[D&D 3.5] (Dexcon) Final Fantasy and the Art of Railroad Maintenance

[drnuncheon]

Some of this really hurt because I can see my own GM flaws - past and present - reflected in the description.

The random rolls, especially for Spot and Notice, even when they don't mean anything.  This is such an ingrained habit that it's tough to get rid of.  And sure, sometimes it's funny (like when I rolled a 1 and we made 'staring at the fish' jokes for the rest of the session) but it doesn't add anything to the game.  Sometimes I wonder if it is (or it started as) the GMing equivalent of saying "um" or "uh" or "y'know" - stalling for time while you're preparing what happens next.  Personal resolution: unless its an ambush or something where the mechanics will make a difference, just tell the person with the highest Spot/Listen/Notice/Whatever.

I actually applaud the "you're provisioned".  Especially in a con game with a limited time slot, you don't want to waste time with "can we get a dozen iron spikes?  How much can our horses carry?  Maybe we should get a wagon..."  The flip side of that is that the GM has to be willing to say "sure, you have that" when you want to get something from the provisions, and you're opening yourself up for disagreement between the guy who thinks "provisioned" means "you have food and water" and the guy who thinks it means you've got everything up to and including a portable anvil and a sack full of horseshoes.  For me, at least, saying "you're provisioned" is a tacit agreement that I find that sort of stuff incredibly dull, and I am not going to hose the players for not specifying that they brought three full waterskins (or whatever), so can we get to the interesting stuff now please?

I'm not sure I would have lasted past the "you're tired and you need to go to bed" scene.  Especially if I were the ninja's player and had been stymied all game.  At some point, I would have gone "fuck it", and unfortunately that would probably have come out as intentionally destructive play as I decided that I might as well amuse myself by seeing just how far the DM will go to keep his plot online.  Mature? No, not really.  (One should probably just walk away - but in many cases that will be equally disruptive to the game.)

J

[Callan S.]

Hi Bill,

Why if you were vieing for your cut scene. Like your ideal cut scene set it at the start, perhaps written secretly. Then you try and earn points by some fair competitive mechanic, to get yours as the winner. And here's the twist, if you don't win by a large lead, it blends with the nearest competitor.

Can you imagine the GM's vision of the nephew killing the shenshal (sp?). But because you won but not by much, it blends with your scene, which was you killing a massive demon in one leet move. So when they blend - dead shenshal reanimates and becomes a massive demon, only to be taken down in one leet move by your PC!

Sounds pretty damn final fantasy to me. :)

[Bill_White]

Hi Bill,

Wh[at] if you were vieing for your cut scene[?] Like your ideal cut scene set it at the start, perhaps written secretly. Then you try and earn points by some fair competitive mechanic, to get yours as the winner. And here's the twist, if you don't win by a large lead, it blends with the nearest competitor.

Can you imagine the GM's vision of the nephew killing the shenshal (sp?). But because you won but not by much, it blends with your scene, which was you killing a massive demon in one leet move. So when they blend - dead shenshal reanimates and becomes a massive demon, only to be taken down in one leet move by your PC!

Sounds pretty damn final fantasy to me. :)

Yeah, okay, I can see that:  Call it Exalted--Turbo!  I'm running a Cloud Ninja with Kick-Ass Shuriken Death Rain 3 and you've got a Thunder Samurai with Total Bushido Zen Mastery 2.  We go up against a Simpering Seneschal with Demonic Mind Control Mojo 6.  Everybody invokes their powers, and we all secretly write down what we want to happen consistent with the descriptions of the powers we're using.  K-ASDR:  "Throwing stars flash from Mi Gi's fingertips like streaks of lightning, pinning the seneschal's bloody moaning form to the doors he wouldn't let us open."  TBZM:  "The seneschal quails as the samurai approaches and turns to flee.  One stroke removes his head, which gibbers and laughs and tells us it's too late to save the nephew, imprisoned behind the door."  DMMM:  "The nephew bursts from where he has been held prisoner, grabs the seneschal by the throat, and stabs him through the heart" (because the GM gets to write whatever he wants; it's his world, don't you know).

We roll our dice, our 5 to the GM's 6.  He gets 1 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 20.  You get 3 + 6 = 9.  I get 3 + 4 + 5 = 12.  Separately, we both lose, so you decide to throw away your narration card in order to pool our rolls.  Together we have 21!  We win!

At this point, we can opt to continue the fight and impose some mechanical penalty on the Seneschal (maybe he loses a die).  Or we can resolve it--but because we don't vastly overpower him, the GM's narration has to be included in the scene.

The rest is as you say.

It could work.

[Bill_White]

I actually applaud the "you're provisioned".  Especially in a con game with a limited time slot, you don't want to waste time with "can we get a dozen iron spikes?  How much can our horses carry?  Maybe we should get a wagon..."  The flip side of that is that the GM has to be willing to say "sure, you have that" when you want to get something from the provisions, and you're opening yourself up for disagreement between the guy who thinks "provisioned" means "you have food and water" and the guy who thinks it means you've got everything up to and including a portable anvil and a sack full of horseshoes.  For me, at least, saying "you're provisioned" is a tacit agreement that I find that sort of stuff incredibly dull, and I am not going to hose the players for not specifying that they brought three full waterskins (or whatever), so can we get to the interesting stuff now please?

I agree.  I thought that boded well for the adventure.  But then in our conversations about the game afterward, somebody said something like, "But we didn't have any gear or magic items either."  So the question may come down to resources:  what are the tools available to players to react to the situation they're in?  And our resources were highly restricted, perhaps unconsciously so, to make it easier for us to be led through a plot.

[Bill_White]

But what I find consistently amazing here with all our emphasis on the real people playing is the lack of interest in PERFORMANCE.  It seems to me there is a big element of portrayal and theatrical performance that goes on with the old school GMing style, at least when you are not being mechanically pushed through a dungeon.  The NPC's weep and wail, they have particular voices and body languages, grand spectacular events occur, dragons roar strategically placed barrels explode, and knights glitter in their shining armour.

That's definitely another dimension of critique; it just happens not to be the one that popped out at me this time.  I suppose it's possible that had the DM's performance been especially striking -- exquisite descriptions, evocative character portrayals -- I would have been less dissatisfied.  "Wow, what a great show!"  Of course, I'm there to do a little wowing myself.

The is storyTELLING, the old way.  Me to you, not "us".  It is a valid and entertaining performance art.  There seems to me to be no reason that RPG's cannot achieve that kind of satisfying set-down-the-controller-and-watch cutscene.  And in this regard I fully agree with Wades point about the amount of effort that the people presenting it have invested, becuase although I probably cannot really compete with a hollywood special effects budget, I also have before me a very friendly and forgiving audience who want to enjoy this as much as I want them to enjoy it.  After all, I'm not even charging them money!

I am moving away from the position that the game is the GM's show and I'm doing the players a favor by running the game.  In fact, I've come almost 180 degrees around.  Today I'm more like, "Please play my game so that I can watch the cool shit you're going to do!"  But every me to you should invite a reciprocal you to me, so there's an implicit bargain there as well:  "...and I promise that I'll try really hard to do cool shit too."

If it's just one-way communication, a one-man show with the players as little more than appreciative audience, then I'll stay home with the Playstation.  Not because you're wrong.  Storytelling is a valid kind of performance, absolutely.   But I think everyone at the table should get their chance.

Maybe so but please realise then that the idea that the a) the world gets changed in play, and b) that the non-GM players change it are both anathema to me, and that a game that did both would be anathema squared.  More power to you if it's your cup of tea however.

Trust the players.  Trust the players.  Trust the players.

[greyorm]

If it's just one-way communication, a one-man show with the players as little more than appreciative audience, then I'll stay home with the Playstation.

Alternatively, if I really want to watch someone else's story unfold, then I'll go to watch a play or read a novel. And if I really want to tell people a story, I will write a novel or join a theater group.

There's nothing wrong with participating in either of those activities, but when you try to make gaming into those activities, there is. At best, it is a case of choosing a poor tool for the desired job out of fondness for the tool; at worst, it is a case of rampant egotism that flies in face of the most basic understanding of RPGs: control of the direction and results of the story [1].

If someone can not give up the stage, there is something wrong.

[1] Which is NOT: "I go left" or "I go right" or even "I succeed" or "I fail", because you can do that in a computer RPG and it is illusion, but "What is this all about?" and choices that influence that.

[Callan S.]

Hey Bill,

I was thinking you make up your scene right at the start of play, so:
A. There's a sort of tension filled build up, which helps you build up excitment for your scene to happen.
B. You don't know what the story contains, so you get more of a cross breed of ideas - like if you had an underwater fight as your dream scene, then suddenly the seneshal (can't spell it, sorry) dives through a secret portal and you all follow to an amazing underwater dimension (or however else you might connect it - you have to think quick and mix it with your dream scene).

We roll our dice, our 5 to the GM's 6.  He gets 1 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 20.  You get 3 + 6 = 9.  I get 3 + 4 + 5 = 12.  Separately, we both lose, so you decide to throw away your narration card in order to pool our rolls.  Together we have 21!  We win!

Ohhh, that's a good one! Pooling your resources with another player to win - excellent idea! I really like the creative edge that'd apply! (you mean you both meld your dream scenes or some such? Or do you throw away your scene cause you want a particular other players scene to come to fruition? Either is great...in fact the latter is probably even cooler (and prolly what you meant). Again, good one!

[Joel P. Shempert]

One thing about the resource-pooling idea: is there ever any incentive to NOT go in with the other player to beat the GM's roll? Other than, I really DON'T want the scene on his card to happen? I mean, the players might dispute over WHICH scene to ditch, but otherwise the pattern seems pretty unvaried: GM rolls, players roll individually, if they don't make it they throw in together, they (probably) win.

Makes youwonder what difficulty to set as typical. . .comparable to their own ratings, it's no match for their teamup power, comparable to their combined power, and they HAVE to team up to win. . .

Awesome ideas. Just chipping away at the block of stone a bit.

-Joel

[Callan S.]

Jeez Joel, you gots the GM tagged as some kind of permanent antagonist, eh? The GM is just another player (it's especially apparent with a mechanic like this). Why would the whole group consistantly gang up on one particular players ideas, regardless of what those ideas are? In this case, the player who is called GM?

[Joel P. Shempert]

Hey, I was just springboardin' off of Bill's example; maybe it only SEEMED like "players vs. GM because it was baserd on the DnD scenario, whatever. The point is, in THAT scenario, what incentive do the two players have to NOT pool if they can't beat the third player alone?

[Bill_White]

Joel's got a point; clearly there would have to be some kind of incentive to hold on to your cut-scene card, built either into the payoffs for the conflict itself, or as a kind of fan-mail or consolation prize mechanism ("Gee, that would have been cool") if you lose.

Here's the game in my head:  Penultimate.  You play a Jedi/Lensman/Green Lantern-type at the end of the (space fantasy-variety) universe, a Penultimate.  The Big Crunch is coming, and you've got to fight the bad guys who want to take control of the Omega Point and reshape the phoenix universe to be born in their twisted, evil image.  The thing is, only one of you will get to be the Ultimate, who will put his own imprint on the new universe (and win the game). 

So there's a player-vs.-player element built into it, in that cooperation against the bad guys is important, but building up your own power (by winning cut-scene narration, maybe) is important too.

But maybe now this thread has drifted irreparably away from what it's about.

[Wade L]

Maybe so but please realise then that the idea that the a) the world gets changed in play, and b) that the non-GM players change it are both anathema to me, and that a game that did both would be anathema squared.  More power to you if it's your cup of tea however.

Trust the players.  Trust the players.  Trust the players.

I think that there is the whole root of the problem sometimes...  GMs who just don't trust their players.  The GM in this case...maybe part of the reason he was so adamant things turn out as he had planned was because he didn't think the players could come up with anything equally as cool.  I find that just insulting "I have to tell the story because your ideas aren't interesting."

It reminds me entirely too much of a discussion I had recently with someone over games like PTA, etc...  The arguement was brought up that without solid GM control(and, in this case, rules mechanics that deliniated what was "Plausible", "Possible", and "Impossible" through dice or whatever), the players would just be pulling crazy illusion-shattering enjoyment-destroying stuff every time they got narrative control.  Of course, I responded with "Well, can't you just trust your players only to do things that improve the shared experience?", and the response was "The one thing I've learned in all my years of game mastering is this - never trust the players."

I think that fear is at the heart of a lot of this - "If I let you determine what happened, you'll say something dumb happens."  Or, put less insultingly "I know you wanna choose what happens...but wait, what *I* have planned is sooooo much cooler!!"  Getting around that is all about trusting that your players' ideas are just as cool as yours.

[contracycle]

I think that there is the whole root of the problem sometimes...  GMs who just don't trust their players.

That has nothing whatsoever tyo do with the problem, it is merely rude.
Your preferences are NOT universal.

[contracycle]

That's definitely another dimension of critique; it just happens not to be the one that popped out at me this time.  I suppose it's possible that had the DM's performance been especially striking -- exquisite descriptions, evocative character portrayals -- I would have been less dissatisfied.  "Wow, what a great show!"  Of course, I'm there to do a little wowing myself.

Cool; thanks for following the point.  if I had chosen to do a scene like this, I would have also been sure to make it quite clear to you that a) the significant blow was struck by a player and b) that the news appearance was signalled as and understood to be a bit of dramatic exposition, not actual action.  Even if this style is not to your taste overall, I still think that would have been a better experience.

If it's just one-way communication, a one-man show with the players as little more than appreciative audience, then I'll stay home with the Playstation.  Not because you're wrong.  Storytelling is a valid kind of performance, absolutely.   But I think everyone at the table should get their chance.

This is irrelevant; I was defending cut-scenes, not railroading.  And nothing that I said ever ruled out other players creating things and getting their chance - that is a huge, huge, over-extension of what I said.  No whole game could possibly be one-way communication.  As for the playstation, well sure you can go home and be an appreciative audience all by your lonesome of some remote programmers art - or you can have a real social experiences with your friends and acquaintances.  Is the only valid form of karaoke - setting aside the question of whether there are any valid forms of karaoke - the group singalong?  Would you feel rendered so superfluous to observe a friend sing, if they have the voice for it?

Trust the players.  Trust the players.  Trust the players.

The issue of trust is utterly, utterly irrelevant, an appeal to fuzzy feelings instead of dealing with the problem.  If you really trusted the players you would trust me when I tell you what kind of game I like to play.  That problem is continuity of vision; there is no way two people can completely synchronise their individual visions of  an imaginary space.  And it gets exponentially worse with three people and then four people and so on.  Now that may not be important to you, but it is important to me.  "Cool" is not nearly as important as "consistent".

"Trusting the players" has become and easy and IMO lazy catechism, the equivalent of being doorstepped by some religious person asking me if I have heard the good news.  I have heard it; I wasn't that impressed; telling me again in ever more raptured tones is not going to be any more convincing.  The problem doesn't go away.

[DocMMedia]

The issue of trust is utterly, utterly irrelevant, an appeal to fuzzy feelings instead of dealing with the problem.  If you really trusted the players you would trust me when I tell you what kind of game I like to play.  That problem is continuity of vision; there is no way two people can completely synchronise their individual visions of  an imaginary space.  And it gets exponentially worse with three people and then four people and so on.  Now that may not be important to you, but it is important to me.  "Cool" is not nearly as important as "consistent".

"Trusting the players" has become and easy and IMO lazy catechism, the equivalent of being doorstepped by some religious person asking me if I have heard the good news.  I have heard it; I wasn't that impressed; telling me again in ever more raptured tones is not going to be any more convincing.  The problem doesn't go away.

I appreciate your opinion, but I can't say that I agree. As a GM, I might be looking for consistency...but consistency with what? My own thoughts of what the story is? "Trusting the players" takes the stance that the experience of game play isn't about one definitive story, but rather trying to recognize that a story can be built collaboratively. The "vision" is something that grows from interaction with the players...what kind of stories to we want to tell. I'm not saying that the GM shouldn't be a world builder and guide into some imaginary space. D&D, in particular, is a system that relies on that...which is fine. What I am saying is that in order for a high level of investment on the part of the players, there needs to be some appreciation for the kinds of stories they want to be a part of. Perhaps "Trusting the players" is an overused term. Maybe "Listen to your players" would be more on target.