My brother Mel, my buddy Dave, and I signed up to play in a D&D adventure at Dexcon 9 this past weekend.  It was called “Slaughterhouse of the August Moon,” (which ultimately had nothing to do with anything, as far as I could tell) and the blurb on the sign-up sheet went something like, “You are a samurai, a monk, a shugenja, a wu jen, and a ninja.  You have been summoned by the Emperor to serve his will.  Something is amiss on the frontiers of the Empire.  Will you be able to set it right?”  I think the blurb in the program (which I didn't see until afterward) was a little different: it intimated that one of the player-characters had a deep, dark secret, but that didn't emerge in play either.

We signed up because Mel has been itching to play some D&D again, and wanted some company; Dave and I obliged very willingly, because we hadn't played together the three of us in a long time.  We're all pushing or just past forty; the last time we'd all played together was maybe six years ago, a fantasy one-shot I ran using Fantasy Hero rules.

There was a fourth player sitting at the table when we got there; his name was Tyler and he was in his mid-20s; a quiet, affable regular guy.  The DM was there, too:  early twenties, a slender kid named Walter with a goatee and glasses.  His girlfriend Ann was sitting next to him, but she didn't play, though she did stay for a while, giggling appreciatively at appropriate occasions.  She left at one point, but had returned by the end of the session.  A fifth player showed up shortly after we began the adventure; I think her name was Maya:  small, dark-haired, twentyish.  I think she was wearing a short cloak, but that may just be my memory succumbing to my imagination.

We selected the pre-generated fifth level characters the DM had prepared:  I picked the shugenja, an elemental magician of water whose spells were of the healing variety.  Mel played the samurai.  Dave chose the monk.  Tyler picked the ninja, which left the wu jen (a fire magician) for Maya when she showed up.  Walter gave us our character sheets, and there was a short period during which the players scoped out the capabilities of their characters.  All I did was read up on the shugenja in a book called “The Complete Divine.”  I should note that the only character information we got was the game-mechanical stuff on the character sheet; we didn't get any additional “character background” or other descriptive information.

We began play in the throne room of the Emperor; we had all been summoned from our various walks of life because we were “the best at what we do.”  The Emperor told us that he was disturbed by rumors that his nephew, the lord of a domain on the frontiers of the Empire, had been said to be behaving irresponsibly.  Our mission was to find out what was going on and set it right.  We were given a letter sealed with the Imperial signet denoting our authority.  “I'll keep this,” I said.  No one objected.  “You are the one with the 18 Charisma,” Walter said.

We departed, noting the opulence of the Imperial palace, and mounted our horses, provided to us courtesy of the Emperor.  We had to make “Dex checks” to make sure we mounted successfully; luckily, we all succeeded (apparently, the characters had provided some amusement during the first run of the adventure by falling off their horses when mounting).  I will note for the sake of the rules-sticklish that I understand “attribute checks” of this sort to be non-kosher in D&D 3.x, and that we should have either made a Dex-based skill roll or Reflex save versus a Difficulty Class target number set by the GM.  I'm just telling you what we did.

Did we need to stock up on provisions or equipment?  “You're provisioned,” the DM said.  And we were off.  We traveled through the Imperial lands for a while until we came to the forest marking the boundary between the imperial domain and the territory of the nephew.

In the forest we were attacked by goblins, each of us getting charged by two of the creatures.  Those of us who made Listen checks heard the rustling in the underbrush just before they were  attacked.  We defeated them more or less handily (this was an encounter to familiarize us with our characters and their abilities.  We tried pretty hard to make it signify in the plot:  a possible threat to the Empire, a failure to adequately police the roads, but it didn't matter; it was just a random encounter) and our lack of equestrian ability didn't matter in the fight.

A little bit later, we had to make Will saves.  We called out our numbers, and Walter said, “And that's all I'm going to say about that.”  We would repeat this process at intervals throughout the adventure (it turned out to be the bad guy mind reading us in order to forestall our plans).

Emerging from the forest, we entered a village two or three days away from the nephew's palace; the village elder there offered to put us up for the night.  Questioning him, we learned that the people were more or less satisfied with the state of things, but they were all a little concerned because taxes had increased 50% over last year.  “Is he an accountant?” I asked, but no one heard me.  We also learned that the nephew (no one ever called him anything but “the nephew”) had a new seneschal who seemed to be taking charge of things.  Hmmm...pretty suspicious.

Approaching the castle and the surrounding town, but still some way off, we could make Spot checks.  The sharpest-eyed among us could see scaffolding up and down the towers of the nephew's pagoda.  Then we got a little closer, and the rest of us could see the scaffolding too.  A sign of profligate spending on the part of the seneschal?  Necessary improvements?  We would need more information!

We reigned up for a moment to discuss our approach to the palace.  I suggested that we send the ninja sneaking in the castle while we entered openly, claiming to be sent by the Emperor to report on the new construction.  As soon as we had settled upon this, we heard hooves in the road.  The ninja tried to hide, but failed his roll and so couldn't:  the castle guards found her and herded her back to us.  Then they escorted us to the castle.  There was some byplay about whether it was a good idea to resist them, but this was squelched when Walter informed us that they were very tough:  tenth level.  Remember, we were all fifth level.

“I thought we were the best at what we did,” said Mel.

“In your region,” Walter replied.

So they escorted us to the castle, where we saw more signs of busy construction, including a magical silver gate to replace the wooden doors of the castle.  It radiated abjuration magic.  We cooled our heels for a couple of hours in the waiting room until the seneschal called for us.  He told us that the nephew was the only one around here that he couldn't control, and had gone off to his summer palace with his guards, but no one could find it or knew where it was.  Behind his desk was a set of doors that were closed tight.  Hmmm...interesting.

After the seneschal was through stonewalling us, he invited us to wander around for a while before the big dinner with all the important captains and craftsmen and so forth.  The wu jen and I went to the library, where we noticed (I forget the roll we made; Spot, maybe?  It wasn't Search, though) “this world's version of Machiavelli's The Prince,” and a book called, “The Art of Disguise.”  Um, so the nephew believes in realpolitik?  Or the seneschal does?  And is somebody in disguise?  (This was a clue of sorts:  the seneschal turned out to be a doppleganger with psionics and levels in a prestige class called something like “spymaster” or “mindfucker” or something like that.  So the “'clue”wasn't causally connected to what was going on; it was clue by the power of suggestion, or perhaps metonymy).  The samurai went to check out the barracks of the nephew's personal guard; it was sealed up tight and no one knew anything about where they were.  The monk went to the dungeons, but there were no prisoners.  Note that the library was the only location that Walter mentioned as being explicitly available for us to visit.  The ninja was going to leave the castle and come sneaking back in to the castle to check out those mysterious doors behind the seneschal's desk while the seneschal was having dinner with us.

But he didn't do it.  Walter told us, “When you go to dinner, the ninja is there,” and took him aside to explain what had happened.  Apparently, he got caught by the guards and escorted back again.

At the dinner, those of us who made Listen rolls managed to overhear the seneschal saying, “Nephew incompetent...Emperor not much better.”

Retiring to our rooms, we decided that the remarks were treason, and so we'd confront the seneschal immediately and arrest him.

But we couldn't do it.  We were really tired, Walter told us, and needed to go to bed.  “Okay,” I said, “I'd like to confront this traitor to the Empire, but [big mock yawn-and-stretch] I'm really tired, so I'm just going to bed.”

We got to make Listen rolls at -10 and failed badly, so I woke up screaming having taken 22 points of damage (I had maybe 36 in total).  A shadowy figure darted out the window.  The samurai rushed to the window but couldn't see any sign of him; he tried to follow but couldn't (wasn't allowed to).

A few minutes later the seneschal comes in, trailed by guards.  He apologizes for the attack, and offers the services of a healer.  “I don't need a healer,” I tell him.  The samurai presents the seneschal his sword so that the latter canl use it to commit seppuku to atone for the shame of allowing us to be attacked in his castle.  The seneschal is nonplussed.

I brandish the Emperor's letter.  “You're a traitor, and you're under arrest.  Come with us now; we're taking you to the Emperor.”

“Let me go back to my office and get something.”

“No.  Come with us now.”

He refuses.  “Guards,” I say.  “I speak with the voice of the Emperor.  Seize this man!”

They refuse.

“You're under arrest, too!”

The samurai attacks the seneschal.  The seneschal bolts.

We chase him!  “Guards!  Seize him!”  They're comatose.

He makes it to his office, where his desk and the doors are.  The doors into the room close behind us, and we fight.  He's hard to hit, but we get our licks in.  He hits me a few times and I'm down:  -1 hit points.

“I'm dead.,” I say.  Walter asks me how many hp I have and I tell him.

“You're dying,” he corrects me, and has me make a Fortitude roll.  “You've stabilized,” he says.

The next round I get to make another Fortitude save, and I'm at 0 hit points.  The round after that, I make another one and I'm at 1 and back on my feet.  Note:  I'm pretty sure this procedure is not in the rules as written, anywhere.  I heal the samurai, who's been taking boatloads of damage.

The DM calls for Listen checks, and the monk makes his.  He hears a thumping coming from the doors behind the desk.  He disengages from the seneschal and heads for the doors.  Just as he reaches them, they burst open and a proud but bedraggled figure rushes forth, sword in hand, grabs the seneschal by the throat and stabs him through the heart.  The end.

“What did you think?” asked Walter.  “How did you like the adventure?”  Dave, Mel, and I are conspicuously silent.  Mel gets up from the table.

“Uh oh,” Walter said.

“I have a few questions,” I told him.  “Why did you design the adventure so that an NPC got to take down the bad guy instead of us?”

Walter told us that he was a big believer in the Big Bad at the end of an adventure, and that we had in fact got the seneschal down to zero hit points.  This triggered the nephew's adventure-ending arrival. 
Huh.

In thinking about this adventure and telling the story to other people, the analysis that I've come up with is that Walter designed his adventure specifically to conform to the conventions of videogame CRPG design.  The arrival of the nephew was a cut scene, triggered by our whittling down of a Big Bad's hit points.  The closing of the doors behind us as we arrived served only to signal that we'd arrived at that point (I've played enough Final Fantasy to recognize that when the doors close behind you, you've gotten to the unavoidable encounter).  The adventure had to end with the fight taking place in the office, so that the cut scene could happen.  The whole adventure was designed to get us to that one scene.

One of the people I told this story to at Dexcon said, “There have been enormous advances in rules over the past twenty years, but adventure design has stood still.”  And I think that's true.  And it's possible that adventure design has even regressed:  ironically, the retarded child of tabletop roleplaying has come to serve as a model for its progenitor, unnecessarily taking on its constraints in order to emulate the experience of roleplaying with a limited menu of options.

All in all, an interesting experience.

As much as I'm appaled, here's a provocative question in his favour: If you had been playing a final fantasy computer game, would it have bothered you if the same thing happened?

I've played a few CRPG's and in terms of me, I wouldn't be bothered. But I'm pretty sure that's because I have absolute control over the computer and game - I can turn it off at will. That way I know it's not manipulating and controlling me, rather, I'm humouring whatever it produces. However, with another human - I can't turn them off. Note: I'm pretty sure that's why, despite the many flaws of fighting fantasy books, I still feel an attraction to them as well. But if I were to actually have a GM run something like them...

Would it as negative if it happened to you while playing a computer game?

Interesting indeed, Bill.

Bill White wrote: We chase him!  “Guards!  Seize him!”  They're comatose.

Callan -- No, in a CRPG I get it.  In Final Fantasy, the cut-scene is a little bit of eye-candy to reward you for playing it out:  Put down your controller and watch.  Awesome!  On the tabletop, there is no reward involved.  The "cut scene" amounts merely to heavy-handed deprotagonization.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I don't want to talk trash about the DM; he was doing his best to give us a game that he thought we'd like--the only way he knew how.

Andrew --

How did they get comatose?  The in-SIS explanation had to have been something like, "He was mind controlling them and when he lost his concentration, their brains were (temporarily, maybe) fried."  The reason they went comatose was that the DM's vision of the final conflict was The Party vs. the Big Bad.  In his head, the guards weren't part of the picture.

How did Tyler feel about the game? Was he all for it, or did he agree with your points?

He enjoyed the game, but stuck around for debriefing the DM and later told me, "Yeah, I agree with you."  But Tyler had a much cooler game going on in his head than the one that happened at the table; he was imagining that his character might have been mind controlled to stab me, for example, until it was revealed that, no, the seneschal did it.

That is a skill I must develop for cons that are not Dexcon. Create a whole new category of "Virtual Play"

"Huh? The game? Oh, it sucked, but the one in my head was _Totally Awesome_!"

-Rob D.

Bill, did you get the sense that Tyler enjoyed the game because that's what he's used to? Was there a silent "...but what can you do?" after his "Yeah, I agree with you..."?

I think that this story is cool because it illustrates that there's usually, if not always, a cool idea at the core of something crappy.

Like, how about a CRPG-inspired game where you (the players) outline some cool cut scenes on index cards, and then on the other side you write trigger conditions. Then, when those trigger conditions happen, you flip over the card and narrate the scene in the context of however the game is going. That would be neat.

Hi there,

My favorite part is the "you're tired, you're going to bed" bit. Why? So I can have someone sneak into your room and stab you!

But this is the part that caught my eye, because it's sort of a specific spot or hinge we might use to open things up a little.

The wu jen and I went to the library, where we noticed (I forget the roll we made; Spot, maybe?  It wasn't Search, though) “this world's version of Machiavelli's The Prince,” and a book called, “The Art of Disguise.”  Um, so the nephew believes in realpolitik?  Or the seneschal does?  And is somebody in disguise?  (This was a clue of sorts:  the seneschal turned out to be a doppleganger with psionics and levels in a prestige class called something like “spymaster” or “mindfucker” or something like that.  So the “'clue”wasn't causally connected to what was going on; it was clue by the power of suggestion, or perhaps metonymy).

Ron wrote:
I couldn't give the revelation away before it was time! But they had to have information to act on! But I couldn't just give it away! But they need something to do, and a random attack/fight totally sucks! But ...

Andrew wrote:
Bill, did you get the sense that Tyler enjoyed the game because that's what he's used to? Was there a silent "...but what can you do?" after his "Yeah, I agree with you..."?

Nathan wrote:
I think that this story is cool because it illustrates that there's usually, if not always, a cool idea at the core of something crappy.

Like, how about a CRPG-inspired game where you (the players) outline some cool cut scenes on index cards, and then on the other side you write trigger conditions. Then, when those trigger conditions happen, you flip over the card and narrate the scene in the context of however the game is going. That would be neat.

Bill,

I find this game fascinating.  I think it was GMed by the guy who ran Napkin Girl at the last DexCon I went to, which had its own issues to talk about (threads exist on this already).  Would you have been comfortable telling the GM during the game that you felt overly controlled and deprotagonized?  I think you were trying to give him hints with some of the jokes you made.

I did "debrief" the DM in order to get at some of his rationale for doing what he did; I was professorial in manner so that he wouldn't think I was attacking him per se.  When he allowed as how there were differences in styles that might shape preferences in the game, I knew that I couldn't push any more.  So I said, "Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good stuff that you did," and thanked him for running the game.

Ron wrote:
But I was trapped by habits like this kind of pseudo-clue. I couldn't give the revelation away before it was time! But they had to have information to act on! But I couldn't just give it away! But they need something to do, and a random attack/fight totally sucks! But ...

Well anyway. It was that sort of thing that led me to think more in terms of Kickers and Bangs, much later, and ultimately, more recently, I think that raw Situation is becoming more central to RPG design among at least a few of us. It's a perfect example of a Technique that exists (I think) practically only as a compensating feature, and not even a very strong one, of a fundamentally screwy approach to play - specifically, Typhoid Mary as discussed in the Narrativism essay.

Almost. "Whatever it is" insofar as our decisions actually matter during the process, and the thing takes a shape which reflects those decisions and other conditional factors.

H'mmm, not a perfect analogy. Sometimes it's like taking stuff away instead of shaping. Sometimes it's like getting to add new parts, and sometimes it's not. But all that is Technique, not goal/agenda.

Best, Ron

Bill_White wrote:
I did "debrief" the DM in order to get at some of his rationale for doing what he did; I was professorial in manner so that he wouldn't think I was attacking him per se.  When he allowed as how there were differences in styles that might shape preferences in the game, I knew that I couldn't push any more.  So I said, "Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good stuff that you did," and thanked him for running the game.

RobNJ wrote:

Bill_White wrote:
I did "debrief" the DM in order to get at some of his rationale for doing what he did; I was professorial in manner so that he wouldn't think I was attacking him per se.  When he allowed as how there were differences in styles that might shape preferences in the game, I knew that I couldn't push any more.  So I said, "Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good stuff that you did," and thanked him for running the game.

What I wonder, though, is if you would have felt comfortable in telling him during the game.  I know I wouldn't have, and I know that when I was on the other side of the table, I couldn't do the equivalent thing during the game.  A lot of times we say the healthier thing to do when someone really isn't making it work for you is to get up and leave or point it out to them (or if the GM, ask them to leave).  This is a question that's been occurring a lot to me lately.

So I'm wondering, if it's the healthier thing, why is it so hard to do?  Is it in fact the healthier thing, or is it better to politely suffer?  I guess it's dependant on the level of suffering involved.

Bill_White wrote:
Callan -- No, in a CRPG I get it.  In Final Fantasy, the cut-scene is a little bit of eye-candy to reward you for playing it out:  Put down your controller and watch.  Awesome!  On the tabletop, there is no reward involved.  The "cut scene" amounts merely to heavy-handed deprotagonization.

The "cut scene" amounts merely to heavy-handed deprotagonization.

Yes, but why?

Couldn't it be made to work somehow, to be rewarding, just like in final fantasy comp play?

I think Alex has a good point. A lot CRPG cutscenes are annoying. . .part of it is that the plot developments in question are hackneyed and overused, like many he mentions. And part of it is a sense of helplessness in the real fate of your characters. The "Nephew rushes in and kills him" scene would still be pretty galling in an FF game, especially with as little development as the Nephew got in play. It can work maybe for an early encounter where the still-weak heroes are at the mercy of an all-powerful villain, but at the end of the story when it's time for the heroes to come into their own. . .no way. Luke may need Obi-wan to fight Darth Vader so everyone can escape, but eventually he's got to come back and face his father on his own.

Another factor, more mechanical, in the Nephew ex Machina is the fact that the bad guy's HP were actually reduced to 0. Not, like 25% left, the nephew rushes in, but 0 HP. The nephew literally stole the kill from the players. Not just that they should have gotten to kill him, but that mechanically, they did. This is JUST like a lot of FF-style bos battles, where you deplete all the hitpoints, then something happens, usually the guy gloats and retreats, or decides to "end this" and casts a spell to knock you out, capture you, etc. Way to make it entirely clear that your mechanical victories have NOTHING to do whatsoever with what actually happens in the story. And of course, in a CRPG, mechanical input is all you have, though even in pen and paper, non-mechanically supported input can easily become a mere popularity contest.

Peace,
-Joel

I have to pitch in a few thoughts here. I was in the session and I think Bill's description  captured the session really well. I have to get up front that this was a HUGE eye-opening experience for me. It had been quite a while since I had played D&D and...well...comparing it to other kick-ass games I played at Dexcon (namely Capes, PTA, Ganakagok)...it's not likely I will any time soon. This was a pretty traumatic realization for me. Shit...I grew up with D&D. And to realize that it doesn't work for me any more was quite sobering and sad.

My big thing with the whole session was that the kill-joy Nephew scene was the climactic piss-off. For me the frustration built from the beginning of the session. Characters with no background to help me invest. No clear reason why we had a party of mixed classes other than it was a D&D trope. For all we did, we could easily have been a team of samurai...which to a large degree would have been kind of bad-ass and fun to play out. I mean...holy crap! We had a ninja in the party that wasn't allowed to sneak around and do ninja stuff.

Here's my take on it. The game was short circuited by weak narrative choices on the part of the GM. The GM knew the rules really well...I'll give him that. But it seemed that he was so set in trying to make everything fit with his prep and the rules, he wound up undercutting what might otherwise have been an interesting or compelling story. Hell, we just wanted to explore this world he set up and solve the mystery. But the only tools we had (especially considering we all weren't the 3.5 rules experts the GM was) were our own story-telling and narrative efforts. Each time an interesting twist came up...it got ignored or shot down. I think Ron's description of the "big reveal" of clues and details hits pretty well on what happened here. It was clear the GM was trying hard and was proud of his adventure. But to be honest, most of his clues and details sucked. For example, the "big feast" scene in this pseudo-Oriental adventure was a big ol' turkey dinner, punctuated by a desert of tiramisu. (Hmm...Samurai and tiramisu...is there a game concept there?)  Generally speaking, I know this was a fantasy setting, but there has to be some internal logic to the details presented. When the details are so blatantly out of place, it makes it hard to pick up on the  other details that really matter for the game (the clues).

As for the CRPG stuff. Cut scenes are fine in that context...if they make sense for the overall narrative. The unfortunate part of all this is that CRPG stories aren't usually that great to begin with. It's something that critics and designers  of computer games have talked about for quite a while. When the story is weak, so is the experience of the game. So to duplicate the narrative structure that's more often than not weak to begin with (there are exceptions, of course) just makes for a weak and frustrating table-top narrative and experience. In one of our numerous talks about this Bill and I both saw that our character interactions were limited to what was scripted...just as in CRPGs. If you can talk to someone, you can press the [insert favorite controller reference here] button to get the pre-arranged dialogue. If you can't talk, they won't highlight. And that was the most frustrating thing about the game. It was so much more about the "you can'ts" than it was about the "you cans"...all leading up to a "You don't matter...here's my big climax scene!" ending.

I wound up quietly walking away from the table as Bill debriefed the GM. I felt I was ignored enough during the game so anything that I could have provided in terms of advice would have been ignored as well. Kudos to Bill for at least trying.

Dave

Well, I wonder how many of these allegedly bad cut-scenes actually exist.  The 0-hitpoints one is fairly widespread, yes, but this again is arguably an import to CRPG convention from tabletop.  IME, most cut scenes are informational; similarly, the "betrayed by your patron" concept is firmly embedded in cyberpunk RPG too.

I likjed Dave's comment above about the problem being the "you cans".  IMO things would be much clarified if plot structure was more, not less, present and visible; the thing with the ninja arises becuase it is implied you have the freedom to infiltrate, but in fact you were not.  Life would be easier I think if when you hit the edge of the board, or the rendered volume, or the imaginary space, you knew that you had done so.  Then the game would not be promising more than it is able to deliver.

Y'know the particularly heinous thing about that situation was that the characters were pre-generated. . .it wasn't even "Oh, you're playing a ninja? Sorry, you can't sneak." It was "Here, play this Ninja. . .by the way, you can't sneak."

I've seen plenty of the former, but never, thank God, encountered the latter. *Shudder*.

-Joel

DocMMedia wrote:
I have to pitch in a few thoughts here. I was in the session and I think Bill's description  captured the session really well. I have to get up front that this was a HUGE eye-opening experience for me. It had been quite a while since I had played D&D and...well...comparing it to other kick-ass games I played at Dexcon (namely Capes, PTA, Ganakagok)...it's not likely I will any time soon. This was a pretty traumatic realization for me. Shit...I grew up with D&D. And to realize that it doesn't work for me any more was quite sobering and sad.

With regards to cut scene in CRPGs...I think it's very important to remember that often the "payoff" isn't in the narrative at all.  It's in the eye candy.  Cool graphics.  The fact that it vaguely relates to the story is just a bonus.

But, then, I can't stand the "cut scenes" in games where it's just the regular old sprites throwing text back and forth...I want the full on cinematic cutscene, not just watching the same graphics I have for the past two hours, only now I can't control what I do.

Same as cut scene in LARPs...  If the cut scene is just a couple of players bantering back and forth revealing backstory, it's usually boring.  But if the Storytellers have put all sorts of work into costumes and props and a surprise SFX to spring in the middle of the cutscene...well, it still isn't Broadway quality acting, sure, but it's a lot more tolerable and even sometimes enjoyable.  Although, having said this, I acknowledge that LARP cutscenes are a different beast, since they generally don't involve your character... 

Point stands, though - for me, the value of the cutscene is associated with the bells and whistles.  There are some GMs who are just such awesome, expressive voice actors that I'd tolerate any cutscene from because it's like watching a really cool one man show...but those are few and far between.

Getting back to Nathan's idea of incorporating the cut-scene into tabletop play (where I take that as meaning some sort of structure where satisfying a game-mechanical trigger condition provides powerful narration rights):  My Life With Master kind of does this with "The Horror Revealed."  For those of you who haven't read the rules, the Horror Revealed takes place as a kind of penalty when a character (who is always a minion of a creepy Gothic villainous master in the mold of Frankenstein or Moreau) takes an action that would result in a particular character stat (Self-Loathing I think) passing a particular threshold.  Instead of passing that threshold, the player narrates a scene whose import is that the evil represented by the Master and his minions is spreading through the hitherto blameless townspeople.

So I could imagine a game that does something similar.  The characters are angelic servitors who walk among us in disguise, righting wrongs and avenging evil.  The GM controls diabolical agents who spur humanity to sin.  The GM tracks the "Sin Level" for each of Seven Deadly Sins, and when the characters have put enough of a beat-down on, say, Beelzebub (Devil of Greed), a player can narrate the operation of the opposing Virtue (in this case, Generosity) among the community affected by the adventure.  But if the characters don't succeed, the GM gets to describe Beelzebub going to town...

Something like that might be cool, but note that it moves away from the model tof put-down-your-controller-and-watch-the-eye-candy.  In a more traditional adventure, the GM might get away with revealing plot information or backstory.  But deprotagonization is real!  It almost happened to me!

Maybe so but please realise then that the idea that the a) the world gets changed in play, and b) that the non-GM players change it are both anathema to me, and that a game that did both would be anathema squared.  More power to you if it's your cup of tea however.

But what I find consistently amazing here with all our emphasis on the real people playing is the lack of interest in PERFORMANCE.  It seems to me there is a big element of portrayal and theatrical performance that goes on with the old school GMing style, at least when you are not being mechanically pushed through a dungeon.  The NPC's weep and wail, they have particular voices and body languages, grand spectacular events occur, dragons roar strategically placed barrels explode, and knights glitter in their shining armour.

The is storyTELLING, the old way.  Me to you, not "us".  It is a valid and entertaining performance art.  There seems to me to be no reason that RPG's cannot achieve that kind of satisfying set-down-the-controller-and-watch cutscene.  And in this regard I fully agree with Wades point about the amount of effort that the people presenting it have invested, becuase although I probably cannot really compete with a hollywood special effects budget, I also have before me a very friendly and forgiving audience who want to enjoy this as much as I want them to enjoy it.  After all, I'm not even charging them money!

Some of this really hurt because I can see my own GM flaws - past and present - reflected in the description.

The random rolls, especially for Spot and Notice, even when they don't mean anything.  This is such an ingrained habit that it's tough to get rid of.  And sure, sometimes it's funny (like when I rolled a 1 and we made 'staring at the fish' jokes for the rest of the session) but it doesn't add anything to the game.  Sometimes I wonder if it is (or it started as) the GMing equivalent of saying "um" or "uh" or "y'know" - stalling for time while you're preparing what happens next.  Personal resolution: unless its an ambush or something where the mechanics will make a difference, just tell the person with the highest Spot/Listen/Notice/Whatever.

I actually applaud the "you're provisioned".  Especially in a con game with a limited time slot, you don't want to waste time with "can we get a dozen iron spikes?  How much can our horses carry?  Maybe we should get a wagon..."  The flip side of that is that the GM has to be willing to say "sure, you have that" when you want to get something from the provisions, and you're opening yourself up for disagreement between the guy who thinks "provisioned" means "you have food and water" and the guy who thinks it means you've got everything up to and including a portable anvil and a sack full of horseshoes.  For me, at least, saying "you're provisioned" is a tacit agreement that I find that sort of stuff incredibly dull, and I am not going to hose the players for not specifying that they brought three full waterskins (or whatever), so can we get to the interesting stuff now please?

I'm not sure I would have lasted past the "you're tired and you need to go to bed" scene.  Especially if I were the ninja's player and had been stymied all game.  At some point, I would have gone "fuck it", and unfortunately that would probably have come out as intentionally destructive play as I decided that I might as well amuse myself by seeing just how far the DM will go to keep his plot online.  Mature? No, not really.  (One should probably just walk away - but in many cases that will be equally disruptive to the game.)

J

Hi Bill,

Why if you were vieing for your cut scene. Like your ideal cut scene set it at the start, perhaps written secretly. Then you try and earn points by some fair competitive mechanic, to get yours as the winner. And here's the twist, if you don't win by a large lead, it blends with the nearest competitor.

Can you imagine the GM's vision of the nephew killing the shenshal (sp?). But because you won but not by much, it blends with your scene, which was you killing a massive demon in one leet move. So when they blend - dead shenshal reanimates and becomes a massive demon, only to be taken down in one leet move by your PC!

Sounds pretty damn final fantasy to me. :)

Callan wrote:
Hi Bill,

Wh[at] if you were vieing for your cut scene[?] Like your ideal cut scene set it at the start, perhaps written secretly. Then you try and earn points by some fair competitive mechanic, to get yours as the winner. And here's the twist, if you don't win by a large lead, it blends with the nearest competitor.

Can you imagine the GM's vision of the nephew killing the shenshal (sp?). But because you won but not by much, it blends with your scene, which was you killing a massive demon in one leet move. So when they blend - dead shenshal reanimates and becomes a massive demon, only to be taken down in one leet move by your PC!

Sounds pretty damn final fantasy to me. :)

drnuncheon wrote:
I actually applaud the "you're provisioned".  Especially in a con game with a limited time slot, you don't want to waste time with "can we get a dozen iron spikes?  How much can our horses carry?  Maybe we should get a wagon..."  The flip side of that is that the GM has to be willing to say "sure, you have that" when you want to get something from the provisions, and you're opening yourself up for disagreement between the guy who thinks "provisioned" means "you have food and water" and the guy who thinks it means you've got everything up to and including a portable anvil and a sack full of horseshoes.  For me, at least, saying "you're provisioned" is a tacit agreement that I find that sort of stuff incredibly dull, and I am not going to hose the players for not specifying that they brought three full waterskins (or whatever), so can we get to the interesting stuff now please?

contracycle wrote:
But what I find consistently amazing here with all our emphasis on the real people playing is the lack of interest in PERFORMANCE.  It seems to me there is a big element of portrayal and theatrical performance that goes on with the old school GMing style, at least when you are not being mechanically pushed through a dungeon.  The NPC's weep and wail, they have particular voices and body languages, grand spectacular events occur, dragons roar strategically placed barrels explode, and knights glitter in their shining armour.

contracycle wrote:
The is storyTELLING, the old way.  Me to you, not "us".  It is a valid and entertaining performance art.  There seems to me to be no reason that RPG's cannot achieve that kind of satisfying set-down-the-controller-and-watch cutscene.  And in this regard I fully agree with Wades point about the amount of effort that the people presenting it have invested, becuase although I probably cannot really compete with a hollywood special effects budget, I also have before me a very friendly and forgiving audience who want to enjoy this as much as I want them to enjoy it.  After all, I'm not even charging them money!

contracycle wrote:
Maybe so but please realise then that the idea that the a) the world gets changed in play, and b) that the non-GM players change it are both anathema to me, and that a game that did both would be anathema squared.  More power to you if it's your cup of tea however.

Bill_White wrote: If it's just one-way communication, a one-man show with the players as little more than appreciative audience, then I'll stay home with the Playstation.

Hey Bill,

I was thinking you make up your scene right at the start of play, so:
A. There's a sort of tension filled build up, which helps you build up excitment for your scene to happen.
B. You don't know what the story contains, so you get more of a cross breed of ideas - like if you had an underwater fight as your dream scene, then suddenly the seneshal (can't spell it, sorry) dives through a secret portal and you all follow to an amazing underwater dimension (or however else you might connect it - you have to think quick and mix it with your dream scene).

Bill_White wrote: We roll our dice, our 5 to the GM's 6.  He gets 1 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 20.  You get 3 + 6 = 9.  I get 3 + 4 + 5 = 12.  Separately, we both lose, so you decide to throw away your narration card in order to pool our rolls.  Together we have 21!  We win!

One thing about the resource-pooling idea: is there ever any incentive to NOT go in with the other player to beat the GM's roll? Other than, I really DON'T want the scene on his card to happen? I mean, the players might dispute over WHICH scene to ditch, but otherwise the pattern seems pretty unvaried: GM rolls, players roll individually, if they don't make it they throw in together, they (probably) win.

Makes youwonder what difficulty to set as typical. . .comparable to their own ratings, it's no match for their teamup power, comparable to their combined power, and they HAVE to team up to win. . .

Awesome ideas. Just chipping away at the block of stone a bit.

-Joel

Jeez Joel, you gots the GM tagged as some kind of permanent antagonist, eh? The GM is just another player (it's especially apparent with a mechanic like this). Why would the whole group consistantly gang up on one particular players ideas, regardless of what those ideas are? In this case, the player who is called GM?

Hey, I was just springboardin' off of Bill's example; maybe it only SEEMED like "players vs. GM because it was baserd on the DnD scenario, whatever. The point is, in THAT scenario, what incentive do the two players have to NOT pool if they can't beat the third player alone?

Joel's got a point; clearly there would have to be some kind of incentive to hold on to your cut-scene card, built either into the payoffs for the conflict itself, or as a kind of fan-mail or consolation prize mechanism ("Gee, that would have been cool") if you lose.

Here's the game in my head:  Penultimate.  You play a Jedi/Lensman/Green Lantern-type at the end of the (space fantasy-variety) universe, a Penultimate.  The Big Crunch is coming, and you've got to fight the bad guys who want to take control of the Omega Point and reshape the phoenix universe to be born in their twisted, evil image.  The thing is, only one of you will get to be the Ultimate, who will put his own imprint on the new universe (and win the game). 

So there's a player-vs.-player element built into it, in that cooperation against the bad guys is important, but building up your own power (by winning cut-scene narration, maybe) is important too.

But maybe now this thread has drifted irreparably away from what it's about.

Bill_White wrote:

contracycle wrote:
Maybe so but please realise then that the idea that the a) the world gets changed in play, and b) that the non-GM players change it are both anathema to me, and that a game that did both would be anathema squared.  More power to you if it's your cup of tea however.

Trust the players.  Trust the players.  Trust the players.

I think that there is the whole root of the problem sometimes...  GMs who just don't trust their players.

That's definitely another dimension of critique; it just happens not to be the one that popped out at me this time.  I suppose it's possible that had the DM's performance been especially striking -- exquisite descriptions, evocative character portrayals -- I would have been less dissatisfied.  "Wow, what a great show!"  Of course, I'm there to do a little wowing myself.

If it's just one-way communication, a one-man show with the players as little more than appreciative audience, then I'll stay home with the Playstation.  Not because you're wrong.  Storytelling is a valid kind of performance, absolutely.  But I think everyone at the table should get their chance.

Trust the players.  Trust the players.  Trust the players.

contracycle wrote:
The issue of trust is utterly, utterly irrelevant, an appeal to fuzzy feelings instead of dealing with the problem.  If you really trusted the players you would trust me when I tell you what kind of game I like to play.  That problem is continuity of vision; there is no way two people can completely synchronise their individual visions of  an imaginary space.  And it gets exponentially worse with three people and then four people and so on.  Now that may not be important to you, but it is important to me.  "Cool" is not nearly as important as "consistent".

"Trusting the players" has become and easy and IMO lazy catechism, the equivalent of being doorstepped by some religious person asking me if I have heard the good news.  I have heard it; I wasn't that impressed; telling me again in ever more raptured tones is not going to be any more convincing.  The problem doesn't go away.

Hey guys,

I think the thread topic has actually been dealt with, and in the interest of not letting D&D threads turn into whole forums of their own, let's call this one done. Bill, let me know privately whether this is OK with you. Everyone else, assume it's closed.

DocMedia, I encourage you to start a thread on trusting/not-trusting players based on some play experiences of your own. Gareth, you've made your point, now back off and let the new guy figure out his point without getting all bent out of shape about it. You don't get to call "rude" here; that's my job.

Best, Ron

I wasn't aware trusting your friends and collaborators in a shared creative project was a "just a preference" that can be abandoned or restored at the drop of a hat. Non-trust of the other players at the table is a serious problem. What else have we been talking about here for years if not this: trusting the other participants in play. Isn't that foundational to everything else we've explored in terms of defeating group dysfunction?

So, yes, I'd go so far as to say not trusting the players is a dysfunctional behavior. It is also an argument -- the one Wade recounts -- I've heard numerous times over the course of the years, though whether it has anything to do with Bill's experience at the Con is another matter entirely. Without knowing what the inside of the GM's head looks like, I'd say it wasn't a conscious choice, but fears of "Ohmygod, if I let them do something other than what I've planned or envision, things will be RUINED" are certainly feasible as an idea that lurks in back of the minds of many GMs and prompts them to act.

Many times it is supported by experience, because when the GM did loosen up the reins that one (or couple) times, the players went wild on him and did do all sorts of weird and game-breaking stuff. But of course they did! That's a pretty natural behavior when we're talking about gamers who otherwise play in the mindset and style common to many groups (TITBB, turtling, Illusionism, et al). Of course they did that, you've just set them loose into alien territory where the old "this is how play works" rules don't exist any longer and new ones need to be hashed out, consciously or unconsciously, such as: "we will all try to make the game interesting and coherent."

It's like expecting no one to cheat at poker when, up until this game, you checked their hands every single time to make sure they weren't cheating. When they do cheat after that, because you've abandoned the restrictions, using it as "evidence" that players are untrustworthy cheats is a bit gonzo. And why the hell would someone play with a group they don't trust anyways? The only reason I can see doing it as a GM has to do with a need to satiate the ego and elicit praise from those under your control.

And frankly, arguing that three people cannot maintain the "consistency" of a game together...bullocks. I think that's been disproven time and again with numerous Actual Play accounts and a variety of games and sessions where just that happens: everyone maintains the consistency. But if control is what a person is really after, then write a book. That way you don't have anyone impguning upon the consistency of your vision.

And if a person desires social appreciation for the consistency of their personal, singular vision, hold a public reading of it to them.

Damn it.

1. Closed means closed. The software prevents you from posting over my closure post by accident. There is no accidental cross-posting any more. Don't post when I've closed it.

2. Raven, you know better than to take Gareth's bait like that. You just responded as predictably as a three-year-old to a shiny thing.

Now it's closed and locked. That's the fault of the two of you.

Ron