[Fir Bolg] Fortune (near or maybe at) the Start, and GM Fiat.

[Rafu]

"Gamist" Fir Bolg (or the game of story-swapping)

I pretty much intended to write:
"Gamist" Fir Bolg (or the game of clever thinking)

[Simon C]

Here's the updated rules from the Mechanics chapter, which pretty much echo what you're saying here:  (Sorry about the length)

How the you decide which Gifts will affect the outcomes of scenes has a major effect on how the game will be played. There are two recommended approaches to this, and it's a good idea to choose before play starts which approach you will use.  They're not very compatible with each other. 

1: The Challenge Approach:
This is the best approach for a group who're approaching the game very much as a game, where meeting and overcoming challenges is the prime focus.  In this approach, the GM should decide which Gifts (or combination of Gifts) will resolve the scene ahead of time.  When a player activates a Gift, they say what they're trying to achieve, and the GM tells them the result of that.   The GM might want to give clues as to which Gifts are likely to succeed, especially if the players use an inappropriate Gift.  The GM determines whether the Gift will successfully resolve the scene, and what the long-term fallout of that resolution will be.  The GM may well decide that no Gift will resolve the situation, and that combat is the only option.  On the other hand, the GM may decide that only a particular Gift will work, and even combat will not get the PCs what they want.

Example Scene:
The player characters are entering the long house of a remote village.  As they walk in, the villagers look up from their tasks, with suspicion on their faces.  The PCs want food and lodging for the night.  The consequences if they fail are that they'll be forced to leave the village, and spend a hungry night in the cold.

Everyone rolls dice for their stats, and notes down how many successes they have of each type.  Then, they describe what their character is doing.
Player One: "I'll find the headman, and see if I can talk to him."
Player Two: "I'm headed straight for the cauldron.  I want to see what's for dinner."

The GM describes the hostile reaction of the villagers:  "A crowd soon forms, blocking the way to the kitchen, and murmuring threats.  The headman stands at the front of the crowd."

The players look at their successes, and at their Gifts, and talk to each other about the best course of action.  Player One rolled poorly.  She has enough successes to use her "Bear's Strength" Gift, but smashing something up isn't likely to help the situation. However, Player Two has enough successes to use his "Beguiling Ways" gift.  The player pushes forward the required number of dice, and says he's using the Gift.  He describes his character flashing a grin at the headman and saying "Cousin! I've come a long way to meet you! And what a fine village you have here! I have travelled far to taste the food cooked by your beautiful women, and drink among these brave men."  The GM checks her notes, and sees that "Beguiling Ways" is one of the Gifts she'd decided would resolve this scene.  She describes the headman looking confused at first, and then convinced.  "Welcome to the village, Cousin.  Please, help yourself to food and drink.  Will you be staying long?" The other villagers eye the PCs suspiciously.  They're not convinced, and there may be trouble later tonight.

2: The Story Approach:
This is a better approach for groups who see the game more as a story about a group of characters, rather than a game about them.  In this approach, the players decide which Gifts (or combination of Gifts) will resolve the scene.  The players say what Gifts they're using, and the outcome of using that Gift.  Any player (including the GM) has the right to veto a player's narration of what happens, if it breaks with their understanding of the setting, the power of the Gift used, or their sense of fair play.  The GM determines the long-term fallout of the Gifts used by the players.  If the players escalate to combat, they must decide what the outcome of that is – whether it achieves their goal, or some other result.  The GM, as always, will decide the long term consequences of combat.

Example Scene:
A scene using the "story" approach looks exactly the same until after the players activate Gifts:

The players look at their successes, and at their Gifts, and talk to each other about the best course of action.  Player One rolled poorly.  She has enough successes to use her "Bear's Strength" Gift, but smashing something up isn't a good idea.  They could cow the villagers into helping them, but there'd be repercussions later.  Besides, that's not how the character likes to do things. However, Player Two has enough successes to use his "Beguiling Ways" gift.  The player pushes forward the required number of dice, and says he's using the Gift.  He describes his character flashing a grin at the headman and saying "Cousin! I've come a long way to meet you! And what a fine village you have here! I have travelled far to taste the food cooked by your beautiful women, and drink among these brave men." He describes how the headman is won over by his convincing half-truth, welcoming them into the village.  The GM takes on the role of the headman, saying "Welcome to the village, Cousin.  Please, help yourself to food and drink.  Will you be staying long?" She describes the other villagers eyeing the PCs suspiciously.  They're not convinced, and there may be trouble later tonight.

If the players feel that they're unable to achieve their goal, either because they don't have any appropriate Gifts, or because they didn't roll enough successes to use the Gifts they have, the players have two choices.  They can either accept the consequences of failure, or, if the situation permits, they can escalate to combat.  Escalating to combat means drawing weapons, it automatically changes the goal of the player characters, and usually changes the consequences of failure for a scene as well.  See "setting stakes' in the combat section.  It's perfectly ok to escalate to combat right at the start of a scene.

[Rafu]

Still, if you want this game to be "gamist" (or if you want it to be "narrativist", for that matter) I believe you need to get ride of GM fiat as the core underlying "mechanic".
Thus, you can't just describe "Challenge" and "Story" as "approaches": this does not resolve any authority issues and ultimately asks for an omnipotent GM.
I still think "Challenge" and "Story" should be mutually exclusive "modes": the gaming group as a whole chooses one or the other before they start playing, and stick with that. It may be possible to change "mode" in between sessions, alright, but never *while actually playing*.

In addition, I insist that:

• "Challenge" approach/mode requires the GM to actually write down the "solution(s)". Any advanced "hints" (or at least the Gifts that lead to them when activated) should be written down as well: in a "gamist" mode, there has to be an "objective" challenge that players either succeed at or fail at, the GM acting as a "referee" and not being enabled to help them nor to hinder them in any way once the challenge is issued.


• "Story" approach/mode would be funnier with some limitation to a players ability to create narration, to a GM's power to interfer (preferably very limited) and especially a way to adjudicate who narrates when (who can activate Gifts when).

[Simon C]

Hey Rafu,

Thanks for your input! I really appreciate you challenging me on this one, and coming back with such great ideas.

You're spot on that I need to explain these as mutually exclusive modes that the group decides upon before play starts - not a wishy-washy thing that can be tinkered with by the GM.  That's kind of what I was aiming at, but you've convinced me to use stronger language to underline that.

I think writing down the challenge ahead of time, including any "hints" is probably a good idea, but I wonder if that would work out in actual play.  I'm worried about this becoming a game of "guess the GM".  If there are a set number of Gifts that will resolve the scene, it's just a dice-roll and a guess as to whether the scene works out or not.  That's not immensely satisfying to me, so I wanted some recourse for coming up with a good idea, and having that benefit the players somehow.   I'm not sure though.

I'm toying with the idea of pinning down narration rights in the "Story" mode, but I'm not sure if it's essential.  In practice I've found groups are very good at coming up with their own balance of what works with narration, and I don't think I need to interfere with that unless it becomes a problem during playtesting. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that would work better as a more general guideline, rather than a strict rule? I think the descriptions of the Gifts provide a reasonable limit to what the players can narrate, and the veto thing should hopefully prevent Rube-Goldberg narrations like "I smash the wall which frightens the guards who run into the hut and trip over the washstand which spills on the map and ruins the invasion plans."(Which is otherwise perfectly allowed).  I kind of like the balance of power between players and the GM at this point, where the players are able to resolve the scene almost without restriction, but the GM is free to come up with complications that result from that. 

What do you think?