[Savage Worlds] New thinking on old style of play

[Simon C]

Hi!  I'm new 'round these parts so please forgive me if I've missed some forum rules, and for starting off with a hefty post.

Recently I finished a long running series of games using the Savage Worlds rules to run a fairly generic AD&D style fantasy setting.  The games were pretty successful in terms of keeping the players happy, and the last game especially seemed a culmination of a style of GMing that I've been perfecting for a number of years.  The success of the last game got me thinking about the way I GM in a more theoretical way, and led to some new thinking (on my part), about a style of play that I always took for granted as the "natural" or "best" way to play.

First, I'll give a brief account of the way I run games, and the final game of the series, and then I'll talk about the issues it raised for me and the possible wider implications.

I try not to influence players' decisions about their own characters.  That is, in the context of the game I was playing, I introduced a plot hook, an evil dragon menacing the characters' homeland.  The players, by virtue of my explicit instructions to this effect, felt free to either pursue or leave this plot hook, or at least, I hope they did.  I explained that this was the way this game would work, and that they should base these kinds of decisions entirely on their own prefereances, and on their character's probable actions. 

The players, responding to their own interest in the plot hook, and their characters' motivation to save their homeland, chose to investigate.

I introduced various complications to their defeat of the dragon.  Key was the fact that the dragon was immortal by virtue of a magic spear, which conveyed immortality to all who touched it, without granting them the ability to heal damage.  Consequently, the dragon, having survived decades of war, looked quite a mess.  The spear was the only way to kill the Dragon.

In the ensuing quest to find this spear, one of the characters was mortally wounded.

My practice with combat, and in fact with most "roll dice to see if you succeed" situations, is to set the stakes (the consequences for failure, the rewards of success) and the odds (what needs to be rolled to succeed) ahead of time, either informing the players of these before hand, or not, depending on what seems more exciting/appropriate.  So the players/characters entered the fight knowing that if the dice went against them, the result would probably be death for their characters.  In the event, one character was mortally wounded, but they managed to escape from the fight.

Then there was a quandary.  Would they be able to reach the Spear of Immortality before the character died?  There was no "map" for this situation, no one to appeal to except the GM.  I decided that to have any chance at all, it would have to be one lightly armoured person, running the whole way, and that it would require a dice roll (Vigor in SW) to succeed.  Failure would mean not making it in time, success would mean reaching the spear in time to make it back and save the dying hero.  The players at this stage were digging this completely, and all eyes were on the dice roll, which was a success.  (One of the things I like about SW is that you can introduce this kind of critical roll with a reasonable expectation that the player will use metagame re-rolls to succeed if they really want to). 

So the solo character had an epic running scene, fought off the guardians of the spear, escaped a collapsing cave, and made it back in time to get the wounded fella back on his feet, albeit with an unhealable chest wound.

So, in the final showdown with the Dragon, we had a situation in which one of the characters could not be killed, but the help of the other characters would significantly increase his chances of success.  What followed was a tense situation, in which the players discussed what they would do, how they'd spend what would probably be their last day alive.  The immortal character had realised that the death of the dragon would end the power of the spear (something that had been determined from the outset, but never realised).  His character spent the day with his son, who he had only just acknowledged.  Another character was drawn to a meeting with an evil NPC, and offered a choice: Stay with the heroes and die uselessly, or leave with her, and fight another day.  Unexpectedly, he chose to leave. This provoked outbursts of surprise from the other players, and me.  They felt betrayed, let down.  But everyone agreed it was "awesome".

Finally, they fought the dragon.  It's minions had caused a few wounds, and in the end they were drawn to fighting on a cliff edge, the dragon clinging to the edge of the cliff, and leaning over to breathe fire on them.  The character with the spear had made several futile attempts ot hit it in its exposed head, but with no success.  He decided that his best chance was to make a strike at the body - by leaping off the cliff!

The stakes were enormous.  On the one hand, the character died, taking the one hope of killing the dragon with it.  The homeland would be ravaged, their deaths in vain.  The betraying character would have been right.  The dying man should have stayed with his son.  On the other hand, they would have taken out the dragon against incredible odds, saved their homeland, proved the betrayer wrong, and those who died would have died saving their loved ones.

The dice rolled...

...and the blow struck home!  The dragon was felled, and the two fell together to their deaths.

Everyone agreed that this was the most awesome thing that'd ever happened, in the whole world.

So I was thinking about what made this so awesome, and I guess what I'm thinking about is this:  Tension between successful outcomes (however you define that) and unsuccessful ones, where there is a real chance of the unsuccessful outcome occurring, is generally fun, and gets more fun the higher the stakes are. 

This seems pretty basic to my understanding of what makes a fun game for me, but I haven't seen much discussion of this kind of thing here.  I guess my questions are:

Is this an illusion? Does the existance of a GM with power over game events preclude (or diminish) the possibility of an unsuccessful outcome to the point where any tension is only percieved?  For example, in the above game, it seems like the final blow against the dragon could have gone either way, but you could also argue that I had engeneered the situation to be an almost certain win for the players, especially given the way SW works often allowing critical rolls to succeed.  More significantly, in the case of racing to reach the spear, I pretty obviouly engeneered that situation so that  there was a good chance of success.  There was no "guide", so I basically made up the odds.  Do the seemingly small choices I make as a GM, like "they'll run away now", or "he won't make the death blow, he'll fight your buddy". Make a large impact to the chances of failure?  Am I always just "making up the odds", or can the player genuinely feel they had a chance of failure and chance of success that was influenced by their decisions?

More interestingly: Are there any specific techniques that can be used to highlight, increase, or otherwise improve these moments of tension?  Either by increasing the stakes, or by making the outcome less subject to being occluded by the intervention of the GM.  I think for example that the "fortune in the middle" technique discussed in this forum is an excellent way of doing this.  Are there more?

My last point is more of an intangible.  My best moments of roleplaying, have for me, been times when the dice seemed to take choices out of my hands, to throw up situations I wouldn't have thought of, to turn simple things into complex encounters, or to make opportunities where no hope existed.  The above situation of the mortally wounded character within reach of the immortality spear is an example of this.  I had not planned on one of the characters using the power of the spear, it just happened because that was the players reaction to what the dice threw up.  It ended up having a major impact on the game, and left a bittersweet note at the end that was fitting to a game that had largely been about an attempt to be heroic in a complex world.  A note that was entirely fitting, but entirely unplanned.

My question is:  What are other people's experience of this? Are there game designs which take advantage of this aspect of using fortune mechanics?  Are there ways of using this in a non-traditional context?  What crazy new directions can this take/has this taken?

Cheers,  and thanks for a charitable reading of my first post.

[baron samedi]

Hi Simon,

I'd agree with you that what you narrated was successful (and impressive) illusionism, and that you were lucky with dice. Feelings in your players might have been different if the PCs lost the contest and got killed. Yet you've got the right mindset; I suggest you check out John Kirk III's free book RPG Design Theory for ideas (try google), it's a jewel.

1. The Last Chronicles of Erdor as example
It also happens that your quandary is, oddly, the core premise of the role-playing game I'm in the process of finishing as of 2006, "a tragic RPG in an alien land of beauty and horror". This might give you some ideas. It's about tragedy, the weight of rulership and moral responsibility, the "price of power". In essence, I have the two parties of any challenge negotiate two stakes, then bid dice as in blackjack. The highest score wins. The trick is, a single PC (let alone 2+) has more than enough dice to win for certain against ANY opponent. The corollary is, the total of both pools measures the insuing Tragedy by steps. As such, winning the stake is not the core problem: it's deciding when to stop bidding before "bursting" and having the price paid overcome the stake.

2. Using the "tragic approach" in your games
With this approach, killing the dragon would be the stake, the collateral damage and fate of the PCs would be the price paid. So it's a bit like "Playing chicken": in your example, to kill your dragon the PCs might have accepted to killed themselves, to let a town and its innocents be destroyed, to let the virgin sacrifice be devoured, but finally to have the beast vanquished. This would have insurred that your PCs destroyed the dragon, with probably a bitter victory. Something like this could reach your goal: devise a table then add "success points" for each relevant action. Take note, however, that such a design will likely arouse guilt feelings among players, which is on purpose: the actual mechanics are based on Aristotle's theory for Greek tragedy (hubris (tragic flaw) -> peripeteia (plot twists) -> anagnorisis (realization of the dreadful truth) -> catharsis (drama and sympathy for the tragic outcome)), so it might not please your players' expectations

Regards,

Erick

[Ricky Donato]

Hi, Simon, let me begin by welcoming you to the Forge!

Simon, I'm going to begin by using some jargon here. If you can't follow, don't worry; I'm writing this for the benefit of other readers here. You can skip directly to Part 2 if you'd like.

Part 1 - No Illusionism
Based on what Simon has described here, I do not see Illusionism in any way. Illusionism is defined according to the provisional glossary as "A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features." (Emphasis mine.) I do not see any Force in Simon's description, only GM input, which is a very different (and safer) animal, because it does not deny player input. For more details on the distinction between input and Force, see Bangs&Illusionism - in which Ron beats down Confusion

However, this raises a crucial point: just because Simon has not described any Force does not mean there is none there. This leads to Part 2.

Part 2 - Getting More Info From Simon
Simon, I would like you to answer the following questions.

1) When the guy ran to find the Spear before the other character died, how do you think the other players would have reacted if the roll had failed?
2) When the guy ran to find the Spear before the other character died, what would you have done if the roll had failed?
3) When the guy jumped off the cliff to attack the dragon, how do you think the other players would have reacted if the roll had failed?
4) When the guy jumped off the cliff to attack the dragon, what would you have done if the roll had failed?

Part 3 - Simon's Questions
Simon, I will now restate your questions. You tell me if I've misunderstood them.

1a) Does a GM's input into the game render game decisions meaningless, and therefore any tension is illusionary, not real?
1b) Is your input as GM rendering game decisions meaningless, and therefore any tension is illusionary, not real?
2) What can you do to increase tension, or make tense moments more common?
3) You would like more information about the creation of suprising or unexpected events in the game fiction and how to make them more common.

Before I answer those questions, I would like your response to Part 2, and I would like confirmation from you that I have restated your questions correctly. Take your time in replying; there is no need to rush this.

[Simon C]

Thanks for a quick and insightful reply.

First:　I think that I understand the concept of illusionism, and in my play I've attempted to avoid this.  My group tends to frown pretty heavily on covert GM force, but is much more comfortable with overt GM input.  I try to prepare for any likely player choice, but we often discuss before the start of the game, or at the start of a series of games the sorts of things that will be assumed, such as that the characters will generally act "heroic" or not, the degree to which I expect them to follow plot hooks (in this case not at all, but in other cases completely), and so on.  I think the concept of Illusionism is relevant to this discussion, but not in the sense of the GM using hidden force of the players' choices.  Rather, I'm interested in the degree to which the GM can exert hidden force on seemingly random outcomes.

Now, to your questions:
1) When the guy ran to find the Spear before the other character died, how do you think the other players would have reacted if the roll had failed?

Clearly, they wouldn't have been as happy as if he had succeeded, but it wouldn't have been game destroying.  We don't have any "gentlemen's agreement" about character death.  If the dice come up that way, it's just your time, and no one tries to weasle out of it.  I think the players would have been dissapointed, but at the same time we all realise that it's the real possibility of failure that makes success worthwhile.  So, it's not desirable for it to happen, but it's desirable that it be possible.

2) When the guy ran to find the Spear before the other character died, what would you have done if the roll had failed?

That's an interesting question.  I guess in situations like this I try to salvage whatever meaning I can from the events, without altering the outcome.  So, I would have described some anxious scenes of waiting with the dying man clinging to life, cutting to the guy with the spear, clearly exhausted, struggling.  I like to describe things to my players in terms of what it would look like "in the movie", so I would have described washed out colour and sound, as the guy ran into the cave mouth where they were hiding out, only to realise he was too late, then I'd cut to the player for his character's reaction.  So, it wouldn't be the triumphant scene of success they were hoping for, but it would still be an awesome scene.

3) When the guy jumped off the cliff to attack the dragon, how do you think the other players would have reacted if the roll had failed?

Them's the breaks.  You roll with the dice and you accept the result.  Clearly, as with the example above, they wouldn't have been thrilled, but it's the price of having meaningful success.

4) When the guy jumped off the cliff to attack the dragon, what would you have done if the roll had failed?

Well, this one would be harder to salvage than the previous example, and harder to turn into a meaningful story, rather than a rather pointless tragedy.  I guess I would have tried to give some glimmer of hope to the players, that they might save at least some people.  At least the players would always remember the time they almost saved the world.

Part 3 - Simon's Questions
Simon, I will now restate your questions. You tell me if I've misunderstood them.

1a) Does a GM's input into the game render game decisions meaningless, and therefore any tension is illusionary, not real?
1b) Is your input as GM rendering game decisions meaningless, and therefore any tension is illusionary, not real?

Mmm, sort of, see below.

2) What can you do to increase tension, or make tense moments more common?

Yes.

3) You would like more information about the creation of suprising or unexpected events in the game fiction and how to make them more common.

Yes, but I don't think I was clear enough in my initial explanation.  My greatest moments in roleplaying have been when the dice have taken things out of my hands, when I have acted as an interpreter of their results.  In a sense, what I mean is that my most successful games have involved surrendering some authorship of the game to the dice, allowing them to decide not just the outcome of events, but also dictating the path the game will follow, as with the wounded character and the spear.  I mean that sometimes, it seems like there are situations where no one, not even me, knows what will happen next, and we're all participating in the game to find out where it's going.  This seems like a fundamentally different way of GMing a game to how I used to play, and I'm interested in exploring this.  Is it an illusion that no one knows what will happen next?  Or can I genuinely just interpret the results of the dice (I suspect the answer lies between these two).  What specific techniques or game designs take advantage of this idea?

[Ricky Donato]

Thanks for the clarification. Now that I understand your question better, I need a bit more information from you. You said (with emphasis added by me):

Yes, but I don't think I was clear enough in my initial explanation.  My greatest moments in roleplaying have been when the dice have taken things out of my hands, when I have acted as an interpreter of their results.  In a sense, what I mean is that my most successful games have involved surrendering some authorship of the game to the dice, allowing them to decide not just the outcome of events, but also dictating the path the game will follow, as with the wounded character and the spear.  I mean that sometimes, it seems like there are situations where no one, not even me, knows what will happen next, and we're all participating in the game to find out where it's going.  This seems like a fundamentally different way of GMing a game to how I used to play, and I'm interested in exploring this.  Is it an illusion that no one knows what will happen next?  Or can I genuinely just interpret the results of the dice (I suspect the answer lies between these two).  What specific techniques or game designs take advantage of this idea?

I'd like to know how you used to GM, and how it was different from what you do now.

[Anders Larsen]

There are two thing you are talking about here:
1) Creating a situation the character should engage in (An evil dragon menacing the characters' homeland).
2) Having the characters find their way through the situation.

Lets look at "creating the situation" first. it seems like you are trying to avoid railroading by making the plot hook optional: "You do not have to go there if you don't want to". This is something I see time to time when a GM try to be more open to player input. I do not think this approach work very well.

In most traditional rpgs it is expected that it is the GM job to create the adventures for the character. So to have an interesting game the players have to put there characters into an GM created situation to get something interesting out of the game, and then it is a problem if the GM shy away from this duty.

It may be a good idea to tell the player up front: In this game I (the GM) will throw your character into interesting and challenging situations that your characters can engage in. And be warned: I have no problem in pushing your characters to the extreme to get some intense role-play.

You may call this force, but I see it as necessary to get something interesting out of these kind of games.

The next part is how the characters can navigate their out of the situation, and here the GM have to be careful. There should be no predetermined 'one and only one' way out of the situation.

You describe things like: "The spear was the only way to kill the Dragon" and "I decided that to have any chance at all, it would have to be one lightly armoured person, running the whole way".

What would you have done if the players come up with an alternative way to handle the dragon, like: "I have high social skill, so I will confront the dragon and try to convince it to stop all the killing". Would you say "No that's impossible." Or "ok, but it will be hard."?

If you say "no", you close all other possibilities apart from the one that you have predetermined, and this is railroading. If you say "ok" you will give the control to the players to find there own way out of the situation.

So the point is: Do not be afraid to put the character into interesting and challenging situations, and don't have any predetermined way for how to solve the situation - let the players find their own way through it.

- Anders

[Simon C]

Anders: I　don't think you're really adressing the issues I raised in my post.  You make good points, but I think I already understand these issues fairly well.  For example, my players understand that if they don't follow the "Evil Dragon" plot hook, there'll be something else out there for them to do, but the Dragon won't go away.  Yes, the Spear was the only way to "Kill" the dragon.  It doesn't mean it was the only solution to the problem.  To recap, this post is not about issues of Illusionism and Railroading, it's about whether the dice can act as a creative force in themselves.

Ricky: If it sounds like I don't fully understand what I'm talking about, it's because I don't, hence me posting here.  You've asked some very good questions, and it might take me a little while to respond, while I think about it.  It sounds like you're addressing the second idea in my post, about a different attitude towards interpreting dice rolls, putting more creative onus on the dice.  This is a pretty intangible thing, and something I've only grasped at in my play. 

While I'm thinking more about this, I'd like to talk about the other issue I raised, about a way of thinking about dice rolls as "stakes + odds", with greater stakes and worse odds making for more fun, crucially, when there is a real chance of failure.  I see this as a distinct issue.  My questions regarding this are:

Is this a useful way of thinking about dice rolls?

What specific techniques make use of this?

Cheers for your help, it's been immensely useful in advancing my thinking.

Simon

[Anders Larsen]

Anders: I　don't think you're really adressing the issues I raised in my post.

I have now taken the time to read your post more carefully, and, yes, I have completely missed your point - sorry about that.

I guess what you are asking is for techniques that can drive the game to these scenes of high tension you describe, and then have it resolve in a way that everyone think is awesome.

First I should mention that I don't know anything about Savage Worlds so I do not know how much of this can be used in that game.

You are on the right track with the stakes. When you set stakes it is possible to do it so that no matter what the dice determine, the resoled will be awesome. So you can set stakes like: "If you succeed you will fend the dragon of you home, of you fail it will take your son as hostage." (I know this is not a very good example, but I hope you get the idea.) And you can of course ask for the players input to what the stakes should be.

To increase tension in a scene you can use escalation. Escalation is where you rise the stakes to a higher level. This can be done by taking something that are personally related to the character and drag it into the conflict. This can be his family or his beliefs or some secret he have or stuff like that.

Now, about the relation between stakes and odds: I would say that typically when a player escalates the conflict the odds will go down. so the more he put into the line of fire that he cares about, the better the chance are of success, but the more devastating a failure will be.

I hope this is closer to what you are after. And sorry if this seem a little confusing, my thoughts are a bit incoherent right now.

And by the way, a game that seems to do these thing well (I have only read it, not played it yet) is "With Great Power...", so you may want to take a look at that.

- Anders

[Simon C]

No probs Anders.

Escalation is an interesting idea.  I've heard it described before, but in the context of stakes and odds it makes more sense to me.  Could you say that the player of the character with the Spear chose to escalate when he opted to jump off the cliff to try to hit the dragon - improving his chance to hit while dramatically increasing the stakes?

If this is the case, it seems that for more traditional format games (such as Savage Worlds), escalation is more about providing opportunities in the plot for escalation of this type.  That's an interesting line of thought.   This could be tied to a dice mechanic, but it doesn't have to be.  For example, Savage Worlds has "bennies", meta game re-rolls that can be spent at almost any time.  You could rule that use of bennies "escalates" a situation, the player (or the GM) must renegotiate the consequences of sucess or failure to incorporate these higher stakes.  So, for example, after a failed hit roll, the player could opt to re-roll, negotiating a reduced "parry" score for the following round on a failed hit, or something more dramatic, like precariously balancing on the scenery, or whatever.  Or, to use a more "fortune in the middle" approach, the description is left until after all the dice are rolled.

It seems like escalation is more useful in a game that uses "conflict resolution" over "task resolution", because they have a less one dimensional range of outcomes, and it's more feasable to "bid" stakes from outside the conflict in a believable way.  The more I think about it, the more it seems DitV is genius.

Thanks for your comment,

Simon

[Anders Larsen]

Could you say that the player of the character with the Spear chose to escalate when he opted to jump off the cliff to try to hit the dragon - improving his chance to hit while dramatically increasing the stakes?

Yes, this is a good example of escalation. It is not necessary to tie odds into escalation, but I think it becomes more interesting that way. Your idea of escalate to get a re-roll seems to be a good approach to this - it would be interesting to see how that work.

It seems like escalation is more useful in a game that uses "conflict resolution" over "task resolution", because they have a less one dimensional range of outcomes, and it's more feasable to "bid" stakes from outside the conflict in a believable way.  The more I think about it, the more it seems DitV is genius.

Now that you mention Dogs in the Vineyard, I remembered that Vincent Baker have written in his blog about escalation: http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=260, be sure to read all the comments too. Especially notice the comment from Vincent: "Getting escalation in your game is founded on character creation, not on resolution rules." To get players to escalate a conflict they have to care about what is on stake; it have to be something their character is invested in.

So it is important to have a character creation process where the players describe what their characters care about and believe in, so the conflicts in the game can be based on that.

- Anders

[Ricky Donato]

Hi, Simon,

I can answer some of your questions now. I will agree with and expand on what Anders says. Tension is achieved through appropriate use of stakes. Let me carefully define what I mean by that.

Setup
There is a conflict that at least one player cares about. I include you the GM in that statement. Note that I did not say character; there are things that characters might care about that players do not, and vice-versa. We are interested only in the players' feelings because they are the important people; the characters are merely fictional constructs. The player who cares about this conflict (I'll call him Joe) has a goal to achieve in that conflict, such as "dig up some dirt on the bad guy". The actions that Joe's character (I'll call him Tom) takes are meant to achieve that goal, such as "crack the bad guy's safe".

So now there are two questions that need to be answered:
A) "Does Tom crack the bad guy's safe?"
B) "Does Tom find dirt on the bad guy?"

Note that A & B are completely independent questions. Tom could find dirt, or fail to find dirt, regardless of whether he cracks the safe or not. For example, he could fail to crack the safe, but still find dirt in the wastebasket; or he could open the safe, only to find it empty. Further note that the answer to question A is not relevant to Joe at all. Joe only cares about B.

Answering your questions
Your question of "Does a GM's input into the game render game decisions meaningless, and therefore any tension is illusionary, not real?" is directly related to these questions. Many rules texts provide rules for answering A but leave B completely unstated, so each group has to figure out on its own how to do that. As a result, many GMs are empowered to answer B entirely at their own discretion, which means that Joe gets what he cares about exactly when the GM decides to give it to him. Therefore Joe's enjoyment of the game is based solely on the skill of the GM; it is completely out of Joe's control.

For Joe to be interested, play must focus on B. (Note I said play, not rules text.) Ways to do this include:
1) Explicitly stating that the outcome of the roll decides the answer to B.
Joe: Tom tries to open the safe.
GM: Make an Open Locks check. If you succeed, then Tom opens the safe and finds dirt inside. Otherwise, Tom opens the safe and find nothing.

2) Ensuring that a failed roll not only ensures that Joe does not get what he cares about, but also causes problems for Joe.
Joe: Tom tries to open the safe.
GM: Make an Open Locks check. If you succeed, then Tom opens the safe and finds dirt inside. Otherwise, Tom doesn't open the safe and sets off an alarm.

3) As an addendum to #2, the more that Joe really cares about something, the tougher the consequences should be if Tom fails.
Joe: The bad guy has taken Tom's girlfriend hostage! That BASTARD! Tom shoots the bad guy.
GM: Make a Firearms check. If you succeed, then Tom shoots and kills the bad guy. Otherwise, Tom shoots and kills his girlfriend instead.

I hope that was both helpful and not too verbose. For further reading, check out Vincent Baker's blog "anyway", specifically his post on Conflict resolution.

This is a long post, so I'll leave escalation for later, if Anders hasn't already answered your questions about it.

[Storn]

I'm gonna steer a bit towards mechanics.

Savage Worlds has Bennies, which allow for a reroll.

However, I allow Bennies to do a bit more.

I allow:

1)  To add a +1 AFTER the roll is made, sometimes a Player just needs to succeed juuuust a little bit more.  that little bit of empowerment can be really nice.

2)  Narrative control.  I allow a Benny to be spent by a Player to "edit" the scene.  Of course the door, as it slams, locks.  Which will slow the orc pursuit immensely.  Of course, PC X is taking the shortcut through the ally just as PC Y gets in trouble and really could use the back up.

3)  Use Magic in unsual ways, but keeping in the spirit of the caster's persona and magical affinity.  So the Firemage could spend a benny and stop the fire in the tavern from spreading out of control.  While he has no "spell" that can do that kind of thing, the player rightly argues that it summoning a fireball, but in reverse. 


While these things seem small and tangental to the original post, I don't believe so.  If we wish to avoid railroading...by giving Players more control over the story... we open the doors to more solutions to problems, more avenues of exploration.  Limited Narrative Control also gently reminds the GM that there are more solutions than just the ones He has thought of.  But by being Limited (Bennies are a limited resource), we avoid too much chaos in the evening with the plot lines veering completely out of control.

[Storn]

Sorry.  One more thing about Limited Narrative Resource pts...

... they are a "Tell".  I've seen players do this, i've done it myself.  Spent Bennies/Fate pts/Hero pts etc on conflicts that were little "c" conflicts.  Sometimes almost frivolous skill checks, like see if my PC can sneak into the ball without an invite... not for any huge, angsty plot reason, but for a silly bet with a NPC.  Just flavor stuff.

but that flavor stuff can really be tied very closely to how a Player percieves the character.  When it is important to succeed at something just for the sake of keeping the character's perception at the table in line with what the creator thinks it should be. 

I mean, if I'm playing James Bond, not knowing which wine to order for dinner to impress the chauntreusse ain't gonna happen if I've got chits to throw.  Even if it means not having those chits later in more critical scenes.

Granted, some might say there are NO little "c" conflicts.  But that really would be thread drift.

[Simon C]

Your question of "Does a GM's input into the game render game decisions meaningless, and therefore any tension is illusionary, not real?" is directly related to these questions. Many rules texts provide rules for answering A but leave B completely unstated, so each group has to figure out on its own how to do that. As a result, many GMs are empowered to answer B entirely at their own discretion, which means that Joe gets what he cares about exactly when the GM decides to give it to him. Therefore Joe's enjoyment of the game is based solely on the skill of the GM; it is completely out of Joe's control.

This must be what going up a level feels like.  Ricky, you've nailed exactly what I was thinking about, but couldn't quite express.  I feel like my understanding is so much clearer now.

For Joe to be interested, play must focus on B. (Note I said play, not rules text.) Ways to do this include:
1) Explicitly stating that the outcome of the roll decides the answer to B.
Joe: Tom tries to open the safe.
GM: Make an Open Locks check. If you succeed, then Tom opens the safe and finds dirt inside. Otherwise, Tom opens the safe and find nothing.

2) Ensuring that a failed roll not only ensures that Joe does not get what he cares about, but also causes problems for Joe.
Joe: Tom tries to open the safe.
GM: Make an Open Locks check. If you succeed, then Tom opens the safe and finds dirt inside. Otherwise, Tom doesn't open the safe and sets off an alarm.

I find these answers a little unsatisfying though.  On paper, this style of play looks good, and it may work for you, but my players, I think, would balk at their characters "warping reality" with a good skill roll.  In example 1, it seems like Tom's skill is not "open lock", but "make dirt appear in safes".  Example 2 would work better for my players, but would still be unsatisfying.  Sometimes, you want your character to find nothing.  In this case, it looks like the real conflict is between multiple factors: Tom's ability to open locks vs. the safe's ability not to be opened, Tom's ability to locate proof of dirt vs. the bad guy's ability to hide it, and Tom's ability to sniff out the existance of dirt vs. the bad guy's (probably poor) ability to keep his nose clean. 

I think it'll take a while for me to think about how the points you've raised can best be implimented in my games, but thanks for expressing this point so clearly to me.  In the meantime, I'd like to talk about another possibility.  In your example, you provide:

So now there are two questions that need to be answered:
A) "Does Tom crack the bad guy's safe?"
B) "Does Tom find dirt on the bad guy?"

What about:
C) "Does Tom find something else entirely in the safe, and what is it?"

Or in the example of my game, in the fight on the way to retrieve the spear, there were two questions:

A) "Do the PCs survive the fight?"
B) "Do they get to the Spear?"

but the answer was:

C) "One of the PCs is mortally wounded and now there's a race to get to the Spear in time, and one of the PCs might become a kind of zombie thing".

So I guess what I'm talking about is the possibility for dice mechanics to raise questions, rather than just answer them.  Is this interesting?  Where can this go?


Storn: Hi! I thought I recognised your name from the SW forum! Those are some interesting ideas about bennies.  I'll definitely think more about these.

[Barlennan]

The 'warping reality' you mention made my head hurt when I first read about the concept too, but it's a crucial part of many of the games discussed here.

Previous posts have touched on the matter that, succeed or failure, outcomes should be interesting.  The difference between a good and a bad conflict is often not in the statement but in the outcomes.

Conflict to get spear
Succeed: PCs get the spear and can move on the dragon.
Failure: PCs don't get the spear.
This is a bad conflict.

Conflict to get spear
Succeed: PCs get the spear and can move on the dragon.
Failure: PCs get the spear, but some are mortally wounded.
This is a good conflict.

In the example of opening a safe, there are many ways to have a good failure; what's important is that failure does just mean that the safe remains locked and nothing happens.