Sounds more like swapping 'I swing' with 'I do nothing'.
Really, you make statements about the action and then retract them if the Players don't accept your bid?
GM: "Orks rush in and shoot arrows at you!" (offers a bennie...)
Players: "No they don't, we're having a nap!" (throws bennie back at GM)

Quote from: Simlasa;696330Sounds more like swapping 'I swing' with 'I do nothing'.
Really, you make statements about the action and then retract them if the Players don't accept your bid?
GM: "Orks rush in and shoot arrows at you!" (offers a bennie...)
Players: "No they don't, we're having a nap!" (throws bennie back at GM)

I sure hope it does not work that way

Quote from: dbm;696327*Shrug* I have never had my players reject a GMI, or a compel in Fate either. If your players trust you they just go with it and except the Fate point or XP without any great ceremony or negotiation. If they were to reject my GMI I would just smoothly divert the action I was describing so that the 'bad thing' didn't happen to them.

It's a bit like the difference between saying 'I hit' versus saying 'I swing'. Use open language to set up the situation then just fork based on the player's response.

I don't think players should dictate what happens to the gm.

I feel players should dictate what they are doing, and the gm adjudicates what happens.

It's not the actual Intrusion i am uncomfortable with; gm's Intrude ALL the time just doing their job.
Its the mechanical stuff attached to the Intrusion (Normal gming) that seems odd to me.

Quote from: Bill;696342I sure hope it does not work that way

Yeah, I'm assuming it doesn't really... but I'm not really clear on the subtle distinction, or value, of what it does do.
What do I gain from using those rules except less immersion and more metagamey moments of bargaining? (similar to my feelings about Fate)

Quote from: Simlasa;696366Yeah, I'm assuming it doesn't really... but I'm not really clear on the subtle distinction, or value, of what it does do.
What do I gain from using those rules except less immersion and more metagamey moments of bargaining? (similar to my feelings about Fate)

I plan to play Numenara to get a feel for it. Who knows? I may like it once I see it in action.

Quote from: Simlasa;696330Sounds more like swapping 'I swing' with 'I do nothing'.
Really, you make statements about the action and then retract them if the Players don't accept your bid?
GM: "Orks rush in and shoot arrows at you!" (offers a bennie...)
Players: "No they don't, we're having a nap!" (throws bennie back at GM)

It's like that if you're rubbish at using the mechanic, sure. If you have any skill as a GM you can make it play naturally.

I wouldn't make the GMI govern whether or not the ambush happened; I would use it to decide whether the ambush happened whilst people were mostly asleep and unprepared, or mostly still awake and so having an easier time reacting.

I probably wouldn't use a GMI for an ambush at all, to be honest. Stuff on that scale is harder to nudge around. I would (and do) use it to apply individual complications or mishaps.

In the game we played at the weekend, one PC was picked on by local teens whilst having a quiet drink as a result of a GMI. The PC was out of his depth and the situation was escalating. His PC was characterised as a bit Aspergers and so couldn't handle this situation himself; one of the other characters had to rescue him before it turned into to a fight.  If the player had rejected the GMI I would have had the teens be half-hearted and run out of steam before the situation got critical.

It's more about adding some bumps in the road than derailing the train.

Why use these rules? It's kind of like Burning Wheel Instincts in reverse. Instincts exist to stop the GM hosing you - you can have an instinct which says you are never unarmed, and that becomes a 'truth' for you character. If you are ambushed in the bath then you had a knife stashed in there with you...

GMIs are so the GM can say "I'm going to make your life difficult by (having you ambushed without a weapon), but I'll give you an XP to compensate". And you can say "Ok, I'll play along" or "No, my character is always armed". All without needing lengthy discussion or negotiation when both parties are on top of things.

I might use a GMI to make a pit open beneath your feet, but I would be reluctant to use it to actually make you fall down that hole - you'd get a Speed defence to avoid falling. If you rejected the GMI then you would have, in effect, auto-succeeded on that defence roll.

So it's a rule to thwart asshole GMs... that could be abused/overdone by asshole GMs?

I'm still not seeing the upside to it.
If I'm not the sort of GM who would generally fuck the players over without warning anyway... what does it do for our group? As far as I can tell they're not clamoring for ways to refuse the stuff I throw at them.
If I'm a player and a pit opens under me I want to be able to reflex save or something... but I DO NOT want the option to chip away the pit, or auto-save or whatever.
That was my big issue with Deadlands/Savage Worlds... nothing bad happening to players unless they wanted it to... so all the dangers felt lukewarm (a big chunk of that might have been on our GM who seems to pull his punches).

Quote from: Simlasa;696387So it's a rule to thwart asshole GMs... that could be abused/overdone by asshole GMs?

An asshat gm will get you no matter what.

I think this rule is intended to provide some structure, consistancy, and give the player some say.

Quote from: Bill;696389An asshat gm will get you no matter what.

I think this rule is intended to provide some structure, consistancy, and give the player some say.

Correct on both counts, pretty much.  I'll be interested to hear what you think when you play.

Quote from: Bill;696389An asshat gm will get you no matter what.

For sure. So these rules can't/won't really govern that behavior.

QuoteI think this rule is intended to provide some structure, consistancy, and give the player some say.

So if I feel there already is structure and consistency... not for me?
If I already feel I have plenty of say as player, "No, let's avoid the haunted tower with the spooky windows", "I'll check for traps!", "I'll stand guard", "I'll go in the back door"... then not for me?

In a way it sounds like something SOME players might want that ends up working counter to their own interests... short-circuiting the fun.
As a player I prefer surprises and for a good bit of the setting/milieu/fiction to be out of my control. It's fun when the GM adds some difficulty... puts a curse on me, sets traps. The 'payout' is already there... I don't need some bogus brownie points to make me feel better about it.
Looks like I'll avoid these rules. Thanks.

Quote from: Simlasa;696396For sure.

So if I already feel there is structure and consistency... not for me? If I already feel I have plenty of say as player, "No, let's avoid the haunted tower with the spooky windows", "I'll check for traps!", "I'll stand guard", "I'll go in the back door"... then not for me?

In a way it sounds like something SOME players might want that ends up working counter to their own interests... short-circuiting the fun.
As a player I prefer surprises and for a good bit of the setting/milieu/fiction to be out of my control.
Looks like I'll avoid these rules. Thanks.

I would still recommend trying it out if an opportunity arises. Each gm will likely do things a bit differently as well.

Oh, I'll play anything once... maybe twice. I played 4e for a couple of months before giving up on it. But I'm not going to buy it or lobby for it at the table (not that that EVER does me any good anyway). If someone else brings it I'll give it a try.

Quote from: Simlasa;696407Oh, I'll play anything once... maybe twice. I played 4e for a couple of months before giving up on it.

I am very forgiving as a player.

I can be picky as a gm, but fortunately there are a ton of games I like to gm.

Quote from: Bill;696344Its the mechanical stuff attached to the Intrusion (Normal gming) that seems odd to me.

If your normal mode of GMing is to, for example, interpret a successful attack roll as meaning that the PC has lost their weapon and your players never have any sort of problem with that... Then, yeah, GM intrusions aren't going to make a lot of sense to you.

But I'll be honest: I have literally never met a GM who did that. And if I did, I'd be shocked to find that their players never debate those decisions.

Quote from: dbm;696378GMIs are so the GM can say "I'm going to make your life difficult by (having you ambushed without a weapon), but I'll give you an XP to compensate". And you can say "Ok, I'll play along" or "No, my character is always armed". All without needing lengthy discussion or negotiation when both parties are on top of things.

Great example. I actually had this situation come up a few months back: Armed guys broke into a party the PCs were attending and I said, "Okay. Your weapons are back in your hotel room." And one of the players said, "No. I'd always have my sword on me." And we had a brief debate about that before I said, "OK. Then you've got your sword."

It wasn't an "end of the universe" type of discussion/debate. It only lasted about 60 seconds. But during those 60 seconds, everyone's attention had been ripped out of the game world and focused on the metagame discussion.

If I had been running Numenera, I would have offered the intrusion ("I think you probably left your weapons in your rooms") and they would have rejected it ("I'm never without my sword"). Instead of a 60 second discussion, the back-and-forth is handled smoothly by a mechanic in less than 5 seconds and the focus of the game stays on the game world.

Another common intrusion would, "Bob triggers a trap. Mary, you're close enough that you're going to fall into the pit, too." If you've never been at a table where that prompted Mary's player to say, "No way! I would have stayed on the far side of the room!" then I would consider you to be living a blessed existence. And, again, these are rarely huge debates or problems. Nobody is going to get challenged to a duel at sunrise. But the GM intrusion mechanics provides a quick, smooth structure for resolving the disagreement.

I wonder how much of the resistance to the mechanic is also coming from the sort of people who get upset because "killing monsters shouldn't make you better at swimming"? I've long since come to terms with the fact that XP (and advancement mechanics in general) are completely dissociated mechanics in 99% of the roleplaying games out there. So blending XP and moxie points into a little back-and-forth economy to facilitate the resolution of disagreement.

Particularly since, as I said before, the net result of all this is that it gives the GM a lot more flexibility to push the envelope with the decisions they make: Where I might play it conservative or hedge my bets in other games, in Numenera I can take bigger risks because if it turns out I went too far my players can very easily nudge the game back in the right direction.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;696437I actually had this situation come up a few months back...

OK, now see... those examples sound fairly reasonable to me... they're things that haven't been specified. The GM hasn't asked for a list of what equipment you're taking to the party (ours usually does) or hasn't asked for specific marching order/positioning.
So the Players can't outright refuse the attack at the party? They can't change the sex of the Mayor? They can't alter things outside of themselves or things that have already been clearly stated?
It's only to answer questions left open about the PCs eg. Did he or did he not have himself tied to the rope? Which saddlebag had the gold in it?

And it's XP for just the affected PC? The whole group can't refuse a wandering monster that attacks?

And no... the 'I got better at swimming by killing trolls' quandry doesn't bug me all that much, at least in regards to D&D. But I generally prefer BRP/RQ and XP there is different.