Force and Pressing for Action

[Bill Cook]

I've been thinking about Force a bit.  I understand it to be a technique by which the GM makes significant decisions for the PCs.  It implies the concept of Input Negotiation which certifies Forced decisions as acceptable for an entire session/campaign or per decision.

((Hear high-pitched, rapid speaking, disclaimer guy voice.)  Note that per-session and per-decision are better suited for Sim and Nar play, resp.  The use of Force, as with other techniques, is not required by CA and does not necessarily imply a particular kind.  Further note that Force in no way denotes dysfunction and that Scene Framing is expressly not tantamount to Force.)

I hope I'm less than 10% wrong about that much.

Anyway, thinking about how to align myself with design intent has caused me to forget how I used to do things before I knew otherwise.  Trying to remember my unexamined habits reminds me of how strange the rancor over Railroading (i.e. GM imposed decisions not certified as acceptable) struck me when I first started reading here, as though there had been countless groups suffering untold agony under GMs who, God curse them, just wouldn't let the players make their own decisions.  And I remember thinking: who are these imaginary players that know what the fuck they want to do, anyway?

That's when it started coming back, the things I used to do.  More like the thing I used to do.  For lack of a better term, I describe it as pressing for action.  Everyone knows the tedium of "Ok.  What do you do next?"  And it was something like that, but in a more positive light, like a coach pushing you to perform or a team captain pressing you for a timely decision, all in pursuit of excellence.  For my group, when I GM'd, it was like, "Hold onto something.  Billy's up to bat."  I drove play so hard that my players got blisters from handling their character sheets, but if I understand the above terms correctly, I never once used Force.  Not that that's bad, anyway; it just never occured to me.

To be more specific, I would list options, summarize the current situation, ask questions to highlight consequence (i.e. "What if X?  And then what," etc.), demand that they tell me what should happen next, make various performances to impress urgency (e.g. "Let's go, let's go," knock on the desk, clap my hands, stare into an individual's eyes, whirl auctioneer style to whomever could finish a sentence.) and other, similiar gestures.  Yeah, I guess, in short, I was urgent.

And things weren't much different when I took the player's seat.  I generally threw out stuff in rapid succession until the GM couldn't keep up.  And I'd fight for awhile to stay involved with nothing happening, but inevitably, I'd retire to reading the manual, waiting for the next combat scene or the next time the GM's voice changed to where he was reading a room description from the module.

I'm sure people thought I was a bit of an asshole, but no one ever complained about me boring them.  Anyway, I wonder what people think about the value of this approach, i.e. urgently insisting that players introduce action . . . now!

[Ian Charvill]

I tend to be somewhat mimetic in my use of urgency - i.e. if the ingame situation is urgent I press if not I allow more space.

I would say urgency can constitute force: if you know if you press them now they'll do X and you want them to do X, then pressing them is an effective force technique.  'You can do X, Y or Z, pick one' would also constitute force if the GM made up X, Y and Z - I mean, is it roleplaying or a choose-your-own-adventure book?

But otherwise urgency can just be a pacing tool.

[contracycle]

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Urgency is indeed Force IMO.  The urgency impels the audience to make a decision which they cannot consider appropriately.  If everyone is grooving on it I think it is one of the most useful/least invasive forms of Force because it can be taken to reflect the urgency of the situation and the chaos of character perception, especially in high-stress situations.  Also, many players will accept it to overcome the 'whaddya-do-next' thing.

[Bill Cook]

There's a storm in my mind.

I get how a GM may apply urgency to reflect tension in the imaginary space.  Pro: the expression of excitement is thrilling and encourages player involvement.  Con: strategy or intent may be lost in the race to announce.  What about a lack of urgency?  Pro: play may accomodate enchanting digressions and allow for ample discussion.  Con: tedium drives players to tears.

I'm thinking about a chess clock.  I have a friend I play chess with on occasion.  We used to play two to three times a month.  There was a certain period that he started taking a long time to make his moves.  And he began to emphasize a number of tics like twirling his fingers in the air, touching a piece for several seconds and then withdrawing without making a move, etc.  All of which were enforced by whatever subtle cues I gave to my growing exasperation.

So I stopped playing with him.  A month went by, and he suggested that we meet to play.  And I said, only if we play with a clock.  And he made to ridicule me, to which I replied, you take too fucking long to move.

I mention this anecdote as an example of a lack of urgency breaking SC.

I disagree that urgency is a mild Force.  I guess it all comes down to how you view choice.  If someone's breathing down your neck, and you do what he wanted you to do, did you make a choice?  Technically, yes, but it's easy to see how being a bully at the table can break SC.  But I think to say that all influence is undue when it comes to choice implies a certain naivete about human nature.  i.e.  Most people aren't sure about what they want and stand to benefit from an offer of guidance.

Can there be input without Force?  I think so.  Even if they pick from your one or more suggestions (as opposed to coming up with their own option and choosing that), as long as it was they that did the picking (which implies the choice to pick from your list), the GM hasn't decided anything for anyone.

************************************************

I remember when I started reading about player-driven play and the Nar CA.  I read in the TROS forum and the game text how play would become liberated, and a weight would lift from the Seneschal's shoulders.

There's two problems with all that: (1) players don't always know what they want and (2) input (and not decision) is the work of play, and it's got to come from somewhere.

If you reserve thematically relevant decisions for the players (which, no strain there) and take responsibility for providing most input (and richly connected at that), well, you may as well feed them grapes and fan them with palm fronds while you're at it.

When I compare this approach to how I used to do things, it matches it terms of prep (i.e. points of thematic investment per character, richly connected Back-Story), but differs in execution (i.e. I had the players do the Bangs).

Once again, the only time I messed with something a Forge member might describe as Force was when . . .  I don't know, a mind control spell went off.  I never picked their next step for them.  I more saw my job as raising all kinds of Hell if they didn't do something.

[Bill Cook]

Anyway, I'm not meaning to posture in defense of my history.

I'm struck by how much more a lack of input or habitual resistance, as compared to distasteful GM choices for PCs, can give rise to breaking SC, and I think (beyond prep) seeking players as a source and using urgency to pace its delivery is an effective remedy.

Also, I think it's difficult to understate the qualitative nature of Railroading.  And it's insidious how a lack of feedback from the player conceals the issue!  (Probably because the decision short circuits their emotions.  That's why I didn't speak up.)  The nuance of judgement required to apply Force in Nar is not a simple matter.  You'd think you just allow player choice and have it neatly, but that's a bit simplistic, IMO.

e.g. GM: You stand before the Black Gate and the Hordes of Sauron pour forth.  Then with an evil laugh, Gandalf turns and frys Gimli to a crisp with a lightning bolt from his staff.  "You fools!  All along I was but a servant of the Dark Lord!  Behold, I now deliver you unto your doom!"  How do you react?

      PC: (Scatters dice across the table in disgust at the absurd turn of events.)

Have you ever heard of rapists refusing to divulge the results of an AIDs test to their victims?  (The woman's already had the test, and it's come back negative; she's just scared shitless that next month it'll be positive and wants the offender's results to end her anxiety.)  It's kind of outrageous to argue for the rapist's right to privacy.  You'd think his actions would abdicate that right.

And in a similiar manner, in a Nar game, if players consistently choose to avoid conflict and then complain about being bored, one might interpret that they have disdained input and find it reasonable to demand their ideas.

Thoughts?

[Callan S.]

It almost sounds like a 'What they say they want Vs what their tells say they want' sort of situation. I think we had a post on this awhile ago in actual play. If asked they'll say one thing but in play the way they act is a 'tell' as to what they really want. I suspect a lot of people are trained to hate gamist and thus will answer 'I want great stories about addressing premise'. They probably do want a bit of this...as a side of vegetables to a great big gamist steak!

I'd sort of suggest a race for the widget game to test this, where a bunch of other adventurers, all snooty, are going for the widget too. And if they get it, everyone in the land will pat them on the back. And to get it, they must overcome various challenges which can be tackled in various clever ways...etc.

[M. J. Young]

To come at this obliquely, I sometimes come into a bit of a bind when running Multiverser games, particularly in online play.

If I'm running a game live, face-to-face, and the player says his character is going to do X, and I don't quite understand what he means, I can usually elicit more about what X is fairly quickly by asking a couple of questions. It takes a few seconds, each question springing from the answer to the previous one. But if I'm posting responses on a forum, and the player wants to do X, it is very difficult to ask what X is quickly without making a lot of suggestions regarding what X might mean. The quick questions method stretches into days if the intent of the question is not quickly conveyed; but if I make a list of things, I'm caught between telling the player things that I think are really good ideas and not mentioning the things I think are really good ideas, for fear of influencing play.

Also, in a live game, it's easy for me to say, "think about that, and I'll come back to you". I'm doing that all the time anyway, with multiple players. By the time I get back, they've got a clear idea of what they mean by X, and can convey it to me. With the online game, I have to answer their post with mine, and my questions have to be such that they can provide direct answers when they read them.

Obviously, in a play by post or forum game you don't have urgency; the player can read the post and go eat lunch while he thinks about it.

I don't use urgency in most of my games, because I don't like it as a player. That's not because I think of it as force, but because I think of it as unreasonable expectations on the part of the referee. This may clarify it.

The referee has just introduced a new element to the situation, and wants to know how we're going to respond. That setting, in the limited scene sense, exists only in our minds. My character can see everything in that area, if he but looks; he can see the stream, or the tables, or the patrons, or the mountains, or whatever is there. I cannot see them. I have to think, to be able to have the same presence as he has. He only has to think about what to do; I have to think about both what to do and what exists in his surroundings.

The referee is requiring me to think fast about a situation when I am already using a fair amount of my processing power merely to integrate the new information into the existing frame. If my character is only nearly as smart as I, he's already got an advantage over me. The only way I can compensate for that is by taking my time to think about where he is, what he sees, and what his options are.

I make the same argument in favor of allowing players to analyze their abilities in terms of game mechanics. My character can get a pretty direct feel for how difficult it is to hit his opponent, for example; a couple of swings, and he'll know whether this is going to be difficult or easy. I, on the other hand, probably don't know from a couple of die rolls whether this is going to be difficult or easy, unless I've been very fortunate in my rolls and hit very close on both sides of the divide.

Overall, playing your character intelligently requires you as a player to have information and opportunity to process it that the character doesn't have, precisely because the character has information and opportunity that the player can't get.

It's not a force question, really, to my mind. As long as you're not limiting my options, it's not force. It is still discourteous, and I wouldn't want to play like that.

--M. J. Young

[Bill Cook]

M.J.:

I get your point about the player having double duty.  Urgency can be misapplied.  Pacing is but a parameter of SC and no more beholden than considerations of Force.  Or input.

Not to be argumentative, but I take issue that urgency is necessarily impolite.  You describe its dark side.  Where's the fire? one might ask.  In the context of ample, desirable input, there isn't one.  May as well chew.  We're here to game.

But if all you hear are cricket legs, and the GM is like, "You guys go on and talk it out.  Take as long as you need; that's how much I respect your right to consider and approve whatever you're trying to do.  I'm just gonna lean back and rest my eyes . . ." then you're frozen.

I actually have less of an issue with players taking time to process decisions.  As you say, you can get back to them; at least they're engaged.  It's the progression of dysfunction I outline above that needles me, i.e. players resist GM input (with or without Force), complain about being bored and then refuse to offer suggestions.

But I'm starting to repeat myself.  I appreciate you sharing your view.

[M. J. Young]

Bill--

I do appreciate that sometimes some pressure is useful, particularly when the players seem to have no direction at all. After all, a moving car is easier to steer than a parked one, and if they don't know what to do it's better to get them to do something than to let them sit there all night worried about it.

The other problem I mentioned was that of suggesting what to do. There is always a temptation for me to do this as a referee when someone is floundering, or particularly when I'm trying to get them to tell me something they haven't realized they have to answer (I'm sorry, which of the doors are you trying to open? What do you have in your hand?). I don't want to ask which weapons a character is holding just before they run into trouble; but I don't want to penalize them for not having mentioned something that they assumed they had said (and maybe they did and I missed it).

Let's say that the characters have just come to a rickety bridge across a chasm (pre-Columbian art, as has been said). They want to cross the chasm. They can attempt the bridge, or attempt to repair the bridge, or attempt to build a new bridge. I'm aware that they've got some flying device in their equipment, and while they can't go over all at once, they could ferry people across. Am I going to mention it, or let them forget it? If they think of that, am I going to sensitize them to the possibility that they're going to have to leave one person on the far side while they come back for another, and there's going to be one person alone on this side before they're done? How do I get the information I need without telling them what dangers they might face?

Now, years of practice later, I can do that in most face to face play. I know how to elicit details without hinting at which might matter. It's harder to do in forum play, precisely because of the constraints of the medium. But there is a degree to which at the bottom of this entire force issue there's this moment at which you're saying, "which of these things do you want to do", and you have to know whether you're going to include the obvious best solution in the list or not, and whether they're going to recognize that it's missing if you don't.

--M. J. Young