Walt Freitag wrote:
I'm one of the Forge's most outspoken advocates and (if I do say so myself) innovative practitioners of high-Force techniques. I'd love to participate in discussion such techniques with you, especially because they also relate to my work in computer games and other interactive media where the limitations of the media necessitate a high degree of Force in order to have any measure of "story aesthetics" in the outcome.

I have experiences with four different forms within roleplaying games:

Postal roleplaying is quite heavy with game master directions.

Computer roleplaying is as heavy as postal roleplaying, but it's not as visible.

Tabletop roleplaying has these techniques to a varying degree, depending on the game and the style of the game master. It tends to be used less than in computer and postal games though.

Live action roleplaying make little to no use of such techniques. The larps using them are the ones very close to tabletop games in the way they are played out (not common in Scandinavia).

I tend to be conceived as a game master using these techniques very much, by those who have not played with me. This is due to my advocacy of these techniques, not my actual use of them. I've called them railroading techniques, but due to recent discussions I will not use this term any more. I've also called them "feeding techniques", as pertaining to the techniques used by the game master to feed conflicts and to feed (or starve) the complexity of character choices.

I've used these techniques a lot, but not in all games I have GMed. I have led a lot of different roleplaying games, and designed almost all of them myself (a fair share of games). I've made use of a lot of different techniques, and a variety of techniques in combination. I'm all for using the most effective and creative technique in any given instance, in a quest for the ultimate goal of the game.

OK. That's my background.

To start the discourse on this issue, I will try to describe a experiment made by me and my helpers, at a games convention two years ago, in Oslo, Norway. In my fantasy roleplaying game Fabula, I made three linked scenarios for the convention, to be played by the same players, with the same characters in various stages of their education. The scenarios placed the players as students at a magic university. Each game master made himself a main NPC-character, being the mentor of the students.

The scenarios was delivered to the game masters in the weeks before the convention, in the form of a voluminous scenario book for them to read, including the new setting and the special method, and a full day meeting where one scenario was played through, the mentors were made, and the method was discussed. The reason for this discussion was of course the special method invented for the scenarios.

I called the method impressionistic roleplaying. It takes place within the framework of my FRPG Fabula, which is quite traditional in method (using a die, stats and skills, etc.). However; in this instance the method had some special features added on.

It is meant to be directed by the game master with as much in-character talk as possible, with heavy use of gesticulation and mimicry, with no table between players (they sat on the floor or on chairs, in a ring). The game master was meant to stand up every time he talked in character (and expecting that of players too). The GMs were instructed to close in on the players, touching them, "threathening" them with gesticulation, confronting them with his physical presence in various ways. They were instructed to do this from the very start, starting before the players had seated themselves, before the characters were distributed.

The idea was to make the players realize that this is something quite different, forcing them to reinvent their way of playing, as play continued (you may call it "shocking players into acceptance"). The desired effect was accomplished in five of six groups (none of them led by me), and made for some great gaming sessions (many players contacted me later on, being very enthusiastic about the experience). The last group failed due to the game master not being equal to the task (he admitted this himself).

The reason I named this impressionstic roleplaying was that as the game progressed, the game master would routinely cut scenes of conflict in the initial stages, transporting the characters to a scene some time later (the immediate conflict aftermath, or one hour later, perhaps the next day, or a whole week later...). This new scene was always introduced as the first oportunity the characters had to talk about what happened in the conflict in the disrupted scene. Then the game master let the players talk, in character, about what happened. They were instructed (if need arose) to take their cue from the intial stages of the conflict, but to invent the rest of the conflict themselves, with an outcome as they saw fit. The game master would rectify details pertaining to the NPCs, feed some details of the conflict (giving them new elements to pertain to, elements of surprise, or changing basics of the scene. In some of these scenes the game master chose to introduce the mentor, to participate in the discussion of the characters (if they let him). In some of these scenes the game master limited himself to the play of servants, unexpected visitors, short comments about the day growing darker, the characters becoming hungry, or other atmospheric dandruff (the game master feeding the underlying atmosphere, rather than conflict).

The action scenes was limited to function as a part of the scene framing for the dialectic scenes, and as such they functioned perfectly.
The introduction of an action scene introduced the main opponents, and perhaps some first crisis, and then play was transported to the dialectic scene, leaving it to the players to work out the further flow and/or ebb of conflict, and the details of the outcome, in character (characters in dialogue on the conflict and it's significance). The dialectic scenes were used to invent the conflicts in an atmosphere of creative playfulness, due to the evident survival of all the characters. Due to the survival of all characters, all players were free to inflict damage and grave consequences on eachothers characters, teasing and toying with eachother in an atmosphere of complete confidence. It made for some great invetiveness by the players, and great gameplay.

That's my experience with impressionistic roleplaying, described in a general manner (some of the detailed techniques omitted, or only hinted on). I've not used the complete method since then. I have used some of it's special features in singular game sessions, succeeding with some of them, and not quite pulling it off with others. Some of the techniques is dependent of the special impressionistic framework to function well.

Any comments? Similar experiences? I'd like to have a discourse on these techniques, and similar ones, so feel free to contribute...

I've got a quick question about your terminology. You speak of "postal roleplaying". I'm assuming that you mean what is commonly called (in English) Play-by-Mail (PbM) or Play-by-E-Mail (PbEM) games. There are also what are called Play-by-Post (PbP) games which are sometimes called Forum Games, played on a bulletin board style format (like this one) which are similar but not the same.

I ask in part because I've not seen much referee force used in our forum games, although that might be because Multiverser play allows a great variation in the use of such techniques and tends to be rather responsive to player interests more so than to referee decisions (although referees do have a great deal of control if they choose to exercise it). My PbEM play is minimal (and again limited to Multiverser, and not high in referee force), and my PbM experience non-existent.

So I'm wondering what you meant by "postal".

I'll mention in passing that although I like the word "postal", due to events in recent U.S. history "going postal" has come to mean completely losing control and killing a bunch of people when you can't take it anymore (reference to a U.S. Postal Service worker who did this some years back), so a lot of people are going to find the correct usage odd.

--M. J. Young

Tomas, this is great stuff. But unless I'm misinterpreting what you're describing, I might have a surprise for you: this doesn't strike me as particularly high in Force.

GMs getting in the players' faces (as Americans would say), that is, getting physically close to the players, touching them, gesticulating: certainly an unusual way of interacting, but it doesn't appear to have any intent in it as regards the player-characters' choices or actions.

Player-characters unable to be killed, because the action (at least at the peak of the conflict) is told in a sort of flashback: this certainly is a limitation on the import of player-characters' decisions -- they cannot kill one another no matter what -- but if that constitutes Force it's of a very mild strain. Something that perhaps should be discussed is where the dividing line is between "GM Force" and (if there is such a thing) "system Force." In AD&D (any variety), for example, no one would say a GM was using Force by not permitting player-characters to start at tenth level or by limiting spell-casters to casting only spells they know. Those are limitations on players' and characters' choices, but they're not Force as far as I know. Similarly, not being able to kill PCs is not an unusual restriction in role playing games, variously encountered as a rule in the game text (e.g. InSpectres) or as a house rule (e.g. "no PvP").

The Scene Framing Technique of cutting away from the conflict and exploring its outcome from a future retrospective perspective: this doesn't seem like very much Force at all.

Then the game master let the players talk, in character, about what happened. They were instructed (if need arose) to take their cue from the intial stages of the conflict, but to invent the rest of the conflict themselves, with an outcome as they saw fit.

I posted this late at night, after a prolonged birthday celebration. In hindsight I do see that force don't enter into it any more than in a normal game. The reason may be that I'm more into scene framing and feeding techniques myself, using force only when a scene or theme call for it specifically.

I do hold feeding techniques to be related to force though, as they are used to manipulate conflicts, serving complications to the premises by which the characters act. I do not state that a choice may not be made, but at best of times I've managed to get whole groups to go from one choice, to the opposite one, and back, alternating who is the spokesman of either choice, within the course of one scene. It's been done using feeding techniques, manipulating the premises by which each individual of the groups enters into the conflict.

One of my groups came up with this proverb; If the game master open his mouth, clasp your hands over your ears!

So, how do I do this?

Example of feeding techniques at play:
The characters need to decide what to do with their captives, one woman and her two children, captured in the woods. They don't want to kill them, and they can't set them free (them being witnesses and all, the characters being look-outs for the hidden march of an army). One of them propose that they should bind the prisoners to a tree. I let the woman wail, accusing them for feeding her and her children to the wolves. They gag her, and continue discussion (no binding to the tree, though). To kill them seems to be the easy way out, but I'm not one for serving it on a platter.

Serious feeding is initiated: A note to the witch-character states that killing the captives includes burying them, if they're not to turn into ghosts, hunting the souls of the characters (sic). Children ghosts are known to be the worst souleaters... It's winter, the ground is frozen, and stones to bury them by is far off (hauling them through the snow, on snowshoes, is near impossible). A note to another player, states that the two children is of the same age as the younger siblings of his character (one girl and one boy, he remember their faces last autumn, eagerly waiting for him to tell about his heroic deeds...). A third note, to the military leader of the character group, reminds him that not killing them will be a serious breach of orders, placing the whole idea of this wintermarch into jeopardy (his girlfriend marching with the bulk of the army).

I lean back, watchin the forces unfold. The players are free to handle the situation in any way they choose, to free their characters from any personal or situational premises given. There is no interruptions by outside personas. They are alone in the woods. However; as few players are enthusiastic about the killing of children (even though it is a game, I'm good at playing frightened or unsuspecting children), mostly this situation ends up being a hot character debate, with their emotions (and player emotions equally so) becoming raw as the inevitable solution draws nearer.

The solution is of course not "inevitable", but still; I have never seen the scene ending in anything but the killing of the prisoners, and the characters hauling the corpses along on their backs, in the snow, towards the central mountains of the forest (where they may be buried by stones). The reason for this "inevitability", is the careful use of authority, and build up of loyalties, from the start of the scenario, making their army-relationship paramount to them, something they crave to be good, as good soldiers do (the brotherhood of fighting men being quite strong, and conscientiously used by modern officers). The players get caught up in the internal logics of the characters and their surroundings. They experience a need to satisfy the superiors of their characters, to fulfill their orders, and to be successful in that respect (the power of players need for success, carefully applied to trap them in the inhuman logics of the scenario).
_____________________________

That's one example of how to use feeding techniques. The theme is not the most beautiful, I admit, but it certainly goes to show how effective these techniques may be. In this instance it has given the predicted outcome every time I have led the scenario. It has given the same outcome when led by other game masters, each and every time.

"Feeding" is not used to reach a preplanned conclusion every time it is in play. It may as well be used, and more frequently so, to feed conflicts of the group in manners neutral to any outcome.

However; it may still be claimed to be an indirect way of using force, perhaps? How say you?

Tomas HVM wrote:
"Feeding" is not used to reach a preplanned conclusion every time it is in play. It may as well be used, and more frequently so, to feed conflicts of the group in manners neutral to any outcome.

However; it may still be claimed to be an indirect way of using force, perhaps? How say you?

As for the term "postal", I did not intend to "go postal" on you. It was only a convenient term for play-by-post, play-by-email, and play-by-forum games. Games with writings as the basic mode of communication. I place them all in the same bucket, even though they differs to some degree.

My standardization is not good in this instance, either. Most of my early play-by-post games was heavy on the use of GM-force, but more recent games (play by email and forum) have been very light on it. The most recent (play by forum) got no GM at all.

I agree that "Feeding" as you've described it is a Force technique. What makes it Force, though, in my opinion is not the imagined existence of a "narrow" situation (a situation with few or only one plausible reaction(s) by player-characters), but the GM's willingness to adaptively "block" alternative approaches -- especially if that willingess is conveyed to the players by other cues besides the blocking decisions themselves, and especially if those cues prevent the players from even trying alternative approaches, so that the blocking never actually happens overtly.

When the Force is the implied "threat" of using Force if necessary, rather than any actual vetoing or nullifying of player decisions, judging the degree of Force becomes a game of "what if" hypotheticals. Consider two examples:

1. Player-characters are ambushed by a pack of goblins. Just about all players in such a situation, in the particular game being played, would choose to fight the goblins (rather than, say, surrender or immediately flee). Does this make the goblin attack itself an exercise of Force? We have to ask, what would happen if the players did react differently? Or even more important, what do the players believe would happen if they reacted differently? Do they have reason to believe, based perhaps on the GM's past behavior or based on hints fed to the players in the present encounter, that they'd end up having to fight the goblins anyway? (The goblins will refuse to honor a surrender; escape routes will all be blocked; and so forth.) If so, that's Force.

2. The player-characters, all of them heroic types, discover an ancient prophecy stating that they are the chosen ones destined to be the only hope for saving the world against the looming threat of the Dark Lord, and that to prepare they must seek the Onyx Blade in the Mountains of Sorrow. What heroic character would refuse to go off the Mountains like a hound after a rabbit? In this case, it's hardly even necessary to ask what would happen if they chose otherwise. There would be no game. (Unless, just maybe, the GM were willing to retCon that the prophecy turns out to be false.) This is Force even if the "what if" is never tested. It's Force operating in the context of Participationism.

What makes your example appear to me to be Force is not that some number of groups of players all made the same decision (that could be coincidence, or it could be just a narrow situation like the goblin attack). It's the GMs' apparent willingness to block unanticipated alternative player-character choices on the fly. Whether they would really do this or not is less important than whether the players think they would. After a few rounds of "no, you can't do that because..." (or equivalently, "if you do that it would have these really bad consequences..."), the players are likely to say, "Okay, we see how the wind is blowing here, I guess we'll do what's expected."

The only reservation I have applying that to your example of the captured spies is that the solution the players arrived at, killing the spies and carrying the bodies, doesn't seem terribly obvious. (And you've said as much). Is it possible that the first time this was run, the players came up with that as an unexpected solution, and subsequently GMs applied additional Force to make it come out that way again?

The other equally likely possibility is that even though it's not obvious, the situation makes killing the spies and carrying the bodies the only workable solution. When a situation represents a problem with only one workable solution, and that solution is difficult to figure out, I call it a puzzle. Are puzzles Force? Usually but not necessarily. Puzzles require constraints in order to exist, but those constraints can come from immediate use of Force or from pre-existing facts about the characters and situation (which in turn might or might not come about due to Force). This is where your "inevitability" factors need to be examined. Who decided that the military leader of the group is someone who believes fully in the cause? (What if the player of the military leader character attempted, earlier in the game, to establish his character as a rogue who's in it for his own survival and who sometimes questions orders? Who decided that the characters believe in, and fear, ghosts?

I have a theory (it could be bunnies...) -- or perhaps I should call it a Principle -- that what matters most in the Social Contract governing player-character autonomy is how the participants (including the GM) react to unanticipated player-character decisions. Anticipated decisions are, for the most part, not an issue; they're the baseline beat of play, marking time. What makes participants worth having, the reason for playing with other live human beings, is their ability to make unanticipated decisions. Those decisions, and how the GM and other players react to them, stand out in importance. If they're not being made or permitted to be put into effect, it's Force. To the extent that they're being purposely withheld by the players, you've got Participationism.

- Walt

Hi Walt,

I think your principle holds a lot of weight to it. The normal expected actions fall within the boundaries of the CA, the unexpected ones test where the boundaries lay. At the point where the individual techniques fail to cover, the group has only the Social Contract to work with, and at that point, it becomes pretty clear how much input players are getting into the game.

Chris

Eero Tuovinen wrote: If you consider the actions you took in the example as simple participation in the discussion of premise, then it's hardly any force. On the other hand, if it's seen as pointing the players to a direction, then it's definitely Force.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: On the other hand, if the players take your suggestions as simply some factors to consider, it's not Force, it's just playing.
...
A GM might even be using Force without realizing it if the players interpret his good natured suggestions as degrees.

Walt Freitag wrote: I agree that "Feeding" as you've described it is a Force technique. What makes it Force, though, in my opinion is not the imagined existence of a "narrow" situation (...), but the GM's willingness to adaptively "block" alternative approaches ...

Sorry about the hiatus (other stuff going on, both on the Forge and in RL).

Tomas, you've convinced me that your technique is not based on "blocking" of player choices by the GM. (That was only one possibility, the most obvious one because as you say, it's the most common Force technique.)

But it sounds to me like the essence of "feeding" is not very different from that. It's telling players what not to do, just before they actually attempt to do it. The players talk (in or out of character, doesn't matter) about maybe letting the captives go free; you remind them that it would violate one of the player-characters' orders. Or you remind them even before they have a chance to talk about it, knowing that it's a possibility they're bound to consider, given the situation.

Now, you might object that (1) reminding a player of his character's orders, which were after all already well-established in the shared imagined space (you didn't just make them up out of the blue in order to "block" a choice, after all), is hardly "telling them what not to do;" and (2) your reminder is in no way forcing the player to have his character obey those orders; you're quite prepared to allow the captives to be set free and to play out the consequences.

But it IS telling them what not to do. No player I know would interpret "Don't forget that setting the captives free would be in direct violation of your orders," spoken or written in a note by a GM in a game with traditional authority structure to a player whose character is a loyal soldier, is going to be interpreted by the player as "Don't do that, or else Bad Things Will Happen" every single time. It's not subtle, it's just politely stated, like the cop who politely requests that I please stay behind the yellow line at the parade. Just because he hasn't shoved me or bashed me with his baton doesn't mean I'm at all in doubt that force is in effect.

The player in question already knows very well what his character's orders are, right? It's not like he's really going to suddenly forget them in a situation like this. And then he gets your note. He knows that you know that he knows what his character's orders are. Obviously (to him), your only reason for reminding him of the orders (in writing for christssakes) is to "direct" the player -- that is, to lay the Force down.

Which brings us to #2: that this is not like regular Force because the player is actually free to have his character disobey the direction and the military orders. (You have no baton, there is no threat of Bad Things involved). The question, then, is: why doesn't he? After all, you're saying that the technique works, right? That is to say, that the players consistently do just what you expect them to. So, why does the technique work?

-- Because your suggestions weave a web of subtle psychological influence around the players that beguiles them into doing what you want without them ever realizing that they're being influenced?

-- Because your players know that you will punish them for disregarding your what-not-to-do suggestions, in ways possibly far more subtle than the suggestions themselves? (Such as, by being dejected afterward that the session didn't go well?)

-- Because your players know that you will reward them for adhering to your direction?

-- Because even though you don't reward or punish your players in this way, they've been conditioned, by rewards and punishments enacted by past GMs they've played with, to obey these sorts of GM directions?

Occam's Razor suggests that the first possibility is the least likely, though I cannot be certain.

None of this is to say that there's anything wrong with the technique. Not if it works with your group. I've done it myself. It works especially well if the reinforcement is mostly reward-based, and the reward is that you're really good at feeding them really cool stuff and the players are guaranteed to experience the cool stuff as long as they take your direction. There is a danger, though, that one or more players will call you on it, and resist your direction. If there really is no punishment for it, they will likely start doing so more and more. That will require you to either bring in more overt Force to keep the player-characters moving along your predicted lines, or adopt GMing techniques that are less dependent on player-characters moving along predicted lines.

By the way, on a previous thread I went to some length to show that not all Force is Illusionism. But, the kind of Force you're describing now is illusionism. The key ideas being "subtle direction."

- Walt

Walt, Tomas, & company -

I just wanted to say that I'm really digging this thread.

In response to the following "Because":

-- Because your players know that you will reward them for adhering to your direction?
...
It works especially well if the reinforcement is mostly reward-based, and the reward is that you're really good at feeding them really cool stuff and the players are guaranteed to experience the cool stuff as long as they take your direction.

Walt Freitag wrote: ... "feeding" ... It's telling players what not to do, just before they actually attempt to do it. The players talk (in or out of character, doesn't matter) about maybe letting the captives go free; you remind them that it would violate one of the player-characters' orders. Or you remind them even before they have a chance to talk about it, knowing that it's a possibility they're bound to consider, given the situation.

Walt Freitag wrote: -- Because your suggestions weave a web of subtle psychological influence around the players that beguiles them into doing what you want without them ever realizing that they're being influenced?

Walt Freitag wrote: There is a danger, though, that one or more players will call you on it, and resist your direction.

Hans Christian,

on the issue of scenarios, and scenario writing, I'm advocating the use of "elements". That is; singular parts of the game written in simple words, easy to use, and easy to shift about as the game flow in different directions. You make several geographical locations, several NPCs, scenes to be played out, and conflicts that may be introduced, but you don't necessarily link them together in any preplanned way. As play commences you play with your elements, introducing them in play as you see fit, and thus making the game flow while you get to play out the conflicts and NPCs of your choice.

You may choose to link your elements in some way, or to combine such elements with a preset goal for the scenario, and you may even choose to combine them with some rough use of Force. It all depends on the characters (who are they, what will make them act), and the scenario (it's theme, the conflicts at hand, and maybe the trappings of the genre).

It is possible to make scenarios going from A to B to C and finally to the great D(readed encounter), and making it a great scenario. But I don't recommend it as a general method of writing scenarios.

Hi Tomas,

You seem to be describing two different purposes for your Feeding technique. One is to create (hopefully temporary) indecision, doubt, and possibly intra-party conflict over decisions. This is designed to have a liberating effect:

As the game master is feeding the conflict with elements pointing in any and all directions, the players are free to work with these elements.

If the scenario don't demand some preplanned conclusion, this process is usually left to be resolved by the players in any way they like. That is indeed the normal appliance of it. If the scenario demand a preplanned conclusion, the game master will usually not behave significantly different in the scene with the captives. The ideal way of making the players choose the preplanned decision, is to let the early parts of the scenario give an atmosphere and some significant events to imbue the arguments pointing in this direction with special power. In the case of the example the characters have most of their social relations in the barony, they have been imbued with a strong urge to satisfy their commander (although she is a cynic brute) through scenes where they have been admonished for not doing their duties, or through scenes where they have been praised for acting sharp. Through military and social-relations the characters have been preplanned to make the "right" decision in the particular scene.

Walt Freitag wrote: You seem to be describing two different purposes for your Feeding technique.

Walt Freitag wrote: I completely agree that this is an effective and useful technique. The idea is to enhance the drama of decisions by making sure the players consider a wide range of implications, avoiding automatic decision making based on habit or "tunnel vision" immediate expediency, which can tend to set in in traditionally structured GM-authored play.

Walt Freitag wrote: There is a crude (and far less effective) version of this technique that's often seen: the GM who asks "Are you sure that's what you want to do?" for every proposed player-character action.

Walt Freitag wrote: Another related technique is one of my own old-school favorites, the simple dilemma, or "puzzle with no solution."

Walt Freitag wrote: ... Feeding technique, there are risks to it, as I'm sure you know (but other readers may not, and should be warned). With some players, the pushes in many simultaneous directions can result in paralysis instead of drama, or a "screw the mission, let's just kill things" reaction ...
There's also the issue of party unity to consider, if your "pushing in all directions" works too well. ...

Walt Freitag wrote: You say it’s the characters who have been pre-planned to make the "right" decision. But as I’m sure you’ve heard at the Forge before, the characters don’t exist.

Walt Freitag wrote: What you’ve done that’s clever and effective (though not unusual) is to replicate the out-of-game power relationship in the inside-the-game situation.

Walt Freitag wrote: If you have the authorial vision needed to power all these techniques and keep the situation interesting, and I imagine you do, then I think I’d find playing in your game quite enjoyable.

Walt Freitag wrote: Why do this? For the same reason one would use any other type of Force: because it focuses the players on a finite number of relevant conflicts ...
Often, conflicts will arise in different ways for players with different playing styles.

Walt Freitag wrote: In any event, once a conflict is invested (the players are aware of it and have shown interest in it), the rule is that no matter what else happens, choices must be available that build toward resolving it.