Player Narration and GM Secrets

[Jay Turner]

Hmmm...

Okay, but what if the villain has some strange magical effect that, say, makes him intangible? How would you handle it when the PC's narrated actions couldn't happen?

I don't want to hijack the thread to talk about my game (which I haven't debuted yet precisely because it needs more work on these issues), but in this case, the villain's Intangiability power would modify his Defense and would likely be the reason he would win narration. If he still lost, then maybe he didn't activate the power in time, maybe he didn't manage to go completely intangiable, etc. Either way, if the hero won narration, he won narration. If the villain had been intangiable at the beginning of the page, the hero likely wouldn't have attacked him the same way.

Like I say, my system needs work, and this isn't the place to detail it. But that's my theory on how I'd do it.

[Mike Holmes]

Stuart,

"Least costly" in terms of what? Player conceeding power, or GM conceeding power? Or both? Or something else?

Mike

[szilard]

Mike,

I knew you were going to ask that...

I refrained from specifying because, I suppose, minimizing cost in one area is going to increase the cost elsewhere. To a point, this is unavoidable. My goals here, though, are (in no particular order):

*Provide GM control over some facts
*Empower players with rights to narrate their PCs actions
*Minimize, where possible, obstructions to the flow of play
*Ensure that any mechanism utilized doesn't impair any party's fun

So, I guess, "both" and "something else."


Stuart

[Mike Holmes]

*Provide GM control over some facts
*Empower players with rights to narrate their PCs actions
*Minimize, where possible, obstructions to the flow of play
*Ensure that any mechanism utilized doesn't impair any party's fun

The last one isn't an issue, really. There are games that allow no player narration. Are they less fun because the player's "right" to narrate has been infringed upon? No split is inherently more or less fun than another. It's the implementation of the split.

So, when you say, "some facts" what does that mean? Are these concrete details about the world? Or just ideas for where the plot is going in general? How often would these come up (I was going to ask what percentage of facts were "hard" but that's an absurd question)? That is, how many times a session is a player going to bump up on one of these facts? Once? Ten times?

If the answer is similarly vague (like anything the GM chooses, whenever he chooses it), then you really are trying to have it both ways. The standard way around this is to just state that there are areas of inviolability. This might break the suspense, but in another way it might enhance it. So you might say, "Once you find Dr. Darkness, you can't narrate anything about his powers until I reveal them."

This leaves it the GMs responsibility to make his limits clear enough that mistakes do not occur. That way, he never has to use his implied veto.

Is that illuminating at all?

There was a thread by Pale Fire that went over all this previously that I can't find. Exact same question.

Mike

[Valamir]

Stu, can we back up on step.

What about the more traditional Dramatic Editing rules of Adventure! aren't meeting your needs.  Right now that seems like the ideal solution for you, but if its not, can you explain why?

By this I mean a very basic:  Step 1) Here is the basic boundaries of the scope that the players are allowed to narrate, Step 2) Subject to the GM's approval / veto / editing.

That way the GM can step in at the point where a secret is being violated and tweak things as necessary.

[szilard]

*Provide GM control over some facts
*Empower players with rights to narrate their PCs actions
*Minimize, where possible, obstructions to the flow of play
*Ensure that any mechanism utilized doesn't impair any party's fun

The last one isn't an issue, really. There are games that allow no player narration. Are they less fun because the player's "right" to narrate has been infringed upon? No split is inherently more or less fun than another. It's the implementation of the split.

Well, I think it is always an issue. Sometimes it is easy for me to get so carried away trying to solve a problem that I create others. For instance, I don't want to put limits on any of the players (including the GM) that they might find so restrictive that they wouldn't be having fun.

So, when you say, "some facts" what does that mean? Are these concrete details about the world? Or just ideas for where the plot is going in general? How often would these come up (I was going to ask what percentage of facts were "hard" but that's an absurd question)? That is, how many times a session is a player going to bump up on one of these facts? Once? Ten times?

If the answer is similarly vague (like anything the GM chooses, whenever he chooses it), then you really are trying to have it both ways.

Well, the answer necessarily has a certain degree of vagueness to it, but I don't think it is as vague as all that. Typically, I would imagine that such things would appear no more than a couple times in any particular story arc, but it would vary with the GM's capabilities and style.

The standard way around this is to just state that there are areas of inviolability. This might break the suspense, but in another way it might enhance it. So you might say, "Once you find Dr. Darkness, you can't narrate anything about his powers until I reveal them."

This leaves it the GMs responsibility to make his limits clear enough that mistakes do not occur. That way, he never has to use his implied veto.

Is that illuminating at all?

Almost.

I think what I'd love to see are some examples (actual play?) of a GM making those limits clear.

There was a thread by Pale Fire that went over all this previously that I can't find. Exact same question.

I'll have to look for it.

Stuart

[Mike Holmes]

The problem, Ralph is that his system won't allow for it. It's like The Pool in that the player can choose to try for Narration at any time. No metagame points to limit them.

Stuart, it limits are a problem, play Freeform. Don't want to do that? Then you have to agree that limits are, counterintuitively, empowering. So don't worry. Players agree to the limits of these games because they believe that the limits make for a better game. So if they're playing, you've already won that basic battle. You only have to worry about honing the specifics.

How about giving the GM some metagame currency that he can use to take away player narration when he's afraid that they'll use it to disrupt a secret? Say four points a session or somesuch. Then when he spends the players understand that they're being limited in order to preserve some of the GM's well-crafted ideas. Call 'em Villain Points.

What about that?

Mike

[szilard]

How about giving the GM some metagame currency that he can use to take away player narration when he's afraid that they'll use it to disrupt a secret? Say four points a session or somesuch. Then when he spends the players understand that they're being limited in order to preserve some of the GM's well-crafted ideas. Call 'em Villain Points.

What about that?

Mike

Well, that is more-or-less what my plan has been, though I hadn't considered making it session-based. Rather, I was going to give important NPCs (and events and such) Plot Points of their own (relative to their importance), which could be used for a few things - including buying back narration.

Unfortunately, I'm not wholly satisfied with this solution. It may just be some weird aesthetic preference... or maybe I have to write more before it will all fall into place. In any case, I was looking for alternatives.


Stuart

[Valamir]

The problem, Ralph is that his system won't allow for it. It's like The Pool in that the player can choose to try for Narration at any time. No metagame points to limit them.

The key is not metagame points.  The key is "subject to GM approval".

I've yet to see any example at which this simple rule wouldn't completely solve the problem.  Is it simply a desire to avoid this at all costs?

I mean is the issue really not "how to manage secrets in the face of players ability to narrate"

but rather "how to manage secrets in the face of completely 100% totally limitless, can say anything they want without boundaries ability to narrate?"

If the latter, I'd come down on the side of...impossible.
If the former, I'm stuck at "what's wrong with GM veto?"

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is going to cut through this knot, but I feel the following needs to be said:

Narration is not power.

Note that as long as the players only create narration out of the "reality" already established, there is no problem.  Note that in Ron's experience with the Pool, player's narrate color, but don't go around creating "world-breaking" facts willy nilly.

I know this is a big hobby concern.  It's why Director stance sends tremors down the spine of some GMs and the idea of passing around Narration seems radical to the point of inanity.... but the truth is, most folks don't really want to break the world or the story.  And those that do you can make an explicit contract with ("No breaking the reality of what has come before; build only on what has come before.")

Director stance, Author stance, Actor stance and the power to narrate only change the manner in which the player interacts with the reality of a fictional moment.  The reality is relatively stable.

My point: it's really, really not a big deal.  It.  Just.  Isn't.  (If you're terrified of it, it is; but in practice, it seems not to be.)

If the players start recreating reality during narration, they're not narrating, they're... Well, let's call it Playwrighting.  Playwrighting is Power.

Playwrighting in is bad in a scene.  It's when the movie stops cold as we get a monologue about how the strange new ways of a future earth came to be.

It's good *outside* of a scene.  It's all the stuff the writer knows to be true and uses when writing.  It's also good in OOC discussions during and RPG.  ("I know.  He's my father!"  All at the table nod in agreement, and the scene continues.)

****

I just played my first game of Universalis last week.  (Thanks for the great game guys!  I can't wait to play again!)  I saw plenty of playwrighting occurring -- on the index cards, when people paid coins for them outside of the scene.  But when I tried to shoehorn some exposition into a scene -- I mean, stop a scene cold so new fact could be introduced to clarify the world's reality, the story stopped cold.

So, too here.  If the players narrate their actions without trying to introduce new reality, all is well.

*****

I suspect that this ties into hyphz information/revelation concerns.  A lot of adventure design hinges on the players getting "exposition" from an NPC one way or another.  But exposition is bad.  It stops the story.  The story is the character taking action.  

If a character beats the snot out of an NPC to get information (or lifts him by the neck and chokes him, his legs dangling) the character makes a choice on how to behave.  That's what matters.  If his victim doesn't spill the beans is the game over?  No.  He goes on to beat up the next person he *thinks* can help him.  Getting the information isn't the key.  *How* the character gets the information is.  

As the story progresses there should be consequences to his beating the snot out of everybody.  He might change his way in response to these consequences, or get gunned down by the cops.  I don't care.  But he's not waiting for the right bit of exposition.  He's revealing himself by moving forward no matter what.  But none of these choices effect the nature of the game world's reality.  

****

So anyway.  Playwrighting vs. Narration.  That's the important distinction I'm making.  I think there's something useful there.

Christopher

[szilard]

The key is not metagame points.  The key is "subject to GM approval".

I've yet to see any example at which this simple rule wouldn't completely solve the problem.  Is it simply a desire to avoid this at all costs?

I mean is the issue really not "how to manage secrets in the face of players ability to narrate"

but rather "how to manage secrets in the face of completely 100% totally limitless, can say anything they want without boundaries ability to narrate?"

If the latter, I'd come down on the side of...impossible.
If the former, I'm stuck at "what's wrong with GM veto?"

Ralph,

It is the former, but I think that I'm a bit confused about how this would play out in some cases.

Here's a really simple combat example:

The PC, a wily swordsman, is up against his opponent, a powerful (and paranoid) wizard. Now, the GM wants the wizard to have some secret magical effects prepared for emergencies (paranoid, remember?). The player gets narration. The player, of course, doesn't know about these magical contingencies, so they might never appear in the combat if the player keeps narration throughout it. The GM could interject and add things, but there's nothing really to veto.


Stuart

[Mike Holmes]

Chris, it can even happen with color. And completely accidentally.

Let's say the secret is "Tim is a woman".

Bob's narrates his character Grimdahl in a brawl with Tim, and says, "In the fight, Grimdahl tears off Tim's shirt revealing Tim's hairy chest."

Now, either the GM has to veto, or he has to allow it to stand somehow (meaning either Tim's a very unusual woman, or Tim's a guy; secret blown).

The "problem" with GM veto is that it's ugly. Has to happen after the narration.

"Um, sorry, nope, Tim's got boobs."

These are far from insurmountable. But I can see how Stuart might want to see if there's something better.

Seems to me that if the secrets are as far and few between, that the GM should just be able to demark "do not trample" areas.

That said, from another perspective, Stuart, I can totally agree with the othe guys here that you're chasing shadows. That is, it's just not likely to be a problem so often that Veto isn't a good option. Or whatever mewthod. I think you just have to decide what's least objectionable, and get on with it.

Mike

[Valamir]

Lets say the magical contingency is an amulet that permits the Wizard to teleport out of danger.

Player:  The wizard fires off a bolt of eldritch energy which hits the hero's sword melting it to slag.  He hurls the superheated stump of metal at his foe who get's singed as it passes through his hair.  Taking advantage of the distraction the hero leaps forward and throttles the wizard who falls into unconciousness at his feet.

<interruption>

GM:  Just as the wizard's vision starts to fade he reaches up and clutches a medalion on a chain around his neck.  The hero finds his hand grasping nothing.  The Wizard is gone.


Now this is where the suggestion I made earlier about having such secrets written out on 3x5 cards comes in.  In order for this not to sound like the GM ripping off the players MOV (or whatever) the cards provide a "I'm not making this up, its what the wizard would have done" moment.

The card (or whatever) serves just like an Interrupt card from Once Upon a Time.  "Aha...I have a matching card, I can seize the narrative here"

That sound doable?

[Walt Freitag]

The PC, a wily swordsman, is up against his opponent, a powerful (and paranoid) wizard. Now, the GM wants the wizard to have some secret magical effects prepared for emergencies (paranoid, remember?). The player gets narration. The player, of course, doesn't know about these magical contingencies, so they might never appear in the combat if the player keeps narration throughout it. The GM could interject and add things, but there's nothing really to veto.

If a player can "keep narration" exclusively for extended periods then you have a problem regardless of whether or not there are GM secrets. That's just not very functional (1), just like a GM narrating a whole sequence of events without the player-characters having a chance to act would not be very functional. (Not to mention, what are the other players doing while the first player "keeps narration?")

Without the possibility of anyone keeping exclusive narration rights, it's no longer a problem. Either the wizard's contingency prevents a player-narrated event from occurring (in which case it's a GM veto), or it doesn't (in which case the GM narrates the action of the contingency after the player's narrated action is completed).

- Walt

(1) Edited to add: To be more precise, it's not compatible with the customary player ownership of PCs and GM ownership of NPCs that permits such secrets in the first place. Didn't mean to imply that systems that allocate narration rights in a manner that allows one participant to control narration for an extended period are necessarily dysfunctional.

[Le Joueur]

How about this?  Draw really explicit lines of 'ownership.'  Whenever a narrative, the gamemaster's or a player's, goes to cross one of these lines, it comes up short.

'...Grimdahl pulls at Tim's shirt hard enough to rip it,' says the player.
'Tim's shirt tears revealing a surprisingly feminine torso,' responds the gamemaster.[/list:u]
'...He hurls the superheated stump of metal at his foe's hair. Taking advantage of the distraction the hero leaps forward to throttle the wizard.'
'Having ducked the singeing slag, the wizard finds his air supply cut off; the instant before losing consciousness he reveals a medalion on a chain around his neck. The hero finds his hand grasping nothing. The Wizard is gone.'[/list:u][/list:u]Each is sovereign over their domain.  It takes a while getting used to saying, "I kick at his head" instead of "I kick his teeth in."  I've found the task-resolution side of things very important for 'forcing the hand' of the receiver.  (As in "Hmm, five points huh?  Well, I'll take three as damage and two as a wound that will create a vicious scar, ruining my appearance and lighting a vendetta.  'I get you for that Locksley!'")

Is that a potential solution?

Fang Langford