Quick question on in game consequence

[Callan S.]

I wanted to find out where I am on this in relation to general thought at the forge.

Now say in reality, I'm standing on a balcony where a vase is sitting on the ledge. I push it. The consequence is that it goes over the edge, falls and smashes.

Now same I'm roleplaying. My PC is established as being on a balcony, with a vase on the ledge. I declare my PC pushes the vase.

Is what happens a consequence of that, just like it was a consequence in the real world example?

[Andrew Martin]

I wanted to find out where I am on this in relation to general thought at the forge.

Now say in reality, I'm standing on a balcony where a vase is sitting on the ledge. I push it. The consequence is that it goes over the edge, falls and smashes.

Now same I'm roleplaying. My PC is established as being on a balcony, with a vase on the ledge. I declare my PC pushes the vase.

Is what happens a consequence of that, just like it was a consequence in the real world example?

Consider the context your roleplaying example is in. What if it were a dream sequence? Then the vase could morph into a butterfly and flutter off. Or the players could conclude that they're tired of this game and go to the movies, nothing further happens and the imaginary scene is forgotten by the players. What happens next is really up to the players and their agreements on what happens next in the imaginary space.

[Praetor Judis]

Warning: Rouge Storyteller interpretations on deck.

From a narrative standpoint, Consequence is what happens after that vase falls to the ground and smashes into pieces.

Was it a priceless vase that belonged to an insanely rich landowner seems unnaturally attached to the vase?

Is the vase ancient and therefore extremely valuable and the character now owes the landowner a vast fortune?

Did the vase contain the ashes of the landowner's great uncle and now the landowner wants the character dead?

Was the great uncle a half-demon and a contract between the great uncle and the landowner was the reason the landowner was insanely rich and now, as the local economy starts crashing and the crime element starts moving in to grab what they can,  the landowner wants the character and all his friends dead and he doesn't care who he has to summon to get the job done?

That's what I refer to as Consequence in my games.  Not so much the immediate physics based results of action, but the social reaction to those actions.

[Andrew Morris]

Callan,

Unless you are using some specialized definition of consequence with which I am unfamiliar, I would say that of course the vase falling and smashing on the ground was a consequence of the character knocking it off.

Could you explain why you think it might not be a consequence?

[TooManyGoddamnOrcs]

of course that assumes that the character is strong enough to push the vase off which, depending on the scale of the game, might not be possible.  I remember a D20 variant where the players played rats, pigeons, squirrels and similar beasties.  

Snark aside, assuming earthlike gravity and proportions have been established in the SIS, and that the vase is less durable than the surface onto which it is pushed, the push of the vase is intended to send it off the balcony just as an attack with a sword is intended to expose what's inside an orc to the light of day.  In other words, it might not be: if you're still in the videogame mindset where damage is abstracted, you might not realize your character is getting orc blood on milady's tapestries nor that the vase is not the trigger of the spinning bookcase.  Is this the kind of discussion you're looking for, Noon?

[Marco]

Here's what will happen:

All things being standard and assuming the vase falls into a paved parkinglot from at least two stories of height* (by standard, I mean: the world is represented as 'the real one'--there is gravity on this planet, the vase is described as porcelain and pushable, no one intervenes to stop it from falling, etc.)

The vase will fall and break.

How do I know this? I know this (or rather, I expect this) because if I go to a balcony and push a vase off it, I have a resonable expectation that it will break. It might surprise me: the vase (in reality) might turn out to be high-impact plastic and it might bounce--but I have an expectation that it'll break in reality.

That's what happens as an in game consequnce which is what you aksed about.

What happens in the meta-game?

The player(s) responsible for creating effect will narrate the consequence (possibly with the help of printed rules, or dice, or like solicitied input about physics or something). Traditionally the GM is the adjudicator.

The GM as the narrator might decide not to have it break. The GM might ret-con the vase to be indestructable, countermand gravity, or have some other event happen.

When the GM introduces an un-expected result the GM risks taking a role similar to that of an "unreliable narrator" in fiction. This has certain consequences for static writing but has, IME, far, far deeper consequences for RPG's.

Because the GM is all five senses of the characters--because the GM is, in effect, everything else in the world, when the GM becomes unreliable (and this is the perception of the players) then there are, IME, likely to be trust issues.

A potentially non-dysfunctional example:
GM: "It tumbles through the air--and then hits the pavement and BOUNCES! The pavement reverberates like a rubber platform!"
Player: "I knew it! We're in virtual-reality!"

In this case the GM's un-expected result gives the player more context about the world. The Player has confidence that cause-and-effect are still operational and their actions still matter.

Here are two other cases I see as important to examine:

GM "If you break that vase the story will be ruined."
Player: "I push it anyway."
GM: "That'll ruin the game."
Player: "I don't care."
GM: "The vase bounces. You suddenly have a fatal heart attack. Since you're no longer playing, please go get me a coke--and leave it closed."

Possible, sure. Functional? I don't think so.

I consider this equally dysfunctional:

GM: "The vase shatters."
Player: "That just ruined the story!"
GM: "Eh? What did?"
Player: "The vase breaking."
GM: "You pushed it. What did you expect?"
Player: "I expected it to land in the grass and not break."
GM: "It's a seven story fall. People who land in the grass break and people aren't brittle."
Player: "People aren't as hard as porceline."
GM: "Let's try it for real from the second story of the house. We'll use your wife's vase since you're sure it won't break."
Player: "Sod off."

Here I have introduced some plausible uncertainty of the outcome (the vase, perhaps, lands in grass). I've also set the height at 7-stories. If it was tipped off a ground floor window into the grass the question becomes much harder to answer from a 'realistic expectations' standpoint.

But as the gray area becomes bigger (a glass of water falls on the carpet--does it break?) the use of things like randomizers become more prevalent as an 'objectifying' way of making the call.

When there are reasonable expectations in play (and that's a personal judgement call on everyone's part--a personal one--but, I think, a valuable standard nontheless) then a decision not to follow them either needs to be stated up front ("You will NOT derail the plot--the plot force is ultimate in this game") or it's very potentially dysfunctional and, IMO, a bad idea if done for reasons other than precieved cause-and-effect.

One more thing: a player who takes things personally might be a reason to ensure that the events narrated conform to their expectations above those of other players. I recognize that sometimes this may be the best-case for decision making--but I think it's often a dysfunctional case.

-Marco
* If you decide that "ahh, we were on the elemental plane of air--and it's swept away by the wind", then, yes, I agree that's more reasonable. I also consider that an intentionally misleading way of framing the question.

[simon_hibbs]

Is what happens a consequence of that, just like it was a consequence in the real world example?

Yes, I think it's a consequence in exactly the same way it is only the mechanisms by which that consequence is reached that is different.

Of course in the game example, it's a fictional vase and what happens is that someone narrates the fact that it broke, and we choose (or don't choose) to narrate further consequences of that. So realy you're asking if you narrating pushing the vase causes the game master to narrate it falling and break, in the same way that actualy pushign a real vase actualy causes it to fall and break.

In both cases a variety of factors affect the final outcome, not just you narrating pushing the vase, or actualy pushig a real one. In the real world those other factors are gravity, the height of the fall, the materials of the vase and floor, whether someone sees it fall and catches it, etc. In the fictional case those factors are whether the game world is agreed to have gravity, whether th Gm decides the vase is made of adamantium and whether anyone bothers to narrate the fate of the vase after the push.

However if he fate of the vase is narrated, the narration of it's fate does follow a sequence of cause and effect that takes place in the real world.


Simon Hibbs

[Alan]

Hi,

Consequence implies causal connection.  In the shared imagined space, the players (through system) decide the causal connection.  If they accept that, in the context in which the imaginary vase was dropped it should hit the ground and smash, then it does.

In the shared imagined space, consequence is what the player's accept - it's not inevitable.  What they choose to accept will vary based on their personal investment in the outcome and their creative agendas.  It's perfectly possible for someone to drop a vase, have it declared smashed, then have someone else use system to say "Wait a minute - I catch it before it hits!"  The vase suddenly becomes unsmashed.

[John Kim]

In the shared imagined space, consequence is what the player's accept - it's not inevitable.  What they choose to accept will vary based on their personal investment in the outcome and their creative agendas.  It's perfectly possible for someone to drop a vase, have it declared smashed, then have someone else use system to say "Wait a minute - I catch it before it hits!"  The vase suddenly becomes unsmashed.  

In both an RPG and in real life, it is possible for someone to push a vase off of a balcony and not have it smash on the ground (i.e. it was plastic, someone catches it, etc.).  However, in real life the vase smashing is still said to be a "consequence" of my having pushed it off.  For example, after having pushed it, I can't reasonably say "Hey, I didn't break the vase.  It was gravity that broke the vase."  

In an RPG, there is actually a person to hold responsible for gravity -- such as the GM in many games.  Suppose I am a player and I say that my character pushes the vase off.  However, I don't narrate that it falls and smashes -- in the system we're using, it's up to the GM to determine that.  Suppose the GM does so.  Is it a "consequence" of my having pushed it?  I would say so, but that's a matter of individual semantics.

[Alan]

In an RPG, there is actually a person to hold responsible for gravity -- such as the GM in many games.  Suppose I am a player and I say that my character pushes the vase off.  However, I don't narrate that it falls and smashes -- in the system we're using, it's up to the GM to determine that.  Suppose the GM does so.  Is it a "consequence" of my having pushed it?  I would say so, but that's a matter of individual semantics.

Not symantics - assumption.  When we drop a vase in the real world, we call the fall and the shattering a consequnce of the action, but it's really just the end in a chain - it's the consequence of the laws of gravity.  

In an RPG fantasy world, the vase hitting the ground is a direct consequnce of collective decistion-making.  

As a group we don't necessarily have to hold that gravity must work in the fantasy world all the time (though in most cases we do.)  (Nor do we have to hold a single person responsible for "enforcing" the "laws of physics."  Laws of physics only exist in an RPG as much as we want [or assume] them to.)  

Consequence inside the RPG fantasy is the result of how the players assign meaning to the event and interpret it.[/b]  Hence consequence is  formed by creative agenda.

[Alan]

Consequence inside the RPG fantasy is the result of how the players assign meaning to the event and interpret it.[/b]  Hence consequence is  formed by creative agenda.

It just struck me that many forms of simulationist play (virtualism, for example) like to keep this real-world fact behind a curtain.  This supports the illusion that things inside the fantasy are happening solely as a result of other things in the fantasy.

[Marco]

It just struck me that many forms of simulationist play (virtualism, for example) like to keep this real-world fact behind a curtain.  This supports the illusion that things inside the fantasy are happening solely as a result of other things in the fantasy.

Am I to understand it that in Gamist play vases don't break if pushed off a ledge or that I have no reasonable expectation of things behaving as they do in the real world even on a basic level of letting something go and having it fall?

I doubt that is the case in practice. Rather: I expect that play that doesn't tightly conform to expectations when it comes to the GM's responsiblity for representing physics will be seen as dysfunctional.

Player: "I push the rock down, rolling it into the orks."
GM: "No, that'd be too easy a win. The rock doesn't budge."
Player: "Huh? I'm strong enough to roll it. It better roll."

I don't see a link to expectations of cause-and-effect on a basic level (i.e. the representation of physics) and GNS CA. I'd expect a vase dropped off a balcony to smash in Sorceror as well as in GURPS.

-Marco

[Doctor Xero]

Is what happens a consequence of that, just like it was a consequence in the real world example?

In an RPG, there is actually a person to hold responsible for gravity -- such as the GM in many games.  Suppose I am a player and I say that my character pushes the vase off.  However, I don't narrate that it falls and smashes -- in the system we're using, it's up to the GM to determine that.  Suppose the GM does so.  Is it a "consequence" of my having pushed it?

Yes, it is, because your character pushed the vase off with his/her player fully aware that the authority for determination of what happens to it has already been deferred almost unconditionally to the game master.

In GMed games, game master authority is no more nor less a force which must be intuitively or intellectually taken into account "by" the character than is gravity a force which must be intuitively or intellectually taken into account by the real world player.

Doctor Xero

[Alan]

It just struck me that many forms of simulationist play (virtualism, for example) like to keep this real-world fact behind a curtain.  This supports the illusion that things inside the fantasy are happening solely as a result of other things in the fantasy.

Am I to understand it that in Gamist play vases don't break if pushed off a ledge or that I have no reasonable expectation of things behaving as they do in the real world even on a basic level of letting something go and having it fall?

The vase is merely an example.  It happens to be an example where, most of the time, most RPG players will agree that a certain result occures.  This does not invalidate the fact that the result is decided by the players, not some unstoppable law of consequence.

Now, in fact, it is possible that in gamist play, or in any creative agenda, the vase won't break.  I recall an old school D&D game where some pyromaniac player was throwing around fire bombs - the GMs response was to add a break chance.  If the dice said the glass didn't break, the players accepted that it did not.

[Marco]

The vase is merely an example.  It happens to be an example where, most of the time, most RPG players will agree that a certain result occures.  This does not invalidate the fact that the result is decided by the players, not some unstoppable law of consequence.

Now, in fact, it is possible that in gamist play, or in any creative agenda, the vase won't break.  I recall an old school D&D game where some pyromaniac player was throwing around fire bombs - the GMs response was to add a break chance.  If the dice said the glass didn't break, the players accepted that it did not.

No one, even a Virtualist, would assert that the running of gravity is not done by a player or players at the table. And, furthermore, the idea of the creation or maintenance of an "illusion" is related, IMO, more to Immersion rather than to a specific CA.

Perhaps "consequence" is a bad word since it seems to mean different things. If you felt wronged by the breaking of the vase, who would you hold responsible:

a) the player who pushed it?
b) the GM who ruled it broke?
c) both evenly?

-Marco