What does and doesn't constituite "Force"

[sirogit]

I'd like to include the paragraphs in which Force is discussed in Ron Edward's Narrativist Essay as a basic definition.

Force: the final authority that any person who is not playing a particular player-character has over decisions and actions made by that player-character. This is distinct from information that the GM imparts or chooses not to impart to play; I'm talking about the protagonists' decisions and actions. In Narrativist play, using Force by definition disrupts the Creative Agenda.

Force techniques include IIEE manipulation, fudged/ignored rolls, perception management, clue moving, scene framing as a form of reducing options, directions as to character's actions using voiced and unvoiced signals, modifying features of various NPCs during play, and authority over using textual rules. The Golden Rule of White Wolf games is, in application, a mandate for Force.

Force Techniques often include permitting pseudo-decisions, which we can discuss at the Forge if necessary. Also, Force Techniques do vary in how flexible a scene's outcome is permitted to be. Some GMs (to use the classic single-GM context) might do anything up to actually picking up your dice for you in order for you to talk to "that guy," or he might let the characters miss the clue, either 'porting it to another character or letting its absence go ahead and affect the outcome.

1) What does IIEE Manipulation mean?

2) I'm a little bit unclear on the method of "Clue Moving". Would that be making it so that the clue is wherever the players look even if they purposely avoided looking where they were told to find it?

3)Scene framing... Is this talking about things like, stopping players from something they want to do by starting a scene after that window of oppurtunity, or starting them into a situation they would've wanted to back out of earlier?

I'm guessing that the defining factor of when a Force technique is a Force technique is when you are doing something in-game that the players do not have the ability to change(Such as ignoring dice rolls, scene framing, etc.), you are doing it with the intent to make the protagonist do what you want it to do.

Would this also extend to any thing that the GM does?

For instance, say the GM has a non-combat-ready character ambushed by a militia team that says "You're coming with us." The character, assumably, has two options, go with them or die. If the GM wants the character to go with them which is why he set up the encounter, but would accept it if the PC did not go with the militia, though the PC doesn't have a choice. The GM is using a force technique.

However, if, there was the same situation, the GM wants the PC to go with the militia but will accept the possibility that the PC will not, except the PC is a superhero and could conceivably fight off them or escape, than is the technique not Force since it doesn't dictate PC behavior, or atleast gives them a wider sprectrum of possible responses? Would that just make it less of a Force technique?

I'd like to present a thereotical example technique that I plan to use in my Demon Cops game. I'm basing this technique in something I viewed in Batman The Animated Series. I don't think analysis of movie stories as if they were roleplaying games is very productive, so I'll focus on how I would adapt the techniques present.

Before the session, I thought of this scenario as something to spice up the game. I roughly defined the characters, conflicts, and possible bangs to bring up, and a maleable plan of action for the NPCs, maybe some set pieces that could go off if people go towards them, but I don't want to have a set path for the players. The point of my game is for the players to make important thematic choices for their characters. The reason I'm using a scenario is I when straight up improvising I find it hard to answer some of the PC's minutae questions about the situation and I'd like to have those up front.

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Cast:
Hero: He fights crime and is obliged to help people when he can.
Friend: A good friend of Hero and MENTAT.
MENTAT: Has scary psychic powers.

The scenario is: MENTAT is pissed off at Friend for his sapping funds from the psychic instituite even though they're friends, so is going to destroy him mentally. Friend will seem to suffer from a unknown illness, in which he expiereinces increasing paranoia and decreasing body heat. The only known cases of such a disorder were test subjects of MENTAT at the psychic instituite. Their disorders only went away when MENTAT was ordering to stop concentrating on them.

The player of Hero and I have agreed about his character being the sort that helps people whenever he can, he asks me to work in something like that.

Hero wants to start the game with him seeing Friend for lunch. I feel this would be a good time to get to MENTAT psychicly destroying friend, so the scene starts with Hero having lunch with Friend and MENTAT. MENTAT excuses himself, at which point Friend chuckles but suddenly finds himself very faint. He passes out on the table.

Now if this was a TV show, we'd very likely have ourselves set. Conflict, Motion, what have you. But no. Hero writes off his Friend passing out to drinking too much and scuffles off to home.

Now, I want this game to be about the characters reaction to the scenario as there isn't much else going on, so I continue to try to work it in in conincidental ways. I don't feel that Hero's player is objecting to involvmenet in the scenario, I think he was just a little bit oblivious to what was happening.

When Hero gets home, the TV is on. On the news is about how an important figure(Who happens to be Friend)has suffered a strange illness. Before the announcer gives off a cruciel detail, Hero thinks "Poor guy" and shuts off the TV.

I still don't think that hero's player doesn't want to participate in what's happening, his character just isn't paying attention. So I want to setup another scene, this time based on a different aspect of the situation, in which those guys who were in MENTAT's research come to him saying they saw him having lunch and say they need to find a way into MENTAT's labratory to find out what he did to their minds.

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By the end of that, am I using a Force technique, in that for the most part, whatever the Hero does, he's running into an aspect of the scenario which I want him to be involved in? Is the first scene not a Force technique because I've given him the option of walking out, however to continue to try to hook into the scenario is crossing the line?

[Andrew Martin]

1) What does IIEE Manipulation mean?

IIEE seems defined here:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=774

An example of manipulation would be like taking a player's spoken out loud planning and declaring that as the character's actions, and basing a NPC opponent's counter-actions on those PC actions, so that the PC is effectively defeated before the PC acts.

2) I'm a little bit unclear on the method of "Clue Moving". Would that be making it so that the clue is wherever the players look even if they purposely avoided looking where they were told to find it?

Yes, or the reverse if the GM is feeling annoyed with the players (I've experienced this in a disfunctional group).

3)Scene framing... Is this talking about things like, stopping players from something they want to do by starting a scene after that window of oppurtunity, or starting them into a situation they would've wanted to back out of earlier?

An example from my own bad experiences, a group of PCs out hunting a vampire at dawn, when it suddenly becomes night...

Would this also extend to any thing that the GM does?

Basically, GM Force becomes obvious when it breaks the implied social contract, causing players to become unhappy with the game. When the force doesn't break the social contract, then the GM is doing OK. :)

By the end of that, am I using a Force technique, in that for the most part, whatever the Hero does, he's running into an aspect of the scenario which I want him to be involved in? Is the first scene not a Force technique because I've given him the option of walking out, however to continue to try to hook into the scenario is crossing the line?

Hmmm,... Have you tried discussing the situation with the player? Maybe the player is doing this because the player doesn't want play to be about this aspect? Or perhaps, the player is playing in Turtle mode because of previous bad game experience? Is there a penalty attached to loosing or ignoring the relationship between Hero and Friend, and, conversely, a benefit to keeping a relationship?

[sirogit]

The example was completely thereotical.

I guess I should have been more specific that my question was, if you arrange it so that everything that happens in your game is relevant to a predefined specific situation, does that make it a force technique?

Edit: I'd say you were wrong about breaking the social contract making what someone does a Force technique as Ron outlined in his essay, as I've played in many groups where consensual Railroading was a part of the social contract, which fits very nicely under "final authority of making the decisions of the protagonist which you are not playing."

[Henri]

I'm not sure if this thread is a spin off from "Rail Roading Fun" but over there a couple of people pointed out that according to The Forge definitions, there is a difference between Rail-Roading and Illusionism.  Rail-Roading is a breach of social contract because the players want to do something else, and the GM is forcing them along the path he wants them to take.  Illusionism is not, because it means that they players have agreed to give up control of the story to the GM as part of the social contract.  In illusionism, there role is more as participatory audience members.  The GM is entertaining them by involving them in the story, but not allowing them to significantly alter the plot of the story.  

I think the (hypothetical) example you describe sounds more like Illusionism than Rail-Roading, so its okay.

[sirogit]

I don't think of the situation as Railroading or Illusionism, as I define those terms as when the GM forces the players to make their characters choose a decision predefined by the GM.

In the situation above, the GM isn't really pointing towards one action he wants the PC to take... he just makes the situation prevelent in the life of the PC.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Sirogit,

In which case it's not Force, if the player-character is not being "run" by the GM.

However, many people are very skilled at influencing one another using both in-game and out-of-game cues.  The techniques include casual suggestions about how the character might feel about the situation, details of how the character "must have" made certain decisions already to be in the situation, and determining beforehand how the whole scene will turn out regardless of what the character does. None of these look like the GM reaching out, grabbing the character's neck, and controlling his actions, but that's effectively what they do.

So avoiding all such techniques is necessary when removing Force from one's GMing (if that's the goal; it might not be). You might be surprised at how much of "good GMing," so-called, is a matter of mastering these techniques, especially for people brought up in White Wolf games or (earlier) Shadowrun or (even earlier) AD&D2.

If you indeed refrain from such techniques, then introducing material into play which is relevant to the character (or more accurately, to the player and his or her interest in the character) is merely a Bang.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

Sirogit,

Walt Freitag just wrote an excellent discussion of Force, in the context of how it is and is not Railroading, over here.  Walt's generally very good with terminology and definitions, and his discussion is, to my mind, one of the clearest on this issue.