Quote from: James J SkachI'm not sure there should be a sibling.  I mean, for the person playing the world, in traditional games the GM, it's in character, no?

I think you are making a good point about authority and perhaps my example was weak.  What I think I'm trying to say is that the players scope of authority to manipulate the game world (aka SIS) is a sort of filter on what they'll consider and do in the game.  For example, even though I had the authority to use Fudge points in a convention game I played in once, I forgot to use them because they were outside of the in character stance through which I was looking at the game.  On the other hand, a player who thinks about things beyond their character might try to create a toolbox or sibling for their character only to be told that they've exceeded their authority by the system or GM and find that frustrating.

Actually, your assertion of skepticism has nothing to do with our discussion.  Look at how people responded - so what if John isn't really doing what he thinks?

For the most part, our discussion was at a much broader level, and John's specific method was a side discussion so people could better understand each other and how they played. Interesting, and important, but it's not like the entire discussion rested on whether or not John was delusional or extraordinary or what.

But if you'd read and understood the thread, before crapping on it, you might have figured that out.

Quote from: John MorrowI think you are making a good point about authority and perhaps my example was weak.  What I think I'm trying to say is that the players scope of authority to manipulate the game world (aka SIS) is a sort of filter on what they'll consider and do in the game.  For example, even though I had the authority to use Fudge points in a convention game I played in once, I forgot to use them because they were outside of the in character stance through which I was looking at the game.  On the other hand, a player who thinks about things beyond their character might try to create a toolbox or sibling for their character only to be told that they've exceeded their authority by the system or GM and find that frustrating.

Yeah, see, that's where the stance and the authority get hinkey. In Character Stance, the player attempts X.  The GM, playing world, rebuffs X outright. Is the GM stepping on the player? Is this where mechanics step in, or should?

Those of you who play deep in character, or at least relatively so, how would this play for you? Would you be OK with mechanics stepping in at this point, or would that step in your buzz?

Quote from: James J SkachBut if you'd read and understood the thread, before crapping on it, you might have figured that out.

See, you're doing it again. But at this point I will be he who cries "Hold, enough!"

Quote from: James J SkachYeah, see, that's where the stance and the authority get hinkey. In Character Stance, the player attempts X.  The GM, playing world, rebuffs X outright. Is the GM stepping on the player? Is this where mechanics step in, or should?

Well, you are missing some details there.  Is the X that the player is attempting via the agency of his or her character (e.g., "My character climbs the tree.") or outside the agency of his or her character (e.g., "I hunt the deer grazing near the stream" when the GM hasn't said there are deer there)?  Is the GM rebuffing the existence of something the player is assuming (e.g., "There are no deer by the stream"), telling the player they can't do it (e.g., "The tree is wet and slippery and you just can't climb it"), or telling the player what their character does (e.g., "Your character doesn't try to climb the tree").  I think it's fair for the GM to decide what is or isn't in the setting and whether my character can or can't do things.  I don't think a GM should be telling me what my character thinks, what my character does, what my character says, or what my character tries or doesn't try to do (the exception being a mind control or a failure of willpower).  

Quote from: James J SkachThose of you who play deep in character, or at least relatively so, how would this play for you? Would you be OK with mechanics stepping in at this point, or would that step in your buzz?

I'm not sure what you are expecting the mechanics to do here.

Quote from: John MorrowWell, you are missing some details there.  Is the X that the player is attempting via the agency of his or her character (e.g., "My character climbs the tree.") or outside the agency of his or her character (e.g., "I hunt the deer grazing near the stream" when the GM hasn't said there are deer there)?  Is the GM rebuffing the existence of something the player is assuming (e.g., "There are no deer by the stream"), telling the player they can't do it (e.g., "The tree is wet and slippery and you just can't climb it"), or telling the player what their character does (e.g., "Your character doesn't try to climb the tree").  I think it's fair for the GM to decide what is or isn't in the setting and whether my character can or can't do things.  I don't think a GM should be telling me what my character thinks, what my character does, what my character says, or what my character tries or doesn't try to do (the exception being a mind control or a failure of willpower).  



I'm not sure what you are expecting the mechanics to do here.

My fault, I wasn't clear.

The example used before was a toolkit.  Now let's say, for the sake of argument, that you, as a player, forgot to purchase a toolkit for your mechanic character during game prep.  During play, you, in Character stance, mention earching for your toolkit.  The GM has several options.  In theory, playing in Character for the world, he could say "You don't have a toolkit."

I don't know if he would or should.  I guess I'm asking if he does, what are the variouos ramifications...

Is that more clear?

Quote from: James J SkachThe example used before was a toolkit.  Now let's say, for the sake of argument, that you, as a player, forgot to purchase a toolkit for your mechanic character during game prep.  During play, you, in Character stance, mention earching for your toolkit.  The GM has several options.  In theory, playing in Character for the world, he could say "You don't have a toolkit."

It all depends on why the GM says "no".  Usually, if it's for a world-based reason, the GM can explain and the player, in my experience, will usually go along with it.  Where there is a problem with something like this, it's usually for non-world-based reasons (e.g., rigid conformity to starting equipment rules or the player trying to score an unearned advantage).  So long as sense can be made out of the situation, an in character player could probably roll with whatever the GM decides.  For example, if I felt that my mechanic should logically have a toolkit and the GM tells me I don't because I forgot to buy one with my starting money, I might imagine that my character had one but it was stolen or he gave it to someone else in a crisis to explain it in character, rather than leaving an inexplicable hole in the character that doesn't make sense.

Quote from: James J SkachYeah, see, that's where the stance and the authority get hinkey. In Character Stance, the player attempts X.  The GM, playing world, rebuffs X outright. Is the GM stepping on the player? Is this where mechanics step in, or should?

Those of you who play deep in character, or at least relatively so, how would this play for you? Would you be OK with mechanics stepping in at this point, or would that step in your buzz?

When I'm running, as far as formal authority structure goes, I'm a raving absolutist, in the sense that I can potentially veto anything whatsoever (but see below). No die and no rule ever overrules me.  I wrote the dice code we're using,  I wrote the homebrew, and they're my servants, not my master.

The reason for this is that we're not playing a game where the players are trying to overcome a challenge according to defined rules.  We're trying to figure out what "really" happened -- what would happen if the characters and the setting really did exist?  And I'm the court of last resort: in case of irreconcileable conflict, it's my world and my vision prevails.

But.

I just described the formal structure in a hardline fashion: what happens if we cannot agree?  I didn't describe the day-to-day working structure.  We usually can agree, and it's a rare circumstance for me to invoke "le monde, c'est moi" -- in my current campaign we've played about three dozen sessions and I haven't done it yet.  Since we're trying to explore a realistic-feeling world, in practice we want every decision to be made by the person most likely to make the right one.

A most common approach is for the player to propose something and for me to overturn it only if the world just doesn't work that way, or if it doesn't happen to be true.  For instance, most players get to my games having played with common fantasy (especially D&D) conventions, and my fantasy settings are modelled more closely on historical medieval society.  The typical player gets to my worlds thinking that every village, no matter how small and no matter where placed, has an inn, and we have a conversation like this:

Player: "My character will head to the inn for the night."
Me: "Actually, there isn't one.  This is a typical farming village not on a main road, and it doesn't have the population or the travellers to support an inn.  The best place to seek hospitality is the ."

On the other hand, if something the player proposes fits, I accept it.  For instance, one of the players in my current campaign is playing a highly talented scryer.  We've played scenes before where she's employed that sort of magic, so the player already has a basic idea of how it works.  A few sessions ago, the character decided to attempt scrying by a somewhat unorthodox method in order to avoid detection.  I got an immersionist's description of the unorthodox approach, what she was trying to do.  Now, I'd never thought about approaching it this way before, but I didn't see any reason why it wouldn't work in theory, and it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that a character of her ability might come up with a novel method and make it work, so I accepted the description and then started describing what she discovered that way.

If it really wouldn't have worked, I'd have said so, and said why.  I certainly would not break out the dice to resolve the matter: my worlds are not constructed at random.  They have an underlying logic, and I do my best to reject anything not in accord with that logic and to accept anything that does accord with that logic.  I'm carrying the most complete version of the magic model, and I accept someone else's additions to it when they fit.

The player, on the other hand, is carrying the best version of the PC.  I step over the boundaries of the PC's skin a bit when I describe sensory impressions at times -- I am suggesting a focus for the character's consciousness when I describe gusts of wind driving a freezing drizzle against the character's cheeks, for example.  The player might respond with a description indicating that, yes, the character is shivering in the wind, or wrapping her scarf over her nose and mouth; or they might respond instead by indicating that the character is so angry and intent on pursuing the man that has just attacked her kinfolk that she scarcely feels the wind for red rage.  Either of which is fine.  It's a cooperative effort, a matter of give and take, and when you're on the other side of the boundary -- you propose, but the bearer of the model disposes.  And that's true for both players and the GM in my campaigns.

I am willing to let players carry models besides their own characters if they happen to want them.  Some don't -- some find them a distraction, and want to leave most of the background definition to me.  But others are happy to start building parts of the world, often by creating backgrounds for their characters.  In my old long-term fantasy campaign, the dwarven culture was a cooperative effort between two of the players with some input from me, and they often would resolve questions of dwarven culture and politics in play.  For instance, I'm the one who first said that there was a dwarven citadel in the northern mountains, but one of the players named it and made it the home of his character, and when the party visited it, he took over narration as the characters arrived there.

I also expect players to object during the session if I rule on something in a way they don't think makes sense.  I'm not omniscient, and sometimes someone else at the table knows more than me about how something is likely to work; and if I've made a mistake, the earlier we fix it the better.  I want a believable world and I'm never going to overrule the Coast Guard officer about sailing or the geology major about rock formations, for example.

I always reserve the right to say, "No, because -- ".  But if I'm playing with the right people, I should end up saying "Yes, and -- " a lot more often.  And I expect to hear "No, because --" from time to time too.

-- I said that I could potentially overrule anything whatsoever.  Now under ordinary circumstances I never tell a player what their character should be trying to do, or what their reactions are.  However, occasionally I run into someone who plays in a fashion that makes no in-world sense, who trails OOCness like a comet-tail.  I'm not going to let someone write complete nonsense into the world -- having their character do abysmally stupid and unbelievable things because the player wants more fights, for instance.  I might make one attempt to get someone like this to play plausibly in character, although the odds are that it won't work and I'll soon be inviting them out of the game.

I have a pretty similar attitude when I'm playing.  I don't expect the GM to tell me what my character is thinking, what they desire, or what their emotions are.  But I do expect to incorporate the GM's descriptions of the physical world and also of my character's culture into the character model, and I expect the GM to tell me if I portray something improbable.  For instance, if I've just shown my character doing something that makes sense to a modern Westerner but which would be a hideous gaffe in the culture, I want to hear about it -- I may not have meant to show the character making a gaffe.  And I want to know if I've just portrayed my character as trying to do something the character ought to know is unlikely to work or downright impossible, in case I didn't mean to do that either.  I only want the GM to break out the dice if the thing I just had my character try makes in-world sense.

Quote from: KeranIf it really wouldn't have worked, I'd have said so, and said why.  I certainly would not break out the dice to resolve the matter: my worlds are not constructed at random.  They have an underlying logic, and I do my best to reject anything not in accord with that logic and to accept anything that does accord with that logic.  I'm carrying the most complete version of the magic model, and I accept someone else's additions to it when they fit.

When I GM, there is an area of uncertainty between "yes" and "no" where I'll often roll dice.  For example, if I don't have a town planned out and if the setting doesn't have an inn in most of the towns off of trading routes (as you mentioned) and so forth but there is a small possibility that there might be an inn where you normally wouldn't expect one, I'll roll dice.  If the dice suggest an inn, then I'll figure out why there is an inn where there normally shouldn't be one (e.g., maybe something brings travellers here, maybe it once was on a route and just never closed, etc.).

And in my experience, where something is strictly possible but very unlikely (e.g., "I randomly shoot my gun into the air over their heads.  Does anyone get hit?"), it often makes the GM seem less authoritarian if they roll some dice, even if they set the odds very low, and if the dice turn out to show that the very unlikely even happens, I think that can add a certain sort of realism to the game because strange but true stuff like that do happen in real life.

As for the character proposing something unorthodox that should work, I think the GM also needs to evaluate the implications on the entire setting.  For example, if a player figures out a trivially easy way to avoid being scryed (not necessarily what happened in your example), it raises the question of why other people in the setting haven't discovered it and why everyone isn't using it.  At that point, you have to figure out how to reconcile the implausibility in the setting before giving the player an answer.  

There are some GMs who use a similar plausibility test to adjust encounters.  For example, if the PCs find an obvious but easy way to sneak in to the Evil Overlord's castle and kill him, why hasn't anyone else and why hasn't the Evil Overlord found the weakness.  Some GMs will then figure out some way to fix the weakness so that it's not there, because they consider it implausible to be there.  Again, I think dice can help keep everyone honest and things more realistic.  There is always a small chance that the Evil Overlord missed something obvious and maybe nobody ever looked for the obvious before.  So before changing the Evil Overlord's defenses, I'd probably roll to see if, rather than being an oversight on the part of the GM, the Evil Overlord really did leave a gaping hole in his defense for the PCs to waltz through.

(Please note that there is a difference between a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses because a weak spot seems implausible, a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses because they want the players to be challenged, and a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses to ensure a particular sort of climactic battle between the Evil Overlord and the PCs in his throne room.)

Quote from: John Morrow(Please note that there is a difference between a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses because a weak spot seems implausible, a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses because they want the players to be challenged, and a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses to ensure a particular sort of climactic battle between the Evil Overlord and the PCs in his throne room.)

Oooh...I see the possiblity of even more filters that help define stances...

Thanks for the information guys.  I get where you're going.  I'm just trying to be cognizant of other possibilities.

the best of worlds (no pun intended) is described in your illustrations - a group and GM that trust each other enough to, in the case of Keran, not even use dice/randomizer for many things. I've been in groups where that was the case; though in my experience, those are more rare than groups where, no matter how strong the bonds, a player will call for the dice even if the GM describes why something wouldn't be the case.

So for me I could easily see a situation where a player, in Character, wants something that the GM, in (world)Character says no; and the player calls for dice. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that I can see it.

Now that goes a bit beyond the discussion of stances, as it gets into authority. It was just an interesting issue for me where Stance and Authority issue cross. At that point, IMHO, you are really getting more fully into how people play together, whereas stance describes how an individual is approaching the game.

Quote from: James J SkachOooh...I see the possiblity of even more filters that help define stances...

At that point, what I'm describing isn't so much a stance but an agenda.  See where this can wind up going depending on what you want to look at?

Quote from: James J Skachthe best of worlds (no pun intended) is described in your illustrations - a group and GM that trust each other enough to, in the case of Keran, not even use dice/randomizer for many things. I've been in groups where that was the case; though in my experience, those are more rare than groups where, no matter how strong the bonds, a player will call for the dice even if the GM describes why something wouldn't be the case.

I really don't like the word "trust" in these discussions because it carries too many connotations that can create too many wrong impressions.  

I roll a lot of dice when I GM rather than just deciding because I don't believe I'll be unbiased.  In a sense, I don't "trust" myself to make unbiased and unpredictable decisions and I also have trouble making them, so I use dice.  Am I bad for not "trusting" myself?

The implication of using the word "trust" and thinking of it in terms of personal "bonds" and belief in the good intentions of the other participants.  I don't think the strength of personal bonds nor faith in the good intentions of the other participants (also often implied by "trust") are always the issue.  I think the problem often lies in a belief that all human decisions are fallible, thus it's not a matter of personal distrust but a more general skepticism of anyone's capability.

Quote from: James J SkachSo for me I could easily see a situation where a player, in Character, wants something that the GM, in (world)Character says no; and the player calls for dice. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that I can see it.

Correct.  And I think part of this might go back to Tony's point about seeing possibilities vs. a single right answer.  The player would prefer the transition from possibility being translated into a single right answer being handled by a randomizer to make sure the extremes do pop up from time to time.  Always choosing  the most likely result is also choosing a predictable result.  Sometimes real life throws people a curve, and in my experience dice are better at doing that than people because the dice will produce results that a person wouldn't decide.

In the other thread, I mentioned co-GMing a science fiction game.  During that game, the players made an incursion into a hidden star system being used as a base by some pirates (the jump routes there and back were secret, not the star).  The other GM told me how he'd have the pirates respond and I stopped him and asked him to sort of play thought their response with some die rolls and speculation, the way I normally do things.  The reaction we produced, which we used in the game, wasn't something that either one of us would have just decided and the other GM liked what we did come up with enough that he was glad we did it that way.

Quote from: James J SkachNow that goes a bit beyond the discussion of stances, as it gets into authority. It was just an interesting issue for me where Stance and Authority issue cross. At that point, IMHO, you are really getting more fully into how people play together, whereas stance describes how an individual is approaching the game.

I think that stances and authority cross quite a bit but it's a mistake to glue them together because the connection isn't that direct.

Quote from: John MorrowWhen I GM, there is an area of uncertainty between "yes" and "no" where I'll often roll dice.  For example, if I don't have a town planned out and if the setting doesn't have an inn in most of the towns off of trading routes (as you mentioned) and so forth but there is a small possibility that there might be an inn where you normally wouldn't expect one, I'll roll dice.  If the dice suggest an inn, then I'll figure out why there is an inn where there normally shouldn't be one (e.g., maybe something brings travellers here, maybe it once was on a route and just never closed, etc.).

I roll dice in cases where I don't have a good in-world reason to make a decision either way, and I specifically don't want to make a decision myself.

Combat, for example.  It matters whether the arrow hits in one place, or in another 2" down and 3" to the left.  I don't usually have specific enough information to say exactly where it hits: diceless resolution would be arbitrary, without sufficient foundation.  Since I hate to make an arbitrary decision against a player that might take a character out of action, I'm biased in the players' favor; but over the long term that's bad, because there isn't any in-world explanation for the bias, and it makes the risk perceptibly fake.  So, dice.

But I did entirely diceless resolution as the lesser evil until I developed the technique and the mechanics to speed diced resolution up in chat.

QuoteAnd in my experience, where something is strictly possible but very unlikely (e.g., "I randomly shoot my gun into the air over their heads.  Does anyone get hit?"), it often makes the GM seem less authoritarian if they roll some dice, even if they set the odds very low, and if the dice turn out to show that the very unlikely even happens, I think that can add a certain sort of realism to the game because strange but true stuff like that do happen in real life.

I don't throw visible dice, and since we're playing in chat the players can't see if I'm rolling or not.  This isn't something I'd necessarily carry over into face-to-face if I ever ran that way, though.  I have a particular reason for it.

I ran entirely diceless for a long time because all the mechanical systems I'd ever seen had been an intolerable drag in chat.  When play is proceeding at the speed of the slowest typist, spending any time at all discussing who's rolling what pulls attention away from the world for much longer than it would face to face; and it gets a lot worse if there are multiple rolls to accomplish a task, particularly if anything is a special case that needs a lookup.  So well before the publication of Amber  DRPG I'd dropped into dicelessness as an emergency measure.  And I didn't start using dice again until I had a simple opposed-roll mechanic with low handling time, and MUSH code to support it so I could get a result by typing at most 13 characters.  I silently invoke the dice code when I want it, because discussions about mechanics are way, way, way too slow.  They're death to ICness in chat.

If anybody doesn't think a result makes sense, they can tell me about it, whether or not I got there using dice.

QuoteAs for the character proposing something unorthodox that should work, I think the GM also needs to evaluate the implications on the entire setting.  For example, if a player figures out a trivially easy way to avoid being scryed (not necessarily what happened in your example), it raises the question of why other people in the setting haven't discovered it and why everyone isn't using it.  At that point, you have to figure out how to reconcile the implausibility in the setting before giving the player an answer.

In this case, the character's far enough above average ability that she can expect to do things most people can't, so it's not a problem.  But, yeah, we had a conversation like that, about a spell one of the players was proposing for a background character.  If it'd worked the way I at first thought he meant, it would have had major and contrary-to-fact implications in warfare. But on further discussion it turned out that he'd meant it to work in a different manner, so I let it in.

QuoteThere are some GMs who use a similar plausibility test to adjust encounters.  For example, if the PCs find an obvious but easy way to sneak in to the Evil Overlord's castle and kill him, why hasn't anyone else and why hasn't the Evil Overlord found the weakness.  Some GMs will then figure out some way to fix the weakness so that it's not there, because they consider it implausible to be there.  Again, I think dice can help keep everyone honest and things more realistic.  There is always a small chance that the Evil Overlord missed something obvious and maybe nobody ever looked for the obvious before.  So before changing the Evil Overlord's defenses, I'd probably roll to see if, rather than being an oversight on the part of the GM, the Evil Overlord really did leave a gaping hole in his defense for the PCs to waltz through.

(Please note that there is a difference between a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses because a weak spot seems implausible, a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses because they want the players to be challenged, and a GM who builds up the Evil Overlord's defenses to ensure a particular sort of climactic battle between the Evil Overlord and the PCs in his throne room.)

Well, with a case like this, sometimes the fix is simple and obvious, and then I might just do it.

I might get a player saying, "Hey, why is the Evil Overlord dumb enough to build it like this when people have got to have been using tactic X for generations?"

Or if I'm the first one that notices the problem, I might throw the question on the table.  "Hey, I said this, but given these other thing, what I said doesn't actually make any sense."  "Well, maybe -- "  We all want the world to be believable, and if everyone has had a chance to weigh in with suggestions, it can be easier to get a solution that everyone will buy into.  Sometimes I do this when it isn't a problem, exactly, but just an open question about how something works, or how something had to have happened.

I guess you could say that, for technical reasons, I don't throw the dice on the table.  But I'm very likely to throw my reasoning on the table.