Quote from: Black Vulmea;735925Usually your reading comprehension is much better than this. or maybe I just haven't been reading your posts closely enough, but what I wrote was, CWB involves trade-offs, not that it doesn't work, and that some of those trade-offs may be unwelcome to some gamers.

Granted.  I think I listed a bunch of scenarios where CWB wouldn't work.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;735925Again, using the example of secret societies, some players like the idea of collaboratively creating a secret society, with or without knowing any details beyond its existence. That knowledge is a trade-off, and its one that I don't care to make. As a player, I don't want to know about secret societies until I ferret them out in-game, and as a referee, I choose not to broadcast them to the players, which is why, if you click on the Secret Societies page of my campaign wiki, you get this.

Sure, and I'll agree with you - if it's even known that the game will involve secret societies, then setting them during CWB will certainly divulge that to the players.

But there's lots of ways to CWB secret societies exist:

1) There's the Order of Snerglerg, here's the leader, their structure, and their goals.  There's the Cult of Farklewark, and here's all the information about them.  There are no other secret societies.

2) There's the Order of Snerglerg, here's all of their details.  No idea about anything else.

3)  There's the Order of Snerglerg.  We know nothing about them, or any other possible societies.

4) Secret societies exist.

I think many people are assuming that CWB results in something closer to the first point, where my experience has it closer to the third or fourth points.

But again, it's kind of like any widely-known setting.  The same issues you'd run into about player knowledge of the setting created with CWB would be just as true if you used Forgotten Realms, or Middle Earth, or whatever.  Sure, you know about the Red Wizards of Thay or hte Harpers or whatever, but you don't know what they're up to, factions within them, other groups that may exist that aren't part of the canon, etc.

Certainly, if you're of the opinion that for your game using a published setting would be a bad idea specifically because of available player knowledge about it, then CWB would be a bad fit - the problem here really isn't CWB, though, so much as "I don't want players to have outside knowledge of the setting".

OTOH, I'd argue that the mere existence of that page kinda clues in players that there *are*, in fact, secret societies...  I mean, if I was playing in your game, seeing that page I'd sure as hell assume that there were secret societies that were manipulating stuff in the background.  (Yeah, ass of you and me).

A heavily investigative game, where the point of the game is to discover what shit the GM's made up, may not benefit from CWB (I should probably include that in the list of bad fits for CWB).

If the game is more about 'seeing what happens', CWB can work well.

But that's also dependent on how much of the world is actually built collaboratively - a few tentstakes?  Major strokes?  Every goddamn detail that will ever appear in the game has to come from CWB?  Even in the games where I've done CWB, there's *lots* of things that the players have *no clue* about.  Hell, in one game I'm running, the players know there's angels and demons.  I'm pretty sure they'll have no idea about the first dozen or so times they meet an angel.

I do collaborative worldbuilding stuff in Other Worlds. But there is generally a clear division between things that are considered hard facts about the world (like details of the races the PCs belong to, and the nearby locations) and things that are considered just suggestions for the GM (possible adventure ideas, monsters, places to explore further away, potential future events, rumours, etc). The latter stuff is then handed off to me as the GM to use, ignore, or adapt as I see fit.

I basically never just use something straight up, I find that the art in GMing this kind of game is taking the player suggestions and making something new out of them so that they are still surprised and intrigued when they happen. That way you get the benefits of CWB like player buy-in but none of the downsides. In fact just the passage of time often makes players forget what they said anyway, many times I've had players excited, confused, or amazed by stuff that was firmly based on comments they themselves had made a few  weeks previously and since forgotten. I've never once had players just go 'oh right, this is that thing we suggested before'.    

For instance here is a link to the worldbuilding notes from my last campaign http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=24043. Note how many of the future adventures suggestions are just images, fragments of ideas, or phrased as questions. I got a year long campaign out of this but looking at them now I reckon I ignored about half of them and used most of the other half in disguised/respun form. Some were put in the world as potential opportunities that the players never picked up on (for instance, there were powerful dragons hibernating in somewhere known as the forbidden lands, if the players had ever gone there they would have been able to consult/negotiate with them... or had to fight them, if they did not present enough of a sacrifice).

Quote from: robiswrong;735929But there's lots of ways to CWB secret societies exist:

1) There's the Order of Snerglerg, here's the leader, their structure, and their goals.  There's the Cult of Farklewark, and here's all the information about them.  There are no other secret societies.

2) There's the Order of Snerglerg, here's all of their details.  No idea about anything else.

3)  There's the Order of Snerglerg.  We know nothing about them, or any other possible societies.

4) Secret societies exist.

I'd normally place somewhere around 2.5. Players give me a variety of broad suggestions, some I ignore and some I work on and expand into something new. Here are some of the suggestions I got last time:

• Threat could be a new land mass emerging from the sea - a relic of ancient times? 'The Tenth Kingdom'. A returned god? Some strange and powerful items might have been salvaged from this place already.
• Or a new evil religion - led by an Osama Bin Thulsa Doom type figure. A false prophet. The rise of this cult could be what is causing the war (religious vs secular?). He could be an avatar or have some special item.
• Or demons, planar invasion, dragons (allied to the forces on the island maybe?), gnomes, etc

The first I turned into 'there is a pyramid on a submerged island that has recently floated back to the surface, it is a weapon against the unseelie that was built by precursor races you know nothing about'. The second I ignored except that I put in a necromancer guy who was actually a potential ally rather than a threat, he just deliberately projected a dread reputation so that people would leave him and his people alone. The third I turned into an unseelie invasion force based on the moon and the aforementioned hibernating dragons.

Quote from: soviet;735934...The latter stuff is then handed off to me as the GM to use, ignore, or adapt as I see fit.

I basically never just use something straight up, I find that the art in GMing this kind of game is taking the player suggestions and making something new out of them so that they are still surprised and intrigued when they happen. That way you get the benefits of CWB like player buy-in but none of the downsides.

I also find a "GM Synthesis" stage to be really important with CWB.  I won't say that it nukes *all* of the downsides, but it mitigates a number of them.

I guess I also see CWB as something more like Iron Chef, rather than "okay, let's sit down with Campaign Cartographer..."

CWB doesn't necessarily have anything to do with storytelling, nor is it necessarily a big deal.

I've got a regular D&D player who likes to play "exotic" character types (e.g., a Nehwon ghoul or a wemic). He raises the idea, I as DM say OK, and badda-bing, there are such creatures somewhere in our shared world.

The whole group of regulars has a bull session, discussing ideas for what sort of scenario to play next. Should comicbook or wuxia superpowers be in the mix? No, D&D is pushing some people's tolerance for that with levels in the low teens. How about a theme of paranoia and betrayal? No, a little Call of Cthulhu was enough for some, a little Diplomacy too much for others. Rennaissance or Age of Reason? Not unless it's really tarted up. More in the style of Robert E. Howard's Hyborean Age, or "sword & planet" stuff? Response was negative initially, but has warmed up a bit with with more experience. Empire of the Petal Throne? No, too strange.

And so on.

Quote from: CRKrueger;735892Why?
Why always yes?
What is wrong with...
Player - "Is there a rope around that I can use to climb down the wall?"
GM - "No."
Now the character has to decide what to do next.   He could...
1. Try to climb the wall anyway, this gives just as much drama, consequence, and protagonism as the yes, but, arguably even more.
2. Not climb down the wall, coming up with some other path, possibly being better then the one he was going to try.
3. Decide to forget going down there and avoid the...etc etc etc.

The ONLY way the "Yes,X" philosophy works as the default response is if you are approaching the game from a storybuilding point of view where you are a group of people riffing on each other's creation like any type of group creative exercise.  In that case, a "No" stops the flow of storytelling and interrupts the player's creation.  For shared storytelling, that is not cool.  For Roleplaying a character, however, it should be just as valid and common an answer as yes.

Now the GM may decide to give out false or incomplete information because that's what the situation describes, but if we are talking about a binary decision, then every fact the GM answers a question with is based on...

• Something he knows is true, because he created it beforehand and the answer is concrete and objective - ie. even though there is a shotgun behind most bars in the Wild West, there is no shotgun behind Clem's bar in the Songbird Saloon.
  
• Something that is strongly implied by the specifics of the setting - Firearms aren't allowed in Big Whiskey Montana, so even though the GM hasn't decided on the fact beforehand, it's pretty clear Skinny wouldn't have a shotgun back there, because he's scared to death of Little Bill.
  
• Something that is generally true because it fits the genre and GM, like the player, assumes it to be true.  The players decide to head to a town the GM hasn't really prepped, they walk into a bar, get into a fight and a player jumps over the bar to grab a shotgun, the GM rolls with it because why not. (or rolls the dice to be more impartial).
  

The "Say Yes" crowd generally assumes the third point to be the default mode for good GMing, which leads to collaborative worldbuilding.

"Yes, X" comes from improvised theatre. for it to work, everyone involved needs to be playing by the "Yes, X" rule, meaning what the say can't contradict anything that has already been said. It's not about storybuilding per se, but it is about collaboration and compromise, listening to others' input into the conversation, using it, and responding.

One thing missing from that conversation is that, as a GM, "Yes, X" can be useful, but so is "No, X". Whether you say yes or no, giving the players more information, context, and opportunities or challenges keeps things moving.

Let's take the random bar shotgun example:

"I jump over the bar and grab for a shotgun!"

No - "There isn't a shotgun there. What do you do?"
No, but - "There isn't a shotgun there, but there is a truncheon. What do you do?"
No, and - "There isn't a shotgun there, and the owner, this big burly guy looks pissed that you jumped the bar. He's walking towards brandishing a truncheon. What do you do?"

Yes - "There's a sawed-off double barrel just sitting there. What do you do?"
Yes, but - "There's a shotgun, but it isn't loaded! The owner usually just uses it to intimidate drunks. What do you do?"
Yes, and - "You grab the shotty, and almost everyone in the bar goes suddenly still. One woman in a pinstripe suit, though is reaching into her jacket and holding up her other hand to you. What do you do?"


If this town, or bar has just been made up, the GM doesn't have any real stakes in how the situation plays out, so they can just go with their gut and what makes sense or seems fun.

That's pretty much how I GM all the time, zero prep, balls to the wall improv GMing is very liberating, and means you get to be surprised as often as the players. It also means I don't waste hours of prep designing an encounter the players aren't interested in. That means that systems that require prep and encounter balance don't work for me.

Dungeon World GM mechanics allow me to play the way I want, but they have a spectrum of play. Lots of GMs are adapting old D&D modules, others are creating worlds or full dungeons with few blanks, or quests with clear objectives.

Quote from: robiswrong;735940I guess I also see CWB as something more like Iron Chef, rather than "okay, let's sit down with Campaign Cartographer..."

I agree entirely. Actual quote from Other Worlds:

"Think of it in the same vein as those 'iron chef' competitions on TV: each player's job is to shout out a load of interesting ingredients, and the GM's job is to try to turn those ingredients into a dish that everyone can enjoy."

Quote from: soviet;735962I agree entirely. Actual quote from Other Worlds:

"Think of it in the same vein as those 'iron chef' competitions on TV: each player's job is to shout out a load of interesting ingredients, and the GM's job is to try to turn those ingredients into a dish that everyone can enjoy."

Which is great up until the point where you want to have a cheeseburger be a traditional ethnic Indian dish.

Quote from: jeff37923;736028Which is great up until the point where you want to have a cheeseburger be a traditional ethnic Indian dish.

Braze some beef in the Kashmiri style, take some naan and some paneer and call it good.

Quote from: robiswrong;735929But there's lots of ways to CWB secret societies exist:

1) There's the Order of Snerglerg, here's the leader, their structure, and their goals.  There's the Cult of Farklewark, and here's all the information about them.  There are no other secret societies.

2) There's the Order of Snerglerg, here's all of their details.  No idea about anything else.

3)  There's the Order of Snerglerg.  We know nothing about them, or any other possible societies.

4) Secret societies exist.

I think many people are assuming that CWB results in something closer to the first point, where my experience has it closer to the third or fourth points.

That's an incredibly useful addition to the discussion. Now, where did I read something like that already?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;735925. . . ome players like the idea of collaboratively creating a secret society, with or without knowing any details beyond its existence. (emphasis added - BV)

Oh right, that was it.

Quote from: Phillip;735948CWB doesn't necessarily have anything to do with storytelling, nor is it necessarily a big deal. (...)

This. Coming up with mechanics/rules and hip jargon for it, acting smug pseudo-intellectual about it and wasting 1.5 hours "discussing" it are completely redundant.
Why would you even need mechanics/rules for CWB? You just talk with your players and do whatever works for that particular game or setting for your group. There's really nothing novel or groundbreaking about it, either.

Quote from: estar;735909In traditional tabletop, the story is you describing what you experienced as your character. The only things you can do are the things that you can do as if YOU ARE THERE AS YOUR CHARACTER.

In storygames the focus is on collaborative storytelling, often with the players focusing on an individual characters. In addition to mechanics that resolve character actions there are a range of metagame mechanics that allow elements of the settings to be created on the fly. With the intent that it furthers the unfolding story.

I think the split between styles came from this  How much do you Improv thread

Quote from: jeff37923;736028Which is great up until the point where you want to have a cheeseburger be a traditional ethnic Indian dish.

Garam masala lamb patty and a slice of paneer melt between two chunks of naan? I'm game.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;736064That's an incredibly useful addition to the discussion. Now, where did I read something like that already?


Oh right, that was it.

Good point.  I retract my comment.

Quote from: estar;735910Is really metagaming? Or just different set of mechanics that simulates or abstracts the downtime or character creation process? Ars Magica comes to mind with all their research and covenant rules.

Two different things. The covenant rules in Ars Magica still involve in-character decisions; those decisions are just covering broader (and more abstracted) stretches of time.

Something like the Dresden Files, OTOH, has an entire system by which the players are specifically designing the campaign world and the antagonists their characters will be facing during play.

Quote from: Skywalker;735917The only part of that spectrum where there is a fundamental difference is IMO "never" which eschews all player input into the world and story.

I'd say the distinction between character creation and actual play is far more relevant. Trying to ignore that distinction seems like a really disingenuous way to pretend that point-buy character creation and narrative control mechanics are the same thing.