuff

I'd play in your game any day of the week bud. Sounds like I'd enjoy your game.

 

[Hussar]

Only if they literally obsess over never letting a complication come up. If they have to obsessively bypass any and all complications, they can go for it. It's not what most functioning adults do in real life, but they can play their characters that way as long as it doesn't hurt party cohesion, and it doesn't bore me.

When those complications might be someone who will kill the party in their sleep? When the complications might very well delay us significantly for no relevant purpose? When those complications could lead to failing to achieve our stated goals?

Really?

And, JC, could you point to where I am trying to make sweeping claims? I'm not saying my way is great for all tables. I've actually repeatedly stated that that's not true. Most definitely my approach would not work for your table or for Celebrim's. And I've stated that pretty clearly more than once.

This is how I want to play. Nothing more. However, even though I've stated that repeatedly, I'm still being called whiney because of it. Heck, even Abraxus above here is pretty clearly calling me out for being judgmental on other playstyles, even though I've repeatedly stated that my preferences are my own and not judgements on what other people like.

I have zero problems believing that you or others would find my games flat and shallow. I can totally believe that. I do not look to novels for inspiration, I look to short and flash fiction. Which means cutting out tons of details and cutting to the bone. In short and flash fiction, you simply don't have the space to go into fifteen different plot lines and a cast of thousands. I approach RPG's the exact same way. I don't believe that the journey is the point of gaming. The climax and the resolution is the point of gaming for me. Granted, you need some sort of journey, of course. That's just good story telling. But, I consider many of the campaigns I've played in (and more than a few I've DM'd) to be journeys with very little purpose.

I don't play that way anymore. So, no, I don't want to play in a game where I am obligated to explore every single complication that the DM wants to toss onto the table just because the DM puts it out there. I want to have the option to ignore complications and move on to stuff that I am engaged in. At some tables, that won't happen. At others it will. I'll play at the latter tables thanks. You can keep yours.