Quote from: Omnifray;427268Ya know, I've thought about this some more, and I'm going to rephrase Dancey's argument in terms more familiar to non-RPGers.

:rotfl:

You sir, you win the internets.

:hatsoff:

Quote from: RyanDSay yes, or roll dice.

Quote from: John Morrow;426916But I want the GM to say "no".

In this case, I'm scoping this advice to what the players want to do in the space where the encounter occurs.

The Big Fear players have is that DMs will make it impossible for them to do the clever things they want to do.  So they ask for detailed architectural drawings of the spaces their characters inhabit so as to minimize the potential for being shut down by the DM.

In a D&D with no specific positioning, having such a map doesn't help.  So we would then enter a world where players would be constantly over-cautious, playing repetitive games of 20 questions with DMs as they explore options, and try to understand what the DM will and will not let them do.

So free the game from this constraint.  Let them do anything reasonable.  Allow them to dice for anything even remotely possible.  And only stop them if they've gone off the deep end into irrational territory.

I would extend this advice to include the definition of the space.  Allow them to help create the world their characters inhabit.

In the example used in this thread (a square room with 4 exits, with extensive webbing concealing the ceiling, and a pile of spider-leavings in the center of the room), here are some things that players could just "edit" into the encounter if they wished:

* A handful of dust from the floor
* Unidentifiable bits of cloth, bone, hair, or insect debris

Here are some examples I'd require dice to edit into the encounter:

* A partially burned torch
* A suitable object (old crate, enough pieces of broken masonry to make a pile, etc.) large enough to stand on and allow a character to reach the webbing

Here are some examples of things I'd refuse to allow to be edited in to the encounter by the players:

* A vial of spider anti-venom
* Dwarven runes carved into the rock saying "set the webs on fire"

I want to talk about player editing a lot more but this is not the message to do it in.  I'll close by saying that most of the time, if the players have no fear about their ability to act rationally, they won't obsess about having a precise knowledge of the encounter space.  

The more you force them to care, the more they'll care. So don't make them care.

RyanD

Quote from: Omnifray;427268Ya know, I've thought about this some more, and I'm going to rephrase Dancey's argument in terms more familiar to non-RPGers.

Let me convert this back into reality.

We have a group of people in 1999 who like a thing.  We study that group and find they all like a core part of the thing.  We also find that 4 groups of people within the main group especially like 4 different parts of the thing.

In 2010, another product comes along that offers that group the same core parts.  And it offers 2 of those sub-groups a better experience with the additional parts they like best.

We know that the new thing doesn't do a great job of offering one of the sub-groups the parts that it really likes.  We also know that the new thing is neutral at best (and possibly worse) in the things that another one of the sub-groups likes best.

We see the number of people engaged with the first thing going down over time.  We see the number of people engaged with the new thing going up over time.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect correlation to causation in this case.

RyanD

Quote from: RSDancey;427370The Big Fear players have is that DMs will make it impossible for them to do the clever things they want to do.  So they ask for detailed architectural drawings of the spaces their characters inhabit so as to minimize the potential for being shut down by the DM.

Come play with any of the groups I've had over the years and you will not find this "Big Fear" (nor a desire for detailed maps/descriptions of everything) -- and without any GM authority killing nonsense like "Say Yes or roll the dice". Yes, I realize that some players fear bad GMs because they have had them, but I refuse to hamstring myself to cater to them. Players who can't live with the GM saying "no" or with a GM who regularly uses Rule Zero can find another game to play in.

I understand that from an industry POV, getting rid of Rule Zero and adding "Say Yes or roll the dice" type GM restrictions is probably seen as a good thing as it expands the pool of people willing to purchase the product to all of those who have suffered through bad GMs and think all GMs are bad. However, these type of "rule fixes for bad GMs" are making the hobby not fun for average GMs, let alone for good GMs. While these types of rules may be good for the industry in the short term, they are bad for the hobby. They are probably bad for the industry in the long term as well as they drive out most of the good GMs (who either quit GMing completely or just stop buying and GMing current industry product with its "hamstring the GM" rules).

QuoteIn a D&D with no specific positioning, having such a map doesn't help.  So we would then enter a world where players would be constantly over-cautious, playing repetitive games of 20 questions with DMs as they explore options, and try to understand what the DM will and will not let them do.

I never use specific positioning and that seldom happens in my games. Usually only when a new player has ignored my handout describing how we play and decided to play anyway in the hope of forcing the group to play his way -- which never works as I am not afraid say "no."

QuoteHere are some examples I'd require dice to edit into the encounter:

* A partially burned torch
* A suitable object (old crate, enough pieces of broken masonry to make a pile, etc.) large enough to stand on and allow a character to reach the webbing

This would make some styles of play hard to near-impossible. For example, "puzzles" that require various innocent-looking items to be found and gathered from other places to be able to do something. Yes, many players HATE such things, but some players/player groups love them. The rules for generic games like D&D should not nerf play styles, especially when the game system previously allowed them. Nerfing many "less common in the eyes of the designers/marketers" play styles is one of the reasons 4e splintered the D&D market. (IMHO, this was bad for the hobby even if it really was good for WOTC's profits.)

Quote from: RSDancey;427370The Big Fear players have is that DMs will make it impossible for them to do the clever things they want to do.  

What is this assertion based on? And how much of a problem is it?

My own opinion is that it exists but it not prevalent because of the social nature of RPG groups either lead to the group telling the DM to quit being a dick or vote with their feet.

Another source of the issue is that a player refusing to play by the rules and keeps trying to playing some other game and leave the group bad mouthing the DM for not letting him do what he wants to do.

In short this is an issue that can't be fixed as long there are human beings playing tabletop RPGs. But it not a serious or major issue because of how human beings interact as a group.

Quote from: RSDancey;427370Here are some examples I'd require dice to edit into the encounter:

* A partially burned torch
* A suitable object (old crate, enough pieces of broken masonry to make a pile, etc.) large enough to stand on and allow a character to reach the webbing

I find your explanation is too verbose and frames it in unnecessary terms born of the Forge type theories.

It is quite sufficient to say something like

--------------------------------------

It is good practice for a referee to assume that players can find common items that plausibly would be found in a room even it not described in it's initial description. Uncommon items can be assigned a chance to be found after a search by the players.

The reason for this is that it is rarely possible to describe every last detail of a room. Even when possible it is usually time consuming and slows the pace of the game down.  

If this is not the current practice in your group you may want to explicitly say for a few encounters that players are free to assume that common items can be found along with a chance for uncommon items. This will get the players comfortable with assuming things and by the second and third session will become second nature.

There still could be rooms that doesn't have anything other than what is described. However this should done rarely or the players will quit assuming  and start asking for fuller descriptions and slowing the game down.

The classic example of this effect is the Tomb of Horrors from TSR when a group encounters it for the first time. Invariably after the first hallway the first time group will ask for full descriptions of 10' squares and spend time checking each 10' square. The pace of the game considerably slow down. While for the Tomb of Horrors this effect is intended in other tabletop situation it would be undesirable to spend this much time on description.
-------------------------------------------------------------

No hint of theory, no general "Say yes or roll" rule. A advice that is aimed as a specific aspect of tabletop play. That of keeping the game moving at a nice pace and to minimize the time the referee need to give a description. The referee see why it is given and make a decision to use it or not to best fit his game.

Quote from: estar;427386I find your explanation is too verbose and frames it in unnecessary terms born of the Forge type theories.

It is quite sufficient to say something like...

Yeah that was less robust.  Not.

Virtually nobody outside a small group of insiders has any clue what you mean when you say "Forge type theories", and a big portion of those who do don't have a negative reaction to them.

You're wasting time & energy concerning yourself with such trivia.

RyanD

This has little to do with the ideological camp of the forge or broadly, theoretical concerns at all. But it's not furthering discussion or understanding to dismiss players' preference in playstyles by attributing their disagreement with you to some kind of imaginary party affiliation.

I am curious about the origin of the Big Fear principle. Did the 1999 survey indicated that many players worried that the DM tended to curtail player action by limiting the environment?

I object to player 'editing' of the environment as the solution to the supposed "Big Fear" issue because it's very damaging to my enjoyment of the primary action of play. As a player, if I am in an enviroment, I want to be able to treat that enviroment as if it were a real one, and interact with it through my character. This is largely undone if player choice can edit the enviroment through my insistence or dice rolls (or those of the player of another PC.) To interact with the imaginary environment as if it were real, I need to be able to interact with it through the PC - a part of that world, not being required to manipulate the world as a player at the table in order to accomplish tasks. If the world has to be "edited" by my player decision, I lose the ability to treat it as real and to add insult to injury my choices lose their impact within the game.

I feel this is cheating me of most of the body of play.

Even if the "big fear" really is a problem on the order of what Ryan suggests, and I am skeptical, in my opinion the cure is worse than the disease. This is especially the case since there are simpler, more straightforward, less elaborate solutions - all it takes is for the DM to be reasonable and flexible in making his rulings against the background of the imaginary environment, and for the action of play to be, as it is at the best tables, open-ended and not demanding of a fixed out come. This is actually easier and less work intensive.

There is no reason for the players to have any kind of fear that reasonable action will be curtailed unless some agenda other than play itself is given primacy. Unfortunately (and often in the name of story) published advice in D&D, especially in the 2e era but not at all excised from 3e to 4e suggests the opposite, causing big headaches and contention all around. D&D is a game of cooperation. To what extent problems of the players being curtailed exist, they are artificial ones that are not implicit in traditional D&D play. The solution to locking yourself inside the house isn't to develop a system to work with a home-bound life. It's just to stop locking yourself inside the house.

Quote from: RSDancey;427370The Big Fear players have is that DMs will make it impossible for them to do the clever things they want to do.  So they ask for detailed architectural drawings of the spaces their characters inhabit so as to minimize the potential for being shut down by the DM.

That's not my experience.  My experience is that it's impossible to do anything clever if you don't understand the spaces the character is in.  It's working with your circumstances and resources to solve a problem, not guessing how you could possibly solve the problem and then wishing the resources into existence.  What you are describing is akin to this:

Quote from: The Princess BrideINIGO: Let me explain -- No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Buttercup is marrying Humperdinck in a little less than half an hour, so all we have to do is get in, break up the wedding, steal the Princess, make our escape after I kill Count Rugen.

WESTLEY: That doesn't leave much time for dilly dallying.

FEZZIK: You've just wiggled your finger. That's wonderful.

WESTLEY: I've always been a quick healer. What are our liabilities?

INIGO: There is but one working castle gate.  And it is guarded by sixty men.

WESTLEY: And our assets?

INIGO: Your brains, Fezzik's strength, my steel.

WESTLEY: That's it? Impossible. If I had a month to plan, maybe I could come up with something. But this...

FEZZIK: You just shook your head -- that doesn't make you happy?

WESTLEY: My brains, his steel, and your strength against sixty men, and you think a little head jiggle is supposed to make me happy? I mean, if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.

INIGO: Where did we put that wheelbarrow the Albino had?

FEZZIK: Over the Albino, I think.

WESTLEY: Well, why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place? What I wouldn't give for a holocaust cloak.

INIGO: There we cannot help you.

FEZZIK: Will this do?

INIGO: Where did you get that?

FEZZIK: At Miracle Max's. It fit so nice, he said I could keep it.

WESTLEY: All right, all right. Come on, help me up.

(You can watch the scene here.)

It's a great movie and a great scene but it's also funny because it's absurd, particularly when Fezzik pulls out the holocaust cloak.  But that's exactly where "Say 'yes' or roll dice" can lead.   Ask for something -- anything -- and it can magically appear without explanation.  In the movie, Fezzik provides an explanation for why a holocaust cloak just happens to be available but who is responsible for explaining that in the game?  The GM?  A player?  How plausible do they have to make the explanation?

This is also now how I think most people approach most situations.  They do what Westley starts the scene doing, taking stock of their liabilities and assets and then figure out a way to use the assets to overcome the liabilities to reach their objective.  That approach requires the GM to lay out the liabilities and assets so that the players can be make choices about how to deal with their liabilities with the assets on hand.  Yes, that can lead to speculative questions but those questions should not have the power to create the possible existence of things that really have no business being there.

If you are paying the game from an omnipotent perspective, it probably isn't all that much of a difference, but if you are playing the game from the character's perspective or even by thinking in character, it's a huge difference and it's a huge difference if verisimilitude matters.  And as I mentioned above, if questions such as wondering if anyone has a holocaust cloaks can magically create, by the wonders of "yes" or a die roll, the existence of a cloak that nobody remembers buying or having, who is responsible for explaining the sudden appearance of that item?

Quote from: RSDancey;427370In a D&D with no specific positioning, having such a map doesn't help.  So we would then enter a world where players would be constantly over-cautious, playing repetitive games of 20 questions with DMs as they explore options, and try to understand what the DM will and will not let them do.

It's not simply what the GM will or will not let them do but what's possible in the situation.  If there are no limits, then anything and everything becomes possible.  And far from making the players be clever about solving problems with what they have at hand, it can quickly become a game of asking about what's there until the GM says yes or the dice come up with that wheelbarrow and holocaust cloak that lets the players solve the problem the way they want.

Quote from: RSDancey;427370So free the game from this constraint.  Let them do anything reasonable.  Allow them to dice for anything even remotely possible.  And only stop them if they've gone off the deep end into irrational territory.

To a large degree, that's reasonable but that's not "Say 'yes' or roll dice".  It also ignores the possibility that the GM may have the situation planned out well enough that they know what all the assets and liabilities are without rolling.  So, again, I think the advice should be (with a change at the end):

If the GM doesn't already know the answer to a question or have a good reason to say "yes" or "no", they should roll dice or just say "yes".

Quote from: RSDancey;427370I would extend this advice to include the definition of the space.  Allow them to help create the world their characters inhabit.

What if the players don't want to do that?  In a previous thread, I stated that, as a player, I do not want narrative control.  I don't want to help create the world my characters inhabit.  I don't create the world around me.  I want to play my character as if they were a real person in that setting.  

Quote from: RSDancey;427370In the example used in this thread (a square room with 4 exits, with extensive webbing concealing the ceiling, and a pile of spider-leavings in the center of the room), here are some things that players could just "edit" into the encounter if they wished:

* A handful of dust from the floor
* Unidentifiable bits of cloth, bone, hair, or insect debris

Normally, that might work but the GM might have good reason to say "no" to either of those things.  For example, perhaps the GM has a small gelatinous cube or slime roaming the dungeon that cleans up the dust and organic debris on the floor and the GM wants the players to notice the absence of such material as a clue.  That's also spoiled by the idea of automatically giving the the players clues without rolls or being asked about them.

Quote from: RSDancey;427370Here are some examples I'd require dice to edit into the encounter:

* A partially burned torch
* A suitable object (old crate, enough pieces of broken masonry to make a pile, etc.) large enough to stand on and allow a character to reach the webbing

Again, this can work but I can also imagine a GM knowing about all of the big stuff in their room when they created the dungeon and, personally, I expect anything big to be a part of the room description and not magically appear because the players start asking questions (see holocaust cloak above).  If an old crate, piles of broken masonry, and other large things were not a part of the initial description, I wouldn't expect it to suddenly appear.  On the flip side, if most rooms of a dungeon are established as having partially burned torches in sockets on the way, it might be reasonable to assume that this room has them, too, but that's easily enough for a GM to answer without a hard rule about it.

Quote from: RSDancey;427370Here are some examples of things I'd refuse to allow to be edited in to the encounter by the players:

* A vial of spider anti-venom
* Dwarven runes carved into the rock saying "set the webs on fire"

Again, I think this all fits better into the way I'm wording it than "Say 'yes' or roll dice", which implies the GM should never just say "no".  And as your examples point out, sometimes it's perfectly reasonable to say "no".  As it does with many things, the story-game advice goes too far.  So craft a rule of thumb that says what you really want and doesn't go too far rather than adopting the story-game idea that does go too far.

Quote from: RSDancey;427370I want to talk about player editing a lot more but this is not the message to do it in.  I'll close by saying that most of the time, if the players have no fear about their ability to act rationally, they won't obsess about having a precise knowledge of the encounter space.

I think that's true, but I don't think that requires player scene editing or something as radical as "Say 'yes' or roll dice."  A big part of it, in my experience, simply involves using and playing the system so that the PCs don't go up against 50/50 odds or dire odds and, instead, have a pretty good chance of success.  D&D, of course, tries to do this.  A lot of GMs, trying to emulate stories, however, don't.  Like the bad writer who tries to create tension by having every bomb not be disarmed until there are less than 5 seconds left and who make every win look like a come-from-behind victory after the protagonist gets their second wind, those GMs put the PCs up against 50/50 or worse odds and then wind up having to fudge the PCs to victory or the PCs get killed.  

Quote from: RSDancey;427370The more you force them to care, the more they'll care. So don't make them care.

But if you take that advice too far, then they won't really care about the entire scene because none of the details really matter.  That, in my opinion, is one of the big dangers of abstraction.

ADDED: One last thing.  One of the "inside jokes" that some of the people I role-played with in college had was the question, "Is there a zoo on this planet?"  That came from a Traveller game where the players were thinking up absurd ways to create a distraction to do something illegal and one player got the idea to let all of the animals out of the zoo to create chaos.  That, in my experience, is pretty normal for anything goes, unconstrained speculative problem solving by players.

Quote from: John Morrow;427402That's not my experience.  My experience is that it's impossible to do anything clever if you don't understand the spaces the character is in.  It's working with your circumstances and resources to solve a problem, not guessing how you could possibly solve the problem and then wishing the resources into existence.  

This is a huge part of my enjoyment of the game and if the environment is 'editable' I feel cheated as a player.

Quote from: John Morrow;427402A big part of it, in my experience, simply involves using and playing the system so that the PCs don't go up against 50/50 odds or dire odds and, instead, have a pretty good chance of success.  D&D, of course, tries to do this.  A lot of GMs, trying to emulate stories, however, don't.  Like the bad writer who tries to create tension by having every bomb not be disarmed until there are less than 5 seconds left and who make every win look like a come-from-behind victory after the protagonist gets their second wind, those GMs put the PCs up against 50/50 or worse odds and then wind up having to fudge the PCs to victory or the PCs get killed.  

This is a big problem, and, I suspect, one that Mr. Dancey's solutions would tend to exacerbate rather than help with. Unfortunately there is a growing legacy of terrible GM advice and misguided conventional wisdom that these structures improve play - one of the real glories of RPGs is their true open-endedness to the character and player. Both 90's story advice and neo-narrative rules concepts both tend to replace that with what is, in my opinion, an illusory open-endedness for the character and only a token one at best for the player.

Also, as you allude to, I don't think you generally get a good story, either - usually a pretty bad one that's not necessarily any better than the emergent story that is a byproduct after the fact of traditional play, which is innately open-ended.

Quote from: John Morrow;427402But if you take that advice too far, then they won't really care about the entire scene because none of the details really matter.  That, in my opinion, is one of the big dangers of abstraction.

Well said. Also, this is very much what experience has shown me.

Quote from: RSDancey;427370...

The Big Fear players have is that DMs will make it impossible for them to do the clever things they want to do.  So they ask for detailed architectural drawings of the spaces their characters inhabit so as to minimize the potential for being shut down by the DM.

...

Let's put this to the test on the Big Purple, if Pundit doesn't mind the link:-

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=13270945

11 votes at the time of writing and not ONE person has owned up to this being a Big Fear of theirs though 2 claim a lot of people they know think that way.

Quote from: Omnifray;427411Let's put this to the test on the Big Purple, if Pundit doesn't mind the link:-

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=13270945

11 votes at the time of writing and not ONE person has owned up to this being a Big Fear of theirs though 2 claim a lot of people they know think that way.

Interesting, but I have to admit I doubt the poll will show anything resembling a useful sample size. :/

Quote from: Cole;427412Interesting, but I have to admit I doubt the poll will show anything resembling a useful sample size. :/

12 people so far saying it's not a Big Fear of theirs, none saying it is - seems like a reasonable start to me. To be fair to RPG.net if the debate carries on for a long time they might get 50, even 150 votes. Just depends if people get into the thread discussion or not.

If find the discussion on here is often more useful analytically, but RPG.net is good for polls and brainstorming, IMHO YMMV.

Wow, 1 out of 19 voters has now admitted to the Big Fear. Looks like Dancey might be onto something...

Because

a) RPGnet is scientastic and
b) The way you framed the "Big Fear" really makes people comfortable admitting they might have it