Hello all,

Don't precisely know if this has been discussed before. If anyone could post links to past conversations, that would be greatly helpful.

I've been thinking recently on difficulties/success needed/required number/whatever you want to call it. For specific examples, DCs in Dungeons and Dragons, the target number/difficulty/successes needed in the Storyteller system, etc. I don't need to name every game that has such structures, but I am speaking of something that I see in almost every game. Some techniques come pretty close to being like this, even if the "what you need to be successful" is a fixed amount in the rolls. In some ways, the number of Stress dice a GM throws at an Inspectres agent has parallels to this. I do realize there are games without this structure at all.

See, I think it's a watered down version of GM fiat, in some ways.

My personal tastes make me dislike GM fiat: maybe it's just that I'm normally the GM/referee/whatever that runs the game, but in my experience it just leads to stories that don't make me, the GM, satisfied (when I'm going for Narr). I have too much control over what will happen to actually make what happens interesting or surprising.

See, hypothetically, the GM will come up with "reasonable" difficulties. We've all seen the "rulers" as I like to think of them, with the "Climbing Wet Slippery Rocks" tables and such. But, as a GM for the past three years (college student: lots of opprutunity to run lots of games), I haven't ever done used them like that. I've never opened up the books suddenly and gone, "Man, did it rain the night before? Is the roof a little slippery? I wonder if there's moss or something?"

Hell no. Normally, I say some arbitrary number. It's almost random sometimes. Most of the time it's pathetically easy to average, unless it's something I don't want them to do or doesn't fit the assumed genre, in which case it's rather hard.

Plus, once I say it, people argue. This isn't one group, I've seen at least three unconnected groups do it (ones with only me as the same member, I mean). GM says they'll need a "7", players try to argue it down. The GM-is-always-right rule never worked in these cases. When I ran Inspectres, the game would be going great, but as soon as I went to hand out the Stress rolls, the players would stick their feet in and try arguing me down immediately. I eventually stopped listening, but the players damn well knew who was deciding how much stress dice they got. There was no tricking them into thinking that they couldn't argue it out with me.

In DnD, I end up with DCs not mattering in the high level range. The pure-gamists I play with don't attempt stuff that doesn't involve the five skills they have at some enormous number. In Exalted, it's pretty much the same way. The weird thing is that you'll end up at a point where if you don't set the difficulty really high, one guy will always succeed... but if it is set that high, the rest of the group will never succeed. If a five is a success, what the hell is a 30? I usually found myself trying to think up some sort of extraordinary success to give to a player with such a really good roll. Speaking in gamist terms (although I will admit my Exalted game was an unfortunate mix of Sim and Gam), there was no challenge that satisfied everyone anymore... either it was too easy to win, or too easy to lose. Their character effectiveness had diverged that I couldn't place challenges anymore. (This applied to combat, etc, just as much as it did to "non-combat" skill rolls). Exalted has this stunt system where you get stunt dice, yeah? Try making challenges to hit Exalted PCs with, without killing them all or it being too easy. In the later the stunt doesn't matter, in the first, the stunt dice will barely have an effect.

When I tried running Adventure! brutal and quick (Narritivistically, with a focus on the character's stories), I found the numbers just stopped mattering. The number of successes needed didn't matter anymore! I literally just started giving random numbers. How strong the dude tone character was wrestling didn't matter even as a reference. Are they a four or a five? It didn't matter enough to even think about it.

I mean, theoretically, someone must play these "how you're supposed to", right? They aren't me, certainly. To me, in every game I've played or run, what the GM is allowed to decide becomes a measure of GM force. My Life With Master gave me very very little to manipulate.

Consider these GM tasks:
1) Deciding the DC in DnD for swimming in an icy river.
2) Deciding whether a PC gets stunt dice in Exalted.
3) Deciding if an Innocent exists in the village in MLWM.
4) Deciding the stats for an NPC in WW game.
5) Deciding if an NPC has hidden armor or not when a PC goes to punch him.

Do you see what I mean? I don't see the big difference in most of those with the usual GM Fiat (I realize 3 is debatable). What's the difference between "Hrm, well, he doesn't punch out bartender" and "Hmm, well, I'll just make it more difficult for him to punch out the bartender." The second is just a watered version of the first. What control do the PCs really have, if the GM always gets to set the probability of success? You might as well give him all the control, or find some other way of have the difficulty controlled.

So, am I off my rocker about this, or has anyone else thought this before?

-Dave

Hi Dave:

My frustration with that very thing you're talking about led to the Budget in Primetime Adventures. As the producer (GM), your ability to make stuff difficult is limited to a currency, your budget. If you have a budget of 10, for example, and you roll 2 dice of difficulty for a conflict, now you have 8 left.

So it's still arbitrary, but it's honest about it, and it forces the producer to think about what the story value is of any antagonism he or she introduces. Do you really want to use budget up on some lame-ass kobolds? Then why are there kobolds? That sort of thing.

Trollbabe, My Life with Master, and Dogs in the Vineyard, to name a few, also have clever means of addressing that issue.

David Bapst wrote: So, am I off my rocker about this, or has anyone else thought this before?

I've thought a lot about it. There are two ways to deal with it that I've come up with - three if you count 'don't mess with it'. None of these, obviously, apply directly to games like Capes without a centralized GM, though they may be broadly applicable.

1. Assign the GM resources. This is the obvious thing to do, but is complicated when you get down to it because you (the designer) have to figure out what an appropriate level of challenge is and all the ways that can be affected. D&D3E tries to do this - or at least tries to give the GM advice on how many resources they should have - by using the Challenge Rating system. DitV does this much more directly, by simply giving the GM dice to spread around in each town.

2. Set the GM's perrogatives. Sometimes it works better to just not let the GM do certain things in the system. In Shadow of Yesterday, for example, the GM cannot choose to Bring Down the Pain. It's just not allowed. Only the players can decide when they want to enter an extended conflict.

3. Assume goodwill on the GM's part. Sometimes it's not necessary, because you're assuming that the GM is assigning. Honestly, in a Gamist sense, there isn't really much different about the GM assigning difficulties by fiat and the system/game designer assigning difficulties by fiat (and I've run into a LOT of stupid difficulty numbers which were then religiously used by my game groups... Grrrr...)

When I GM (HeroQuest) I tend to ignore 'objective' difficulty numbers for things and simply set the difficulty to whatever I think an appropriate level is vs. the players. For instance, if my player is a skilled but not masterful swordsman and he's up against a true master of the blade, I tend to assign a difficulty on the fly, but one based on adding to the player's rating at that ability instead of on some objective status.

Dave,

The people I play with would never try to bully me into changing the number. I've never had any reason to think about the possibility. Is there a possiblity that you train people to argue by being indecisive?

I agree that saying an attack kills a character or giving a difficulty to save is largely the same thing. (I'm running Paranoia, so I do both often.) Taken by itself, I don't consider the question very interesting. I'd be more interested in what you want to be doing in a game. What part of the GM role do you enjoy?

John

The 'bully down the number' thing reminds me of something Ralph once said about character disadvantages: That they reward you for arguing.

If you argue, there's a thin chance the disadvantage will be withdrawn rather than applied in a particular situation. This is a reward. So disadvantages reward arguing in game.

Ralphs answer was that the player gets a reward every time the disad applies. Then you might even find the player arguing that the disad does apply...which is possitive (and is funny to watch!)

Your issue with DC's is pretty much the same in terms of this area. You should try to figure out some reward that get's higher as the DC gets higher and the player gets whether they pass or fail, or even only if they fail (not just for passing...don't make that mistake).

I think part of your problem, which I can relate to, is that you have no investment in any particular numbers. You don't believe a slippery roof is a DC 17 (for example). The problem for your players is that if you don't believe in a particular number, if it came to turning the tables and forcing orcs to run across a slippery roof toward them, they couldn't rely on that DC 17 coming into play. When you don't believe in any situations numbers, they can't latter use your belief to their tactical advantage. They then realise there is no game for them there. So they resort to trying to bully down the DC, as that's the only game available. Well, they might be possibly be dicks...but then again that's too easy a way to excuse system design for not being robust.

I'd really like hear Ron talk about tunnels and trolls, whos vital 'saving throw' mechanics relied on just such principles, as the GM set the DC.

To John and Noon:
Hrm. The arguing about the number thing didn't really make itself obvious until I ran Inspectres. Everytime I handed Stress dice out, we ended up in arguments about how much stress dice the situation really would cause.

If it's a result of anything, it's probably a behavior of how I run DnD... I rely on them for rule judgements just as much as myself. They're kind of used to having power over rules issues. "The GM is always right" just has never been part of the social contract, even when it isn't me running. We've always allowed people to correct the GM on rules issues.

That said, that my group argues with me about issues of difficulty checks and successes needed is a side issue here: I was just bringing it up as evidence that I've seen such numbers as arbitrary at times. The main focus of this topic is to discuss what the differences and similarities are between picking the difficulty number and GM fiat. If we want to discuss the nature of the social contract that causes me to back down on a DC or a stress roll, we can do that in another thread (probably Actual Play).

As far as GM role, acting as the agent for the CA is one of my biggest joys. Throwing a character into complete chaos and seeing how they deal with it (in Narr) and throwing some really horrible life-or-death battle (in Gamism) are some of my biggest joys. Especially when neither depend on my own arbitrary picking of numbers... like picking a deadly combination of monsters based on CR in DnD, or when the Master orders the minions around in MLWM.

To Others:
Right, there are some pretty good games that manage to escape this. PTA was a particular eye opener for me, when I read it last Christmas, Matt.

Jinx: Yes, this is what I try to do also, in ST/DnD, but the problem ends up when the advancement system allows wild divergence of character effectiveness, making it rather hard to create challenges that affect more than one character well.

(It might be important to note I'm not running DnD or Storyteller (White Wolf) games at the moment, and possibly not again.)

I would argue that in Gamism, this issue is the most important. The challenges and what will happen based on whether the PC wins or loses is the very stuff the game is made up of... if a particular challenge is made too hard or too easy for a PC, momentum will be lost.

Jinx wrote: 1. Assign the GM resources. This is the obvious thing to do, but is complicated when you get down to it because you (the designer) have to figure out what an appropriate level of challenge is and all the ways that can be affected. D&D3E tries to do this - or at least tries to give the GM advice on how many resources they should have - by using the Challenge Rating system. DitV does this much more directly, by simply giving the GM dice to spread around in each town.

2. Set the GM's perrogatives. Sometimes it works better to just not let the GM do certain things in the system. In Shadow of Yesterday, for example, the GM cannot choose to Bring Down the Pain. It's just not allowed. Only the players can decide when they want to enter an extended conflict.

3. Assume goodwill on the GM's part. Sometimes it's not necessary, because you're assuming that the GM is assigning. Honestly, in a Gamist sense, there isn't really much different about the GM assigning difficulties by fiat and the system/game designer assigning difficulties by fiat

John Kim wrote:
4. Eliminate difficulty as a variable. This is a bit unusual, but it has been done. My Life With Master and I think Trollbabe do this. Any roll in MLWM always has a fixed difficulty -- i.e. violence against a little girl and violence against a squad of soldiers is the same roll. This creates some unusual wrinkles in play, but effectively it means there are three levels: i.e. automatic, roll, or impossible. This reduces the number of times GM fiat is invoked, and raises the bar for making things impossible.

I agree with Callan's agreeing with me (heh)

The trick to making difficulty levels work is to make them something the players want rather than something they don't want. As long as difficulty does nothing other than reduce character effectiveness (and for most traditional games it simultaneously reduces player effectiveness) then players will be motivated to avoid it. Forgetting to remember penalties they're suffering due to being poisoned, or argueing with the GM, or engaging in huge diatribes about how they are an expert rock climber and the penalty in the game for wet rocks is simply too high because they can do it with no problem...blah blah blah...is all just players seeing to avoid something bad.

So what you need to do is work out where difficulty is good. In Pendragon one of the easiest ways for a GM to screw with a character and get them in trouble is if they have passions / virtues / vices of 16 or higher. At that level they've entered GM fiat territory. Thing is the game gives Glory (Pendragon's version of XP) and sometimes special powers for having those at level 16 or higher. In every game of Pendragon I've ever played or GMed the players have rushed to see how many 16+ virtues they could accumulate.

Burning Wheel does this with its experience point system. In order to go up a level you need to have performed a certain number of typical tasks, challenging tasks, and nearly impossible tasks with the skill (I'm certainly butchering the BW terms here). If the players argue you down every time or avoid doing anything they're not super good at...they never gain any skill. I don't have the experience with BW that I do with Pendragon, but I'm willing to bet based on what I know of player behavior that BW players likely seek out and embrace the highest difficulties they can so they can get their skill checks and level up.

Brave New World and 7th Sea used Raises and Stunts. If you beat an easy difficulty...ok, you succeeded. But if you voluntarily Raised the difficulty yourself and made the roll, than not only did you succeed but you got beau coup cool effects as well. In BNW you got power stunts: Not only did you damage the guy with your flame blast, you also set him on fire. Not only did you hit the guy with your fist you knocked him flying for 30 yards. When I played those games the players routinely raced to pile on as much difficulty as they thought they could handle to get the good stuff.

So there are lots of different approaches. But they all boil down to making difficulty something they player's WANT.


In Inspectres, rolling Stress is their chance to earn Cool. Cool is Cool and if your players don't want Cool than they are Lame. Just make sure as GM that you are throwing out a bunch of 1d6 stress rolls as well as the big nasty ones. The 1d6 rolls give the best chance of earning a Cool and players will appreciate that. Beyond that...the second any player dared question me on a Stress roll in Inspectres I'd hit him with another die immediately, and I'd keep doing that until until they either shut the hell up or turned their character into a gibbering vegitable.

Valamir wrote: In Inspectres, rolling Stress is their chance to earn Cool. Cool is Cool and if your players don't want Cool than they are Lame. Just make sure as GM that you are throwing out a bunch of 1d6 stress rolls as well as the big nasty ones. The 1d6 rolls give the best chance of earning a Cool and players will appreciate that. Beyond that...the second any player dared question me on a Stress roll in Inspectres I'd hit him with another die immediately, and I'd keep doing that until until they either shut the hell up or turned their character into a gibbering vegitable.

Hrm. The arguing about the number thing didn't really make itself obvious until I ran Inspectres. Everytime I handed Stress dice out, we ended up in arguments about how much stress dice the situation really would cause.

If it's a result of anything, it's probably a behavior of how I run DnD... I rely on them for rule judgements just as much as myself. They're kind of used to having power over rules issues. "The GM is always right" just has never been part of the social contract, even when it isn't me running. We've always allowed people to correct the GM on rules issues.

That said, that my group argues with me about issues of difficulty checks and successes needed is a side issue here: I was just bringing it up as evidence that I've seen such numbers as arbitrary at times. The main focus of this topic is to discuss what the differences and similarities are between picking the difficulty number and GM fiat.

Noon wrote:
But it's not arbitrary. Your group are all asserting their bit about what the number should be. Certainly what the book suggests as the DC is pretty arbitrary, when you group will tell you hands down what the number really should be.

Are you trying to get at how the book doesn't assist with the setting of this DC...your group all discuss/argue it together and decide it without book assistance (so without book assistance it seems arbitrary)?

And I don't get how you've provided any evidence of GM fiat? Your whole group seems to be enabled to have their say on these DC's? Do you actually mean GM fiat in that after he's listened to everyone at the table, he's free to just state the DC everyone agreed to? Or are you talking about stuff that is less part of the group arguement process, like deciding which particular skill to test and the GM just deciding that?

Dave,

I'm interested in talking about whether resolution actions are being taken in a game despite having little relevance to your creative agenda. I'm also interested in how resolution can support or impede agenda. In that context, I'm particularly interested in stress being different than the other play experiences.

If the resolution is for a meaningful event, I don't consider the factors arbitrary. The calling for rolls and setting the number might be a good, creative input, or at worst it might be used to undercut a player's input. An example of misuse is calling for rolls until the required result is produced. Your description sounds to me like you're resolving the wrong things and resent the wasted effort.

Successful Resolution and Narrativism is the sort of thing I'm thinking about.

I'm not sure what else I can say in response to your opening. I'm not sure what GM fiat means here. I know that setting the scale of adversity is not inherently Force, as we discuss it. Establishing any fact, such as creating terrain, could be called "fiat". I don't think that's what you intend.

John

I feel like people are trying to wrest the topic of this thread away from me: I'm happy to discuss the argument side-behavior of my group in a DIFFERENT topic, guys (and that wouldn't a theory topic but an actual play one). This is for discussing the "GM decides the #" and whether it is (a) arbitrary and/or (b) a watered down version of GM fiat. I haven't seen any direct arguments to either yet... Instead talk about techniques to either change/replace/improve the original.

(I have to take a step back here and ask others... Am I being overly stringent on what I see the main topic to be for this thread and asking for others to hold to it?)

Hrm. Obviously a disconnect exists between what I wanted to discuss and what could reasonably be discussed. I apologize for my error, it is easy sometimes to forget, to try and seperate yourself from the idea that all gaming occurs in the social context. The nature of authority, who holds it and why certain games get run like they do in my game... well, that leads to some nasty questions about my own group, doesn't it?

John and Landon, you hit my main point, and made some excellent points. I'm going to consider some new thoughts I'm having on this thanks to you, and how to resolve those with my unwillingness to take authority as a GM. I'll have to think about this, although I still feel like we got sidetracked. I think I misrepresented some behaviors as being more prominent than they were, but perhaps I didn't misrepresent at all.

Hrm. We've shifted out of theory discussion. I'll head to Actual Play.

David Bapst wrote: This is for discussing the "GM decides the #" and whether it is (a) arbitrary and/or (b) a watered down version of GM fiat. I haven't seen any direct arguments to either yet...

(I have to take a step back here and ask others... Am I being overly stringent on what I see the main topic to be for this thread and asking for others to hold to it?)