I checked out Peregrin's Wayfarer's Song yesterday. He has some really nice stuff in there. However, as I was going though the material I felt more and intimidated by it as the rules seemed to pile up.

But it wasn't the mechanics that actually were piling up. The mechanics seemed good and simple enough. What was piling up were the magic effects and their rules.

I bring it up because it's not just a problem here, but for me building Ygg as well, and I think for any game where the source material for the things your character can do (I'm not talking about setting) reaches a certain level.

I think we can say the typical example would be a skill list. The skill resolution might be harmless enough, but if we go for completeness we end up with maybe 30 pages of decriptions of thing people actually already know about or could make up themselves. The solution to this particular problem can be said to have one of it's simplest solutions in free descriptors.

However, this is only the most obvious area, the problem of wayfarer's song (and maybe of Ygg too) lies elsewhere in a place much harder to reduce in this manner: the magic system.

Unlike skills where you can say "Ok, I'm good at jumping" and everyone knows pretty much what you mean, magic powers is a difficulty because we have no reference. In addition they are tied to the setting in what might be non obvious ways. Is it any strange that magic system tend to be the most complex parts of a system?

So anyway, what happens? Well usually we think of effects, codify them in some manner (lists or components) and off we go.

But what if we have 2 magic systems? Well usually we think of effects and so on twice and make two different systems.

What if we have 3? What if we have 10? Wayfarer's song has several, so in an attempt to cover them all some corners are cut in characterisation I suppose, and some common ground between them are established. But the fact still remains that you have many different unique mechanics.

Is it a wonder that many games don't fully explain their magic until you buy their sourcebook on the subject (hello Shadowrun)?


Writing my horror game The Evil (or actually editing it) I gut struck by how I could do about a million different versions of magic and monsters and summoning and it was all contained in those 6 (now 7) pages.

If you check the game the answer why is obvious: there is no magic nor monsters the GM doesn't come up with and effects of it is simply decided on by the GM, never formalized.

Kinda obvious right? Everything in that game was simply "told" in the style of Donjon or something, but without any contested right. The GM decided it all.

Now let me go back to Wayfarer's Song. In the first book you have this listing of animals and their abilities because they are partly sentient. Here's a quote

Wayfarer's Song Book 1 - Setting wrote: Foxes
Foxes, though clever, tricky and cunning, seldom learn much of a talent for words. They are more capable of repeating things they have heard, or speaking in riddles than saying anything of any real sense, and no fox anywhere worth his salt, ever gave anyone a straight answer.
One of the chief reasons for trying to make sense of a fox is their capacity for rumour, and their love of enchantment. They often go wandering in elvish realms and a part of that elvish magic has worked into the fox's blood, making the whole race seem mysterious, and on the border of the limits of mortal knowledge.

Lay of the Unelfed

I know a tenth, if I see hag-riders
Stream across the sky.
I can cause them to wander,
Away from their proper forms,
Away from their proper minds.

Allows you to try and swamp a spirit with magical energy and disrupt its physical form. For a spirit of least enchantment test your willpower at –1. Lesser: -2. Greater: -3. Grander –4. High –5. If you pass the spirit dissipates, temporarily turning into a phantom entity unable to do you harm, or be harmed for an hour.

wfreitag wrote: For example, the system could give free-form attributes to parts of the setting ("The Old Forest is Semi- Sentient, Pathless, and Energy-Sapping") and rules exceptions occurring there would each have to tie into an attribute, perhaps with a die pool roll to determine a cost for the exception, paid for out of a limited currency whose starting value would represent the overall "wonderfulness" of that place

Good point, although I'm not sure what you'd do about it.
You seem to be suggesting a system to basicly create the needed rules out of descriptions as needed.
The problem here is the GM has to create the rules from descritions on demand, as players may want to know about something, because the actualy rules are what they use to relate to the world. To take your forest example: If players are considering going there they would like to know if 'Energy Sapping' means there is a penalty to all actions, or their characthers will just feel depressed while there(penalty to resist fear). In charachter this translates into knowing the place weakens you by draining your soul(case A) or is just forboding. Obviously this is more of a problem in sim or gamist games.

damion wrote: The problem here is the GM has to create the rules from descritions on demand, as players may want to know about something, because the actualy rules are what they use to relate to the world.

Lot's of magic systems work like this already. To different extents. See games like Ars Magica (Imporv magic), Hero Wars, Story Engine, etc.

Even magic in Hero System kinda works this way. Let's look at that system. I decide that I need to have a spell that looks like this:

Deathlight: A magical seal in the form of an eye appears in the palm of the mage. From this seal a fascinating light radiates which draws attention. Any person looking at it will stand hypnotised. If not pushed away they will remain standing there looking into the light until their mind is permanently destroyed.

What sort of feel are you going for with magic in your game? I mean do you envision ancient wizards poring over spellbooks? If so, these comments might not apply.

What if magic was fairly random, all based on a roll, with the GM deciding the actual effect, higher the better? Let's use d6 for the example.

A spell user casts a "polymorph" spell to transform someone into a lizard. The caster rolls 1d6

1. The target develops a lisp.
2. As #1, and the target's skin turns green, eyes become slitted.
3. As #2, and the target is covered with scales
4. As #3, and the target shrinks to 1/2 his size.
5. As #4 but the target becomes a lizard, but retains human int.
6. As #5, and the target eventually begins to think like a lizard.


Novice spellcasters get no bonus to the roll. Experienced spellcasters might be able to add a +1 to the roll. Veteran spellcasters a +2. Ancient wizards a +3.

A more random system like this would allow you to define the base spell using description alone. The effects would be decided by the GM based off the roll + modifiers, a 5 being a complete success, a 6 (or higher) being an exceptional success.

In play this means that a beginning PC mage and an NPC arch mage both have a chance to get the maximum effect out of a spell. In order to level the playing field, you might want to limit certain spells by caster experience. Say, only veteran spellcasters have access to certain spells, ancient ones access to more, etc.

This might not be what you had in mind, though. It might be too random.

Pete

Pale Fire wrote: ...what if it was actually made to be rule material, and what if we made some rules on how to interpret rule material without numbers?

If we look at "Pathless" in the "Old Forest" description, I think most of us already have a pretty good idea of how it works right? Same with Semi-sentient and Energy-sapping. Of course we could code HOW energy sapping it is, but then we go into rule creating hell again.

I don't really want to present a system here, I need to think more before I do that. But some observations beyond what I already outlined above would be:

* Use FUDGE like levels to differentiate between different powers. For example "Energy-sapping" might be nice and all, but we might want to compare it to a spell which is "Energy-sapping" or some similar description. How do we do it without saying it's "Energy-sapping level 1" (which would make us think of creating descriptions for what energy-sapping level 1 means and how it compares to level 2)? Well saying that one thing is Slowly Energy-sapping and the other is just Energy-sapping we get a good feel of the approximate magnitude, don't we? There is no need to really get in to how much slower "Slowly" means, because that's up to the story.

* We need to realize that what we have here are descriptions, even of magic that we could bend according to the needs of the story. Maybe in one story Energy-sapping needs to be "this way" and in another story or campaign you want to do it a little different. Without the mechanics butting in that is a breeze. Notice how it also corresponds to the way books are written... new interpretations of powers appear as they need to for the story, they're not something predetermined and then bound to by contract for the rest of one's life.

* Despite all of this, these effects have to feel well determined, so that the GM and players still have a solid direction. "What can be done?" should be answered, it's just that the answers are not particular bonuses but a range of abilities. Notice how for example "Pathless" can be translated into many different ways in a system. Maybe penalties to orientation rolls. Or the environment actually changes. Or the characters might be teleported. What we are doing is simply focusing on the outcome and feeling rather than mechanics.

Finally one thing. All games are already doing this (yes you read me right). By having rules written and explained we already use words to communicate how they work. The level of abstraction varies though. For example a game might describe the effect of me falling over, but there are no combat result or skill result which would require me to use this effect. So if we only communicate using the mechanics there are actually mechanics we cannot reach unless we bridge it by "fudging the rules" or thinking about "what happens" rather than only clinging to what the rules explicitly say.

In a spell description you might have a description of how a ball of fire explodes, but it says nothing about using it to destroy inanimate things say blowing open a blocked cave entrance. If it can or cannot has to be interpreted from its description in the end.

It's already here - everywhere. Even in gamist and sim games.

Let's take it from the top...
I have only looked at Ars Magica, and if I remember right it used a combination of power words. I don't know how Hero Wars' magic works so I can't say anything abou that, nor have I played Story Engine.

However you bring up Hero, so I think I understand what you try to say Mike. Basically it's "you have a text then you translate it into mechanics and use it"

This is actually not what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is having text which is used directly, no interfacing it into the mechanics needed.

Let's look at the "Pathless" thing again. In the envisioned system there is no ability or spell called "Pathless". Let's say now someone writes down the keyword "Pathless". It's not defined yet, not until it's invoked by the GM with a good explanation of how that would be the effect.
If you go with the Hero system you translate it into effects and modifiers after which the keyword is "frozen" as an ability.
But the "pathless" I'm suggesting is never defined within the mechanics with bonuses or the like.

Maybe an example would be better: Entering the pathless forest, the GM might rule that they can't find any paths, regardless of how they mark their way those markings mysteriously disappear.
Another way could let people keep markings, but the forest is confusing you, so if you don't pay attention you will keep wandering back and around.
Yet another way would be that the trees themselves move so that paths appear and disappear.

All those are possible for the forest. In fact combinations are ok. The GM is only limited in the word itself. The GM can't use this power to create monsters or kill characters (other than out of starvation). The limits are clear, but the specific implementation is open.

On the HW homepage there is a sample of the first 3 chapters of the book. In an example a character has the "Sack of Black Winds, in which the Four Collapsing Words have been trapped since the War of the Straw Giants". At game start it's not clear what this is. Later this happens:

Rick's character description includes the sentence, "Kallai owns the Sack of Black Winds, in which the Four Collapsing Words have been trapped since the War of the Straw Giants."

Rick has no idea what the Sack of Black Winds or the Four Collapsing Words do, nor does he know anything about the War of the Straw Giants; he's just using them because they sound cool.

Kathy, his narrator, approves the character, and play begins. Kallai and the other characters have gone on a heroquest, traveling back into the Storm Age to the scene of a great siege. Rick suggests to Kathy that the Four Collapsing Words are used to bring walls down, and that, if released from the Sack, they might bring down the battlements of the fortress they are besieging. Kathy agrees that this is entertaining, and a reasonable interpretation of a previously ambiguous reference, so she allows Rick an action roll to attempt to knock the walls down.

Later, Rick may find another, quite different circumstance in which Collapsing Words might be appropriate, and convince Kathy to use it. Thus, through the use of evocative language, he gets two abilities for the price of one, in exchange for which he helps to create the magical atmosphere of Glorantha for the rest of the group.

Pale Fire wrote: Accord has everything already built in and it forms the core of the system. What I'm interested in, is there some other solution to it? Some solution that would mesh better with more traditional mechanics?

I think I do see what you mean. But I totally disagree.

You state that somehow by associating mechanics with a word or something that you "freeze" that term into place. But that's nonsensical. Look on any Hero System board at a thread about how to make a certain spell, and you'll see that any five GMs will come up with five diferent ways to cover the spell mechanically. And it all depends on the description. Further, even if I have the same mechanics for a spell, that does not mean that I have to describe it the same way. Different incarnations can have different "Special Effects". Further, if I want the single spell in question to have more than one "Special Effect" I abuy it with the advantage "Variable Special Effect" and I can change the exact description of the effect each time I cast it. And yet further, if I want to have a many powers all related to some term then I can create an "Elemental Control" of that term, allowing me potentially great lattitude in designing powers to fit the description. And if I want to have any power related to the term designed at the moment that the spell is cast, then I can take a related "Variable Power Pool".

So, there is no reason that such a term need be "frozen" in any way. You have options available that range from very specific in the current magical application to completely open. Again, I'm not advocating anything like Hero System per se. Just that you have a system in the background supporting play.

Anyhow, you further make an error with your HW assessment (you really ought to read the rules). Yes, you can start with undefined equipment. But as soon as it becomes defined in play in its use, guess what? That equipment gets stats. Usually in the form of a mechanic called Edges, but through other means as well. But again, just because you find a Wand of the Pathless Forrest with particular powers in one case, doesn't mean that the Pathless Spell has to be defined similarly at all. The argument just doesn't hold up. In fact in Hero Wars, the nature of the item can change over time.

What you're advocating, it seems to me, is just narrating freely through magic. You say stuff like,

The GM is only limited in the word itself. The GM can't use this power to create monsters or kill characters (other than out of starvation). The limits are clear, but the specific implementation is open.

Like I said in the other thread the extent of the power has to be regulated somehow, I don't dismiss that. Think instead of my proposal as having "Variable Special effect" added some kind of basic ability which only has two parameters: How powerful it is and what kind of "alignment" it has (using the later in a very loose sense)

For example we have Pathlessness. This is our variable special effect. It's a way to challenge the characters. The extent of how much this can challenge the characters depend on it's power. Here we can have a number or use FUDGE style descriptors such as Harmless, Powerful, Legendary.

The second parameter is what it's intentions are in stopping the characters: beneficial (this is just such a magical place that people are drawn in here and rest and get healed, the pathlessness keeps them there to prevent them from leaving before they are fully healed), evil (tries to kill the characters, so it confuses them so it can trick them into traps and stuff), dangerous (just leads the characters into walking around and maybe run into good things, maybe very bad things, maybe things that are both like a magical fountain guarded by a wyrm).

This limits the effect of the pathlessness.

There's still some stuff hanging in the air, but if we at least define these two and add rules to them we're not completely lost anymore.

We could apply it to spells too. Evil spells try to kill, dangerous spells could harm or maybe not, good spells are only used for positive, life enhancing things. The spells would also have a rating which would explain how much impact their effect could have. A spell that could raze a city is so powerful it has to be Legendary, which something which summons a magical sword doesn't affect so much so it might be something around "slighly useful" or whatever that level is called.

Beyond those parameters and the actual name of the power itself (which is maybe one or two words) there is nothing to decide the effects. It's just something the GM makes up.

(Incidentally, freezing might have been a bad word.. I simply meant that from having a fuzzy concept it becomes well defined in terms of system. A little like going from liquid to frozen form for a substance)

Pale Fire wrote: Here we can have a number or use FUDGE style descriptors such as Harmless, Powerful, Legendary.

The second parameter is what it's intentions are in stopping the characters:

This limits the effect of the pathlessness.

A spell that could raze a city is so powerful it has to be Legendary, which something which summons a magical sword doesn't affect so much so it might be something around "slighly useful" or whatever that level is called.

(Incidentally, freezing might have been a bad word.. I simply meant that from having a fuzzy concept it becomes well defined in terms of system. A little like going from liquid to frozen form for a substance)

Darn I should be sleeping now, but I just wanna clear this up first (yea right).

What you're complaining about Mike, is exactly what I want to find. A way to untangle the descriptors into actual mechanics in a fairly simple and straightforward way. If we had a more general system would could actually make it into a difficulty roll which the players roll against with their level or something. It would capture the essence of what I'm trying to do. However we want to flesh it out a little, don't we?

Let's go ratings, since that probably will let you see a little more what I have. We have a Pathless, Semi-sentient, Energy-draining Old Forest, Alignment Dangerous at a Legend rating 3 (Slightly intimidating)

That means that the energy drain can at the most have a Legend of 3 (I guess we have to invent a kind of scale which everything rolls against). For a Legend 3 attack an average Legend 3 character might have 50% chance of success. Or whatever.

So if it uses entangle, then an average character would have a 50% chance. However, all characters have slightly different skills and stats, so this figure would vary. For example weaker characters would have more difficulty with the entangle than stronger ones and so on.

However in general this is just a challenge roll which the forest can make. If the forest would try to kill a character, then it would have the capabilities of a Legend 3 character or monster in terms of average killing ability. The alignment decides if the forest actually tries to kill anyone or not.

Back to the spells, our Legend 3 spell could take out a Legend 3 character on average 50% of the time if it's attacking someone. When it comes to say healing spells, figuring out what Legend 3 means gets a little more tricky.

But if this could work somehow...

I'm not really arguing with you Mike, in fact what I'm looking for is a solution, not saying I have one. The above is something that might eventually go towards one, but I'm not sure.

Somehow there has to be a language to quantify effects, without getting into the expressions of it. C. Edwards (I think) called it a "self-contained generic system". For Champions you actually have to go down and make the calculations for how much you can get for the point pool. In Ygg I can't afford that much rules. Something easy, a rule of thumb which works "well enough" has to suffice.

A suggestion would be something along the lines of the above. How DOES HW work with the items by the way. Any links I could check out or something if you don't feel like explaining? (It might get long I mean)

The rating you want would seem to me to be effectively an opposing skill. Or a static skill check difficulty rating. Depending ohn how you see it.

This is how it works in HW, simply. You roll against the rating, and it produces X amount of game effect. Just like any skill, or relationship, or whatever. Actually, Magic is slightly more complicated. But looking at a game like Story Engine, magic is rated just like everything else, and has the exact same simple mechanical effect. Did I succeed in my goal for the scene, or did my opposition?

Mike

Let's see if I can help see the forest through the trees here, so to speak...

I went back to the thread where I originally suggested the forest example, to see if there was some useful context there that this discussion has gotten away from. Two things stand out:

1. The thread was about how mechanism could help (or at least, not hinder) the creation of a sense of wonder in play. Simulationist issues were assumed to be set aside for that purpose.

2. The paragraph the quote was taken from began with a very important sentence:

What I'm imagining, in a vague way so far, is a system of metagame rules akin to a complete narrativist game system that is executed in secret and entirely by the gamemaster.

Oops, cross-posted. I'm talking about what would be useful to achieve, but Christoffer is asking how exactly to achieve it.

I'm a big fan of extra input variables in a resolution mechanism, when they're there for a good reason. With open descriptors, the complication always seems to revolve around how well the descriptor fits what the character is trying to do. So here's what the input variables should be (let's assume an all-opposed system):

- The descriptor level
- The degree of fit between the descriptor and the task being attempted
- The opposing descriptor level
- The degree of fit between the opposing descriptor and the task being attempted

The descriptor levels are the familiar stats. The unfamiliar elements are the degrees of fit. Degree of fit represents how well and how specifically the skill or attribute being applied fits the task to which it is being applied. There should be, I believe, no more than three or four discrete levels of degree of fit.

All these variables will boil down to one (chance of success) or two (center and variance of the outcome distribution) degrees of freedom in the end. But applying them separately creates at least the illusion, if not the reality, of a more careful and objective analysis of the situation. (This is something that others often seem to disagree with. The prevailing attitude seems to be, if you're making judgment calls, it's better to make one big one instead of a lot of little ones. In rebuttal, I can point out that the entire statistical science of risk assessment is based on doing exactly the opposite.)

Interestingly, Christoffer's already proposed a resolution roll mechanism that has an extra variable that represents a combination of increase in difficulty and increase in the variance of the outcome... exactly what one would want in cases of lesser degree of fit.

So, here's a possible mechanism: roll a d12 for each descriptor level on both sides. Interpret each d12 as a hit or non-hit based on the degree of fit for that side, as follows:

degree of fit "exact": 3+ hits
degree of fit "good": 5+ hits
degree of fit "partial": 7+ hits
degree of fit "poor": 9+ hits

The side with the most hits succeeds.

Example: I have "Friends with Birds 3" and I'm in a forest that's "Trackless 4." I attempt to call a European Swallow (the migratory variety) to come to me to aid me with its navigational senses.

"Friends with Birds" is a pretty good fit to attempting to summon a particular bird, but it's not perfect (it's not a "summon birds" skill). So my degree of fit is "good." I roll 3 dice, getting 4, 5, 11. The 5 and 11 give me 2 hits. The forest's "trackless" quality opposes my attempt. My summoning could fail to reach any friendly birds, or they could fail to find their way to me to answer the summons, due to the tracklessness. However, birds don't have to rely on paths or landmarks to find their way. So the degree of fit on the forest's side is only "partial." The opposing roll is 4 dice, but only rolls of 7+ are hits. The roll is 2, 5, 6, 11. Only one hit. So a European Swallow arrives in answer to my call.

I can certainly foresee arguments about degrees of fit. (Having only three degrees of fit might be preferable.) But the silver lining is that a disagreement about a degree of fit need not be destructive to play, since it must be discussed in purely situational terms. "How can my jumping skill not be a 'perfect' fit for this jump?" "Because you're trying to jump 20 feet straight down without injury; that's more falling than jumping." "Yeah, but part of all kinds of jumping is knowing how to land properly." "That's right, 'part of,' so I'm ruling it's a 'partial' fit."

Degree of fit should work just as well for descriptor-based magic. If the magic descriptor is "demon fire" and someone wants to use it to send a message to someone ten miles away using flying letters of demonic fire, you don't have to argue about whether or not it's possible. Just give it a fit of 'poor' because it's so dissimilar to the way demonic fire usually behaves, and resolve in the usual way.

- Walt

Very interesting Walt. I have to think about things a little more before I give an in-depth reply to it all. One quick thing I can answer straight away though:

wfreitag wrote: So, is the key here simulation or story? That is, do you want the flexibility of choose-any-descriptor mechanisms because it allows more freedom for player exploration, or you do you want it because it allows more story-context-sensitive decision making? If it's the latter, causal constraints become secondary to metagame concerns and you could end up happily with a coherenly Narrativist system.

You're analysis of your horror game belies a misunderstanding of the difference between Sim and Narrativism. I think that the game is definitely Sim. The only "Narrativist" thing about your game is that you encourage the players to do "Stupid stuff" and to "get in trouble". But even that's really Sim driftable easily to "Vanilla Narrativism".

Why is it Sim? Because it attempts to create something like a splatty horror film. It's simulating that. A Narrativist game will have mechanics that encourage addressing some Narrativist premise. Your horror game has none of that. What it's likely to produce is players making decisions for the characters that seem to make sense for the characters but at most use Author stance to ensure that the charcter gets into trouble.

Sim exploration of Situation.

I still get the feeling that you are of the opinion that detail is somehow an important part of Simulationism. It isn't necessarily.

Yes, in Illusionism, there is something specific going on, and no, this is not a new revelation. This comes from another source of confusion. Narrativism is defined by the players creating story through their actions. No amount of GM creation of story is Narrativism. Illusionism does not allow players to create story, and as such is Sim. By the definitions of that term.

Seeing as you want Illusionism (assuming that you actually do), the obvious answer to Walt's question is that you must want these mechanics as we've discussed to allow for more in depth exploration of character, setting, and I think most importantly, color. The claim all along has been that by reducing the mechanical elements to a minimum that you can keep that "wonderous" feel better. This is very much color.

Mike

Hi there,

I agree with Mike, with the minor proviso that Narrativist play includes both GM and players as story-creators (often in different capacities); the point is that the story is neither retro-fitted after the actual play, nor pre-planned prior to play.

Best,
Ron

Ok, disappointed now (that I didn't add anything new I mean) ;)

However, I'm not 100% sure you understand me Mike, partly because you argue against me saying my game is Narrativist which I never say.

What I said was: "I actually thought of that system as an Exploration of Character for the players."" and "the GM uses narrativist priorities while the players play using simulationist priorities"

There is no question about the players. They are play sim.

However I feel the GM's view here is radically different from the players'.

How can we separate say CoC from my horror RPG? In one we have the same mechanics regulating both players and GM controlled entities whereas in the other the GM is explicitly free from them.

I realize that narrativism isn't the right word since narrativism is "producing theme in play" and "the key to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that engage the players’ interest" I can't say that's supposed to happen in my horror rpg.

What IS supposed to happen though, is that the GM uses the freedom from mechanics to drive a story where details are shaped around player input. Despite the illusionist techniques in play, there is never an attempt to rob the players of their ability to affect the story. However, their inpact is not necessarily a direct one.

We've been over this before with examples of how the players are empowered to control the story without them knowing it.

From what I experienced playing the proto-versions of "The Evil" (or to put it differently, the horror adventures I ran in the same style using stripped versions of other rpgs) the actual outcome of the story is almost exclusively player driven.

For example, I ran the exact same adventure twice with different groups. Second running I tried to borrow some stuff from the first run, but most of it ended up being completely different, including ending, how the monsters acted, how to defeat them and so on.

This is of course mainly due to the improvised play that The Evil takes as standard. Is maybe this what you mean by drift towards vanilla narrativism?

Because despite the fact that almost nothing is decided from the start, there is a seedling of story (decided by the GM) from the start which then is explored. However this exploration IS creating story and setting as it goes along... this is a little like narrativism. On the other hand, the players are not aware of this and keep making sim decisions.

How do we classify this play?

I'm afraid we're getting a little side tracked here. So I'd like to move a part of Walt's text here. This thread keep going back to ygg stuff (probably my fault), so let's move all discussion there instead. I'll stop posting on this thread and move further replies of mine (if they aren't general) to the above mentioned thread instead.

Pale Fire wrote: However, I'm not 100% sure you understand me Mike, partly because you argue against me saying my game is Narrativist which I never say.

What I said was: "I actually thought of that system as an Exploration of Character for the players."" and "the GM uses narrativist priorities while the players play using simulationist priorities"

There is no question about the players. They are play sim.

However I feel the GM's view here is radically different from the players'.

How can we separate say CoC from my horror RPG? In one we have the same mechanics regulating both players and GM controlled entities whereas in the other the GM is explicitly free from them.

What IS supposed to happen though, is that the GM uses the freedom from mechanics to drive a story where details are shaped around player input. Despite the illusionist techniques in play, there is never an attempt to rob the players of their ability to affect the story. However, their inpact is not necessarily a direct one.

From what I experienced playing the proto-versions of "The Evil" (or to put it differently, the horror adventures I ran in the same style using stripped versions of other rpgs) the actual outcome of the story is almost exclusively player driven.

For example, I ran the exact same adventure twice with different groups. Second running I tried to borrow some stuff from the first run, but most of it ended up being completely different, including ending, how the monsters acted, how to defeat them and so on.

This is of course mainly due to the improvised play that The Evil takes as standard. Is maybe this what you mean by drift towards vanilla narrativism?

Because despite the fact that almost nothing is decided from the start, there is a seedling of story (decided by the GM) from the start which then is explored. However this exploration IS creating story and setting as it goes along... this is a little like narrativism. On the other hand, the players are not aware of this and keep making sim decisions.

How do we classify this play?

How do we classify this play?

Hello,

Actually, I think Illusionism is a useful term here. I also think people have become awfully narrow in their understanding of the term, mainly through usage and assumptions, and despite at least one very explicit post I made about it on one of the "illusionism bitch session" threads.

1) In Illusionist play, story may either be retroactively pieced together by the GM from the events in a recently-played session or be front-loaded by the GM. The former is the original meaning proposed by Paul Elliott; the latter was added by me. I asked Paul whether he wanted to split the term into two, but received no answer (this was in the forums, though; maybe he never saw it; also, if I'm not mistaken, he has expressed a lack of interest in such topics in general).

2) In either case, an element of deception may be involved, in the sense that the players are under the impression that they are "creating" story, but it does not have to be. If everyone is fully complicit with the process in #1, then it's "participationism" as Mike called it; if few of the players even care (for instance being involved in hard-core Character or Setting Sim), then it's irrelevant.

In this sense, what Christoffer has proposed from the beginning is a game in which the actual rules begin where (as Walt rightly points out) quite a lot of play Drifts to. I think his design spec of prompting Color as a first priority is an excellent way to achieve this goal.

I agree with Walt's points regarding the sorts of systems etc that are most relevant to Christoffer's goals - very well stated.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: In Illusionist play, story may either be retroactively pieced together by the GM from the events in a recently-played session or be front-loaded by the GM.

wfreitag wrote: That's fine, but neither of these cases describes or applies to the technique I was talking about way-back-when or what I believe Christoffer is talking about now.

This might be best as a seperate thread, but I'm not sure there's enough to it to be worth that. So I'll just trust the moderators and post here. I did a fair amount of thinking about these GM-story/player-story/illusion/retroactive issues at one point (when I was first on the Forge, and I think I tried to start a thread on "Player Illusionism" that didn't generate much interest). Anyway, this discussion gets me to thinkin' again . . . Let's see - here's the "definition" from Ron that Walt quotes:

Ron Edwards wrote: In Illusionist play, story may either be retroactively pieced together by the GM from the events in a recently-played session or be front-loaded by the GM.

The thread kinda wandered of on it's own, but I'm cool with that. Maybe it will tie in with the original questions in the end.

I'm 100% agreeing with Walt's description here and Ron is also right that I want a game where this play isn't due to drift but the facilitated mode of play.

The question is, what facilitates it?

To restate what people already has written, but looking at it from a little different perspective.

First "Who is responsible for the story?"

We can look at the story as actually being created in segments.

Initially the GM has a "set up" which is a very short piece of story.

As the players enter this story, their ideas of future development of the story covertly helps the GM shape the next story segment. (It's actually a continuous thing, but it is a little clearer if we pretend it is discrete). This influence both happens with their in character actions and suggestion as well as ooc stuff.

At the same time the decisions they do, in-character, within the particular segment limits what type of story segments can follow the one currently being played.

However, the GM can use illusionist techniques to nullify this latter effect and effectively choose what the next story segment should look like. Both methods are commonly mixed.

In addition we have dice which may effect the outcome of the in-game events. Again these effects can be cancelled by the GM through illusionism.

Finally the GM can use the dice as a tool to flesh out the next story segment (a really sucky example of using dice as tool in this manner would be D&D wandering monsters). It's entirely up to the GM to decide how much it's used.

So let us sum it up. We have:

* GM as creator of the original story segment

* Players as indirect co-creators of the upcoming story segments (with GM moderating their ideas) through ic and ooc ideas and actions.

* GM as main creator of the upcoming story segment

* Dice as a co-creator of upcoming story segment in its role as a GM story decision tool.

* Players as co-creators establishing the current story segment through the language of the mechanics.

* GM as co-creator establishing the current story segment through NPC and setting interaction with player characters mediated by the mechanics.

* GM as a moderator of the current story segment through illusionist techniques.

* The dice as co-creator of the current story segment through it's use in the mechanic for determining results of actions. It is regulated by the number of occasions mechanics requiring fortune is invoked.

* "Outcome" of the current story segment as a way to determine possible upcoming story segments

* GM as a moderator of the story segment selection through the use of illusionist techniques.


A few other observations:

The players are usually playing in character, under the illusion that all story decisions are made by the GM during pre-play story creation(that is, they operate under the assumption that the original story segment by the GM made is actually the the whole story).

Things making it hard for the GM tend to be games strongly resisting illusionist techniques. If there are no players helping the GM drive the story, or in other words they are "resisting it" waiting for the GM to create it, rather than taking actions themselves, the game is very hard to run.

Active players, really helps this type of play. Players willing to "explore" the situation will probably run into exactly the kind of situation they want to explore. If there is no such thing forthcoming from the players, the GM has to drag the adventure him/herself. It's very hard.

There is probably more to add but I should really get back to studying. What's interesting here is "how do we facilitate it?" The players are actually creating the story with the GM as a moderator and a fellow co-creator, but they are unaware that they have those privileges (and I think this is actually desireable, you'd get another type of play if they overtly drive the narrative). It all comes back to the GM who has a challenging work keeping everything up.

Interestingly I find this harder to run in say fantasy than horror, maybe that holds some clues. Maybe because it's easier to discard in-game-world causality. Here we incidentally have some ties to the "loose and wonderous" rules I'd like for Ygg. Ideally something like this would justify the retcon-ing (I assume you are familiar with that term) of dramatic effects as created by the GM.

The sooner you have to MOTIVATE your story as a GM, the harder it becomes to keep the play rolling. The more constrictons (system, continuity, established setting) you labour under, the harder it is to maintain the flow of the game.

Making sure that ad-hoc story elements can be later justified might possibly help. Defining that the GM and the player positions are unequal, even in terms of system might also assist somewhat but it's not guaranteed.

Heh. Christoffer, I'm sure you've been here long enough to know that prevailing Forge theory and terminology will take issue with your use of the words "creator" and "story" in your summary.

I've used the phrase "story outcome" to refer to the entire story that is the outcome of play, regardless of literary merit. This deliberately sets the bar as low as it can go. Absolutely every game and every instance of play within a game has a story outcome. Even if it's a game of tiddlywinks. In fact, the word "story" in the phrase is redundant. I might as well call it "outcome." (With the usual caution that "outcome" means the entire sequence of events resulting from play, not just the end state.)

The standard Forge usage of "story" is to refer to a story of literary merit. This doesn't map directly to outcome in any way. Even in focused Narrativist play in which creation of story is prioritized by all participants, it would be an error to equate the outcome with the story. In the vast majority of cases, the literary story is composed of a subset of the events making up the outcome. (There's a similar popular usage. For example sportscasters often say things like, "The score going into the fourth quarter is whatever to whatever, but so far the real story here is the amazing performance of Darrell Neverherdavum, coming off the bench, shaking off that bone-rattling hit in the second quarter, and coming back to make three touchdown passes in a six-minute period to get the Jackalopes back into the game.")

If you're talking about the dice being "co-creators" then what you're talking about being created is clearly outcome, not story in the Forge sense. The problem with focusing on outcome alone is clear in your summary: everything and everybody influences the outcome all the time, and that's equally true in any style of play. Saying that the players or the dice, for example, influence the outcome says nothing useful in distinguishing one style of play from another or illuminating where problems may occur or how play might be improved. If I were to claim that the GM or the players "prioritize the outcome" in their decision-making, it would just underscore how tautological the concept is.

What I believe is useful is thinking in terms of specific desired qualities of the outcome. Once we're talking about a recognizable quality, we can ask whether or not the outcome of a particular instance of play has it and if so, where did it come from. For example, if we want the outcome to resemble a conventional narrative, then we might wish it to have, among other qualities, the quality I referred to before as "dramatic continuity." Looking at my own (inCon, quasi-Illusionist, sometimes vanilla Narrativist) playing style, I can say yes, there was dramatic continuity there, and I can ask, where did it come from?

- From the GM? Definitely yes. In this style, maintaining dramatic continuity is one of my top priorities and one of my most demanding tasks as a GM.

- From the dice? Definitely no. Randomness is antithetical to dramatic continuity. (That doesn't mean that random mechanisms never contribute to the "outcome qualities" I'm talking about. Suspense and humor, for instance, can be facilitated with appropriate use of random mechanisms.)

- From the players? Definitely maybe. If the players are prioritizing exploration, then they are not prioritizing or even contributing to dramatic continuity.

But drift can and does occur. Players can make choices based on outcome expectations. If the basis of player choices becomes "doing what the GM expects in this circumstance," then it's drift in the direction of participationism. But the basis of player choices can also drift toward "doing the kinds of thing that the GM, while not specifically expecting, will be able to use to build the story" and that way leads toward vanilla Narrativism.

What's lacking is game mechanisms that help the GM create desired qualities of the outcome without railroading. There's no shortage of advice for GMs on what desired qualities of the outcome to strive for, but the GM is left entirely to his own devices to make it happen -- and all too often, handed a set of tools (e.g. random encounter charts) that hinder rather than promote its happening. Christoffer's horror game doesn't provide inappropriate tools but doesn't provide much help either. It presents a series of prescriptions for the desired outcome qualities for each stage of play. Which is better than saying, "here's a character stat and task resolution system, now go do a horror game" but essentially the same problem exists on a smaller scale within each of the prescribed stages. I'm sure I could run this with good results. I'm sure most people reading this could run it with good results. But I have an unpleasant suspicton that putting that game into the hands of the "average" GM would have results similar to handing a running chainsaw to a chimpanzee.

There's no proof that system can actually help with such things. But even the most simple steps in that direction have never been tried. Imagine, for example, an encounter chart whose entries include how the character encountered actually behaves. Further imagine organizing that chart based on the intended purpose of the encounter. "Increase suspense." "Complicate an objective." "Test player-character loyalties." "Raise the stakes of a current conflict." "Enhance an eerie mood." "Comic relief." "Cause or reveal a dramatic setback." And so forth. (Not a great list there, but it was thirty seconds' thought. Thirty minutes or thirty hours would certainly produce a more complete and workable set.)

I might be able to connect this back to the original thread topic concerning using open-ended subsystems within an overall conventional Sim system with Simulationist play. Open-ended skill or magic rules require either GM controlling oversight in which the GM must referee each effect, or player-owned protagonism that motivates players to enforce their own limits in order to make their characters and the outcome more interesting. For most of the Sim audience, the GM-referee option is the reality.

Then it becomes a question of what the GM's decision-making basis is. I mentioned before that there were two possibilities in any given instance for the GM's decision: in-game-world plausibility, or desired qualities of the outcome.

To belatedly answer Christoffer's question (in the More Story Please thread in Theory) of what I mean by that, the "fitness" mechanism I described before would be a way to do it based on in-game-world plausibility. The alternative outcome-based priority is just a way of saying that if the intended play style is that the GM should decide based on what the GM thinks should happen to have a desired effect on the outcome, then the system might as well explicitly grant the GM license to do so.

There are two issues involved in doing that. The lesser one is how the process is expected to appear to the players. Are the GM's outcome-based decisions made obvious or disguised as in-game-world factors? This is a matter of social contract and technique. I think, for example, that the "fitness" mechanism would be great for enacting illusionist GM decisions. Especially if the opposing forces were using the point-pool system (a total number of effectiveness points to be expended over the entire episode or encounter to act against the player-characters) rather than specific ability levels. These two mechanisms in combination would allow the GM to shift the odds severely in the direction of the desired outcome without it being too obvious.

The more important issue is can the system aid a GM in making such decisions well? This gets back to the idea of outcome-effect decision-making system tools I was talking about before, like the hypothetical encounter list organized by the intended effect of the encounter. Perhaps within such encounters, GMs are explicitly asked to make decisions based on promoting the encounter's stated effect (so it comes down to essentially a minor trick for keeping the GM focused on the main present priority). To get any more sophisticated than that, we'd be talking about, essentially, mechanical procedures for aiding in creation of desired outcome qualities. A tall order, but perhaps not impossible if expectations are not too high.

- Walt

wfreitag wrote: The more important issue is can the system aid a GM in making such decisions well? This gets back to the idea of outcome-effect decision-making system tools I was talking about before, like the hypothetical encounter list organized by the intended effect of the encounter. Perhaps within such encounters, GMs are explicitly asked to make decisions based on promoting the encounter's stated effect (so it comes down to essentially a minor trick for keeping the GM focused on the main present priority). To get any more sophisticated than that, we'd be talking about, essentially, mechanical procedures for aiding in creation of desired outcome qualities. A tall order, but perhaps not impossible if expectations are not too high.

I think that's a great distinction you bring up Walt. I understood that certain systems seemed to produce more of what I wanted, and others not, but never made the distinction between outcome and story.

I'd say a significant portion of dissatisfied gaming comes about because people aren't making a distinction between the outcome and their desired outcome(or even being aware of what they would desire in that outcome).
I think one of the first steps towards that has been the idea of writing up how actual play should work(outcome) before designing system.

A prime example is bad D&D. D&D is supposed to be about adventure, action, and fantasy. Bad D&D is about checking for traps every 10 ft and getting stuck at a riddle puzzle no one can figure out. While D&D can drift towards that high adventure, or to meticulous searching, few folks discern what aspects of play, what rules, and what goes into producing one outcome or another. Instead it's simply reduced to "Good GM/Bad GM".

I'm also excited about this concept, I look forward to seeing to where it leads.

Chris

I'm gonna throw out a random idea I had just now reading Walt's text.

Imagine you have a system where you use keywords to compress mechanics info like I explain in this thread.

Let's envision you have "Great Balls of Fire" as a shorthand description for a spell. You might also have a powerlevel, say 8.

If we crank it through some hypothetical mechanics generator for a D&D style game that might give us: "Shoots 8 fireballs doing 1d6 of damage each" or it might be "Shoots two big fireballs doing 4d6 damage each"

However it's not clear which version it actually is. Now deciding that the total damage should be 8d6 is dictated by the translating mechanics, but we have no guide on range, number of fireballs and so on.

Now what if... What if that "undecided" part was explicitly ruled to be entirely guided to increase outcome quality? Basically the GM is granted the license to rule details to increase outcome quality. There is already a part which is guided by the mechanics. For the rest the GM usually acts like a referee, Walt points out. What if the GM instead was supposed to act like a story creator in these cases.

"Pathless" has a maxium mechanical challenge maybe. But how it works is 100% based on increasing outcome quality.

Or to put it differently: effects are only determined when they actually affect the outcome. Basically I want to grant the GM to retcon behaviour that hasn't affected the story.

It might seem obvious, but Sim usually works differently. First the full behaviour is established, then (and only then) can the effect be allowed to enter into play.

Another way to phrase this is the common saying that "the players should have a chance to know what's happening". People here seem to be arguing that if you give the GM free hands to work outside of the rules he would proceed to kill the characters. Which conveniently forgets that the reason there is an adventure at all, is because GM put it there. This is thinking that the GM is something of a lawmaker and a judge. The players need to know how to adher to the law.

My view is that the GM should be thought of as the author of a book, and the players are both reading it and continuously offering suggestions to the GM on how it should continue. What reader would blame the author for not fully establishing the complete rules of the world (and then strictly adhering to it) instead of making story first and not telling "why" until the story demands it.
So "mechanics on demand" rather than a static prewritten mechanic that might not mesh well with the story. If this could be the default mode, then that get you a bit along the way.

I think we're just going to have to disagree here.

Pale Fire wrote:
It might seem obvious, but Sim usually works differently. First the full behaviour is established, then (and only then) can the effect be allowed to enter into play.

Another way to phrase this is the common saying that "the players should have a chance to know what's happening". People here seem to be arguing that if you give the GM free hands to work outside of the rules he would proceed to kill the characters. Which conveniently forgets that the reason there is an adventure at all, is because GM put it there. This is thinking that the GM is something of a lawmaker and a judge. The players need to know how to adher to the law.

So "mechanics on demand" rather than a static prewritten mechanic that might not mesh well with the story. If this could be the default mode, then that get you a bit along the way.

Hmm.. Mike, about Hero, I'm not contesting that. However, if I remember Hero right there can be a lot of calculating before you can be sure that your points add upp right.

Ideally I'd have a Hero-system-ultra-light kind of thing. Something which produces differentiated mechanics but with practically no bookkeeping whatsoever nor with long lists of component effect. Something like that would help a lot.

I don't have it though.

It's kind of frustrating because I know what I'd like to achieve, but I have no clue as how to get there. Existing rules seem to offer very little in this direction as Walt points out.

I don't see Hero as actually promoting "made up on the fly effects" more than maybe in theory. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one.

Something else. Later on you seem to contradict yourself. This might stem from a misunderstanding of what we're discussing (on my side, yours or both).

First you say:

Mike Holmes wrote: Baloney. Nobody is saying that. If you want to leave leeway, we're all quite comfortable with that. We respect our players, and know that they will understand our judgment.

Mike Holmes wrote: This principle works for books, but not for RPGs. It leaves the player in the dark. When you finally do decide what the mechanics are in a particular situation, I gaurantee that some player at some point is going to be very disappointed

Pale Fire wrote: I'm gonna throw out a random idea I had just now reading Walt's text.

Imagine you have a system where you use keywords to compress mechanics info like I explain in this thread.

Let's envision you have "Great Balls of Fire" as a shorthand description for a spell. You might also have a powerlevel, say 8.

Kester,

You may be thinking of Ars Magica or possibly even Chivalry & Sorcery (Acellerate Stone). The former more likely. With the latter all accellerate stone could do was, well, accellerate a stone.

Christoff,

I think we're in agreement on what you need. Of course Hero System is way, way, way too complicated for what you want. I keep repeatedly saying (and am now getting tired of doing so) that I am not advocating anything at all on the complexity of Hero System. Just that a system that is as complex as that can be used to do what you say if that is what one wants. For strange and unusual people like me, we actually like play to cease for half an hour while we work out the details of how the spell is going to work out this time. But this is obviously not what you're after. You want something much more like Hero Wars, I suspect. Which is great. Nifty. We all agree.

On the subject of my apparent contradiction, you misread me and Hero Wars. In that system, and in any system (I agree with you here), the GM will not let on the mechanical values associated with an item before the PC would have such knowledge. Why would he (with the exception of very open Narrativist games, perhaps)? And, in fact, I am of the opinion that in certain styles of play that perhaps he never should reveal that data. How's that for sounding contradictory? But what I advocate is that there be a system in place that the player is aware of by which the stats might be enumerated, and that the GM should either assign such a stat, or, if playing in an illusionist fashion, he should do his best to make it seem as though such a defined stat exists.

Because that's the nature of illusionism. The player, because he cannot be sure whether or not the GM is using illusion or not, has to assume that the GM is not, and thereby he can get that "arbitrary world" feel that we seek in illusionism. So the arbitrary system must exist. In Hero Wars, for example, sure the character may have no idea what his magic item does until its used, but when it is, it is assigned a mechanical value that does not change (unless in-game circumstance would cause it to). And from that set metric, to the extent that the player knows what it is (often through character efforts to determine the level of effect) the player can feel that he can rely on the results, and the arbitrary feel is maintained.

But keep in mind that this is HW that we're talking about. Playing that without Sim drift, we'd never find the GM hiding the scores from the player, as that would be counterproductive to effective player Author stance play. Further, the resolution system being as "light" as it is in terms of detail generated mechanically, the players already have decided to forgo much of the whole "arbitrary system" feel. They only have a single number or two in many cases to go on (though you'd be surprised how often that's plenty). As such they have already decided to trust the GM with the description of events more than in most Sim games.

The point being that if you want to promote Illusionist play, then you need to have the ability to enumerate things in a manner that is coherent with the rest of the system. A single number may not do it for Ygg, because this implies that the GM will be making up a lot of the data when magic is played. More than he would in other situations. Again, if the players ae going to be satisfied with a certain level of GM use of system in one circumstance, why would they feel it was OK to have another level of control in another? I don't think they will.

The main problem I see with extending your current system to cover magic in any simple way is that you hav too many sub-resolution systems. What this means is that players will expect the same number of sub-resolutions in the magic to cover the same things. But you might be able to come close.

I've tried repeatedly now to give you an idea of the sort of mechanics that one could use to make your system into the sort of system that I honestly think you're saying you want. I will try one more time:

NOTICE: this is supposed to only inspire you to figure out how to do this on your own. As written, it will not make sense with your system precisely. I only present it so that you may get an idea of what such a system may look like in general terms. If you come back and tell me that it will not work based on it's exact application to your game, I will never speak to you again.

What one could do in your circumstance would be to just map the magic system by the skill system. That is, currently you have a system whereby a player uses skills to acomplish things in game. If one were to just assign magical "skills", and define what those skills could do in terms of spell descriptions, then one could simply use the current skill system to resolve events. The GM would do what he does in any skill situation, he would look at the skill rating, and what the character was trying to do, assign difficulty (does the spell employed make sense in this circumstance; how tough is the target), and then the player rolls. If he succeeds, then somebody narrates how the spell worked in this circumstance. If the character fails, then somebody describes how that happened.

Is this clear?

This is very much how a system like Hero Wars works. No, I will not go into more detail about the exact workings of that system, or any other for that matter. If you want to know more, buy or play these systems. There are probably a number of free games that work like this, though I can't think of one off the top of my head. Actually, see Dunjon Krawl if it's still up. In any case, I also have no inclination to be a co-author on your game, and as such, I will not create this mechanic for you. You have to do whatever research you need to do to understand this concept (though it seems clear to me, here), and then you need to figure out how to apply the concept to your game.

Mike

Hi Mike,

If you come back and tell me that it will not work based on it's exact application to your game, I will never speak to you again.