I apologise if this post is a little long winded. I found some discussion in the Your campaign style, player v. story (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=17213). In particular I found the discussion about “Situational GMing” very interesting and wanted to try to get it straight in my mind.
I don’t really have any conclusions to offer, so fair warning; this may turn out be a bit of a shaggy dog tale.
Pacing
Pacing is the mechanism through which you open up new content in a game.
For instance in a dungeon, moving to a new room opens up new content. Likewise the player saying "I'll check out the hospital to see if there were any witnesses" starts a new scene the opens new content. The concept of new content and new scene are clearly related, but for the time I want to focus on the content aspect.
Not all content is of the same quality. If the next room in the dungeon is empty, there really isn't much you can do with it. Likewise there could be no witnesses at the hospital. Let's call this Empty Content. Empty Content isn't always a bad thing. It might help express the sense of time passing or it may be that the players make something out of it anyway as in "I didn't find any witnesses at the hospital, but on other hand I got the telephone number of this cute redhead nurse."
Generally though you'd expect new content to be a little more significant. So there might be in the next room contains a bunch of orcs and a treasure chest or maybe a clue to help further the investigation. We'll call this Significant Content. Significant Content can be viewed as the meat of the adventure.
On the top of the pile is Super Content. This is content that resolves the adventure, the reason you began the quest or investigation in the first place like a Boss room. But by it's very nature there any one adventure will have few, or possibly just one instance of Super Content and it will naturally occur towards the end of the adventure for if the quest item were found in the first room of the dungeon, there would be pretty little point exploring any further.
Pacing and Choice
Dungeons are not normally linear. A room could have more than one exit, each exit linking to a different set of Significant Content, each exit providing a different journey (in terms of length, risk and rewards) to the Super Content. This makes the choice of exit is a significant one (ideally the players might have some clues to help make the choice more meaningful, but even if the choice is just down to luck, it still matters).
Note that if GM is winging it or if the content is being generated on the fly using by random tables for instance, the choice of exits is not longer meaningful. The Super Content is a bit like Schroedernger Cat in this instance, it could exist anywhere.
What Makes for Good Pacing?
Part of the process of designing an adventure then is getting the balance between Empty, Significant and Super Content. In a dungeon it comes down to things like how many rooms or even levels between the entrance and the Super Content, what sort of ratio between Significant and Empty Content and how challenging is the Significant Content. It might even involve trying to arrange the content rhythmically so that the pace varies to avoid monotony.
Note that if the dungeon were entirely linear, the GM could design things to be rhythmically varied. In so much as the dungeon offers choices (multiple exits in each room), the GM surrenders the ability to control the pacing. In the worse case this can mean the players finding a route to the Super Content that avoids virtually all the Significant Content or conversely taking a long, boring and frustrating route to the Super Content of even getting stuck on the way.
The point of this example is simply to illustrate this:
There is a trade off between optimising pacing and giving the players meaningful choices.
Improvised Content, Choice and Pacing
Outside of the dungeon context (or any very tightly pre-plotted adventure), every scene has a virtually endless number of possible exits. The GM cannot possibly prepare all of these in advance and shouldn't even try. What the GM is required to do is improvise.
When improvising, the GM is faced with the having to decide what new content to make available each scene, be it Significant, Empty or Super. The decision my be driven by logic ("Based on the given backstory, there logically wouldn't be any witnesses at the hospital at the moment"), based on pacing considerations ("The players look a little bored, I'll stage a fight at the hospital") or even practical considerations (“Gosh it’s getting kind of late, better not stage the ambush now.”).
This leads to an interesting little paradox. When the GM is improvising, while the range of player choice increases, the importance of the player's choice of is diminished. That is to say the players choice is tempered by the GM's judgement.
Most crucially though is the GM decision of when to make the Super Content available in this context, or rather what must the party do in order to gain access to the Super Content. In the dungeon the answer is obvious, clear a path to the room the Super Content is contained in. In a game with largely improvised content this becomes less an absolute and becomes subject for negotiation. It comes down to the talent of the GM to read the room and decide when it feels right to unlock the Super Content. Note that deciding in the planning stage that the Super Content can only unlocked when, say, three key clues have been discovered doesn't really change anything, it just means there are four bits of Super Content in the scenario rather than one.
Note also some games have taken to using some other meta-game resource to determine when the Super Content can be unlocked, but let’s not go there.
So I guess if there is a question here it's for the Situational GM about how do there decide what kind of content (Empty, Significant or Super) to unlock and when? What is the criteria?
I'm afraid you missed the point, SG. There's nothing to unlock in a Situational game. NPCs are processes, verbs, vectors. Even settings can change - they just have lots of inertia. There is no solution, just a resolution. Eventually. Even if that resolution is that you get distracted by something shiny.
-clash
Dang, that was a lot of wasted text then!
No but really. The party says "We go the hospital to see if there were any witneses." The presence or abscene of witnesses is content. It's the the Gm choice whether they are witneses or not. What is the criteria to determine this?
Quote from: Soylent Green;379756Dang, that was a lot of wasted text then!
No but really. The party says "We go the hospital to see if there were any witneses." The presence or abscene of witnesses is content. It's the the Gm choice whether they are witneses or not. What is the criteria to determine this?
I judge how probable it was that there were witnesses, and if any, were they taken to this particular hospital. Then I roll the dice.
-clash
I see, sort of like Mythic rpg? Cool.
Is the roll and probabilities open/hidden? Is there negotiation with the players? Is it based on the the character's skills or background in anyway or is it just a flat roll?
Are you influenced by other considerations beyond "how likely", as in for instance "the players look bored, maybe we should have some combat"?
Sorry tobe a pest, this isn't a trap it's just something I'm really interested in but I don;t have a firm position or method myself.
Quote from: Soylent Green;379765I see, sort of like Mythic rpg? Cool.
Is the roll and probabilities open/hidden? Is there negotiation with the players? Is it based on the the character's skills or background in anyway or is it just a flat roll?
Are you influenced by other considerations beyond "how likely", as in for instance "the players look bored, maybe we should have some combat"?
Sorry tobe a pest, this isn't a trap it's just something I'm really interested in but I don;t have a firm position or method myself.
I suspect you may be over thinking the topic. Those all really depend on the system you use. I think at the core, situational GMing is really about doing things on the fly, based player actions and the NPCs and power groups in the mix. That's my understanding of the term at least. Actually the savage worlds rule book has a couple of paragraphs on the subject in the GM section.
Quote from: Soylent Green;379765I see, sort of like Mythic rpg? Cool.
Is the roll and probabilities open/hidden? Is there negotiation with the players? Is it based on the the character's skills or background in anyway or is it just a flat roll?
The roll is open. The probabilities are improvised, but not hidden. There is no negotiation with the characters, unless they are using some Luck type mechanic. The modifiers to the roll are dependant on the situation. Say the incident is a gangland slaying. This might really depend on how ruthless the hitman would be in eliminating witnesses, not on the character's skills at all.
QuoteAre you influenced by other considerations beyond "how likely", as in for instance "the players look bored, maybe we should have some combat"?
No. The NPCs are moving towards their goals, using their resources according to their personalities. The game comes out of the PCs interaction with that. If they for some reason refused to interact, I'd assume they weren't interested and ask them if I should drop the whole thing. Since my characters are not in the least passive-aggressive, I've never seen that action - or lack thereof - be taken. They are much more likely to say "Hey, clash? Let's play something else."
QuoteSorry to be a pest, this isn't a trap it's just something I'm really interested in but I don;t have a firm position or method myself.
No problem. It's an old game style, but not the most popular. A lot of people know nothing about it. Others have been running this way for years and never known there was a name for it.
-clash
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;379770I suspect you may be over thinking the topic. Those all really depend on the system you use. I think at the core, situational GMing is really about doing things on the fly, based player actions and the NPCs and power groups in the mix. That's my understanding of the term at least. Actually the savage worlds rule book has a couple of paragraphs on the subject in the GM section.
That is very much it, Brendan. It's not real complex. It's a flow thing to a large extent.
-clash
Thanks, that makes sense. I can see how it works. I imagine a minority of players might find the rolling of dice to determine the state of reality a bit anti-imersive, but I'd be fine with it.
But just to expand on the general principle of Situational GMing, not because it needs to be, but just so I understand what fits with within and what doesn't, where are couple more follow up questions if you don't mind.
1) Would you consider letting the players make these rolls if it made them feel more involved in the outcome?
2) In Robin's Law of Good Game Mastering (and I don't quote this book as though it were some sort of authority) has a section on improvising. It suggests that the GM when responding to a player has the GM should consider broad options:
What is the most obvious outcome?
What is the most challenging outcome?
What is the most surprising outcome?
What is the most pleasing outcome?
The idea being that alternating between these criteria makes for the most entertaining and unpredictable game experience.
The book even includes a little table so you can roll randomly between these options. How does switching criteria based on a random roll fit with your idea about Situational GMing?
Quote from: Soylent Green;379756No but really. The party says "We go the hospital to see if there were any witneses." The presence or abscene of witnesses is content. It's the the Gm choice whether they are witneses or not. What is the criteria to determine this?
Well, at its best, the sandbox prep you did prior to the game will inform your adjudication there. That is, the whole purpose of prepping a sandbox prior to the game and not just roll on a bunch of wandering monster tables is that you create a coherent environment with its own logic and dynamism, which then is impacted by the PCs each time they interact with it, leading to all sorts of ripple effects, if you will, on the sandbox's inner workings, which will make its different elements or moving parts evolve differently, elements which will then be impacted again by the PCs choices, and so on, so forth.
Prep is fine, but as I exaplined in the wall of tet above, you can't cover everything all the time. If the players never do any thing totall unexpected then either they are not really trying or the GM has way too much time on his hands.
And there are many, many situations the GM has to improvise content which could just as easily fall either way which end up either rewarding the player characters with something they wanted or denying it to them. There are a lot of differnet theories out there how the GM should handle this. As I don't have not entirey made up my mind on this, I like to hear how people approach this.
Quote from: Soylent Green;379814Prep is fine, but as I exaplined in the wall of tet above, you can't cover everything all the time.
Nor should you try, but that's not what I just wrote. I didn't write that the way you prepped the setting ought to answer all your questions for you, but that, at its best, it INFORMS your ADJUDICATION in the game by providing a frame so that you don't make judgment calls in a vacuum. That's the overarching coherence, logic of the thing that matters, not whether your notes spell out the answers for you or not (which I actually would not advocate).
Hope it's clearer. :)
Quote from: Benoist;379815Nor should you try, but that's not what I just wrote. I didn't write that the way you prepped the setting ought to answer all your questions for you, but that, at its best, it INFORMS your ADJUDICATION in the game by providing a frame so that you don't make judgment calls in a vacuum. That's the overarching coherence, logic of the thing that matters, not whether your notes spell out the answers for you or not (which I actually would not advocate).
Hope it's clearer. :)
Does that equate to Robin Law's "What is the most obvious thing?" and gioing with that every time? Doesn't adding a randomiser inthe adjudication process, which is what I think Clash suggest spice things up a bit without losing realism?
In fact it adds realism, because in reality, it's unlikely that the most likely thing will happen all the time. (It also adds spice. And I agree that it's similar to Mythic.)
Quote from: Soylent Green;379820Does that equate to Robin Law's "What is the most obvious thing?" and gioing with that every time? Doesn't adding a randomiser inthe adjudication process, which is what I think Clash suggest spice things up a bit without losing realism?
It could. I don't think that's an either/or choice, here. You can do both.
Also, as a GM, you can take into account that in reality the most likely thing does not occur all the time.
I would say prep what you think is needed to play. When I am running counter terrorism games, I do more prep, because they are usually investigation based, and that requires a lot of consistency and internal logic (you need to know things like what happened, what is going to happen, who saw what, who knows what, etc). I find it very hard to do that on the fly, so I plant as much stuff in advance as possible. I guess that is more of a sandbox structure, is we are sticking with the terms established in the threads. When I run my mafia game, the players are basically ruthless bad guys, so the free form, situational approach with very little prep works nice (I find it also works well for political intrigue).
Quote from: Soylent Green;379806Thanks, that makes sense. I can see how it works. I imagine a minority of players might find the rolling of dice to determine the state of reality a bit anti-imersive, but I'd be fine with it.
They roll dice to see if they hit, and how well they hit. This is really no different. Establish a probablity and roll.
QuoteBut just to expand on the general principle of Situational GMing, not because it needs to be, but just so I understand what fits with within and what doesn't, where are couple more follow up questions if you don't mind.
1) Would you consider letting the players make these rolls if it made them feel more involved in the outcome?
Personally, I do it all the time, if it's something whose effects are immediate. If it's something whose effects won't be known for a while, that would ruin it for them.
Quote2) In Robin's Law of Good Game Mastering (and I don't quote this book as though it were some sort of authority) has a section on improvising. It suggests that the GM when responding to a player has the GM should consider broad options:
What is the most obvious outcome?
What is the most challenging outcome?
What is the most surprising outcome?
What is the most pleasing outcome?
The idea being that alternating between these criteria makes for the most entertaining and unpredictable game experience.
The book even includes a little table so you can roll randomly between these options. How does switching criteria based on a random roll fit with your idea about Situational GMing?
I'm all for tools that break you out of patterns, so if that works for you, cool.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;379832They roll dice to see if they hit, and how well they hit. This is really no different. Establish a probablity and roll.
Ack, no. This is a subtle philosophical point that drives some people up the wall. Personally, it doesn't bother me, but I can understand why it might bother others.
In one case (roll to hit) you're modeling outcomes based on decisions, using a stochastic model. ("I try to hit him!" "Okay, roll to hit.") In the other case, you're modeling something like a Bayesian inference regarding pre-existing reality, based on current knowledge.
Quote from: Benoist;379822It could. I don't think that's an either/or choice, here. You can do both.
Also, as a GM, you can take into account that in reality the most likely thing does not occur all the time.
So in the end it comes down to instinct and gut feeling?
Quote from: flyingmice;379773.... It's an old game style, but not the most popular. A lot of people know nothing about it. Others have been running this way for years and never known there was a name for it.
-clash
I never knew this was a specific style or even had a name. This is basically the only style I've ever used over all the years.
Quote from: Soylent Green;379765....
Is the roll and probabilities open/hidden? Is there negotiation with the players? Is it based on the the character's skills or background in anyway or is it just a flat roll?
In the situation you describe, are there any witnesses, I usea a hidden roll. Or since I use a 2D10 added together the player rolls one and I roll another. This is to capture the feel of the situation. I may say there appear to be no clear witnesses at the hospital based on the situation if the roll succeeds. The thing is the players don't know if there are no witnesses because they isn't any or because no one steps forward, etc.
The player getting to roll the dice gives is a metagame like way to capture the characters gut feeling that yeah there is no witnesses (they roll bad) or there must be just need to ferret them out (they roll good). If the PCs have no skill in investigation I may roll both dice secretly.
I'm pretty open about what the chance of success is, often being specific but not always. If a PCs life is on the line I'm always very clear about it.
Regarding negotiation, I very much like to get player feed back on what they think the odds are and why. We make use of all our backgrounds in the real world to build a game that makes sense to us. In the end as GM I decide especially since I have info the players do not.
In my games a real disconnect between what we think is reasonable and what I ask you to roll is a sign you don't have all the info, not that we are just going along with what the rules say.
That all being said, if at all possible I roll in the open. That way the palyers know that any success is not from me coddling the dice rolls.
QuoteAre you influenced by other considerations beyond "how likely", as in for instance "the players look bored, maybe we should have some combat"?
Not really, as this doesn't happen much, the boredom thing. Its more likely we have to force ourselves to stop and get home to bed.
QuoteSorry to be a pest, this isn't a trap it's just something I'm really interested in but I don;t have a firm position or method myself.
I think these are great questions. It's a style that may not be for everyone and can only speak to how I do it.
Quote from: Xanther;379939I never knew this was a specific style or even had a name. This is basically the only style I've ever used over all the years.
(This is a copy of a post I made in the other thread last night)
It isn't well defined in anyone's mind. It all came about because of a discussion I had with Marco Chacon almost a decade ago, where he and I realized we were using the same style of GMing, or at least moderately congruent, and realized there were probably more of us out there. One or the other of us came up with the situational moniker - I think it was me, but it equally could have been Marco - and anything that's been written on the subject is probably by one or the other of us.
It's not a movement, or a defined technique. There is no manifesto, and I doubt there ever will be. It's just a hodgepodge collection of techniques and an underlying philosophy. When I refer to anything resembling a 'standard' process, it's just something I know both of us do. I know a lot of people use these techniques - some have developed them on their own, and some have had them handed down from others, but when I talk about it, a lot of people say "Hey! I do that!" and more and more people call themselves Situational GMs on first meeting, so they heard the name someplace.
So yeah, there's a lot of confusion about it, and no central source to consult. It surely isn't me - I don't do that crap. I answer questions, but I'm not the bible. Eventually someone is bound to do it.
-clash
Quote from: Soylent Green;379806Thanks, that makes sense. I can see how it works. I imagine a minority of players might find the rolling of dice to determine the state of reality a bit anti-imersive, but I'd be fine with it.
I use it judicioously, and it adds surprise for me as well.
QuoteBut just to expand on the general principle of Situational GMing, not because it needs to be, but just so I understand what fits with within and what doesn't, where are couple more follow up questions if you don't mind.
1) Would you consider letting the players make these rolls if it made them feel more involved in the outcome?
Sure why not if they don't gain some clear metagame knowledge advantage. Even then I'm not too concerned about that, I figure it makes up some for not having all the setting knowledge their characters would have. It also gets them in tha game and gives me time to eat chips (or crisps).
Quote2) In Robin's Law of Good Game Mastering (and I don't quote this book as though it were some sort of authority) has a section on improvising. It suggests that the GM when responding to a player has the GM should consider broad options:
What is the most obvious outcome?
What is the most challenging outcome?
What is the most surprising outcome?
What is the most pleasing outcome?
The idea being that alternating between these criteria makes for the most entertaining and unpredictable game experience.
The book even includes a little table so you can roll randomly between these options. How does switching criteria based on a random roll fit with your idea about Situational GMing?
Blah I say. I'd never use or think this at the table. The obvious outcomes are thought of for me to make a "table" to roll against. If I really wanted the spectrum I'd have one end where the result is one of the best for the PCs under the circumstances, more likely stuff in the middle, then at the other end situations that are the mosted F'ed up for the PCs.
This is how I make my random encounter charts for example.
No all that being said, I may use that in adventure design goals then work backword to justify it in setting terms. I always want my adventures to be
challenging, surprising and with the chance of a most pleasing outcome. :)
Quote from: Benoist;379815Nor should you try, but that's not what I just wrote. I didn't write that the way you prepped the setting ought to answer all your questions for you, but that, at its best, it INFORMS your ADJUDICATION in the game by providing a frame so that you don't make judgment calls in a vacuum. That's the overarching coherence, logic of the thing that matters, not whether your notes spell out the answers for you or not (which I actually would not advocate).
Hope it's clearer. :)
Exactly. In a way you have an outline, a reasoning, behind the setting, NPCs, that you can use to fairly and consistently adjudicate how they might respond to the outlandish crap your players pull.
It's actually very fun prepr for me. It's at a high level.
The other prep that I've seen is pre-prepped stat blocks and such for off the cuff encounters. I use a pretty low load game so I can wing the stat block thing.
Quote from: Soylent Green;379909So in the end it comes down to instinct and gut feeling?
Well for us intitive types it always does in every walk of life.
I'd say it comes down to experience and reasoning. Based on this you have a good feel for the probabilities. For example I have a pretty good feel how easy it is to climb a rock wall with little training and experience because I've done it, then went on to get more serious about rock climbing.
On many things the GM and players can draw on real life experience to inform instinct.
Now on totally made up shit like magic. It's more art, the picture you want to paint, and expereince and instinct about what rulings can really muck up a game.
Quote from: flyingmice;379941...
It's not a movement, or a defined technique. There is no manifesto, and I doubt there ever will be. It's just a hodgepodge collection of techniques and an underlying philosophy. ...
-clash
Man, I really wanted a movement, an anacronym. It would just provide much more validation for my thoughts and life.
Quote from: Soylent Green;379909So in the end it comes down to instinct and gut feeling?
And knowledge of your subject matter, and knowledge of your setting, and common sense... OMG! You have to trust your GM knows what he's doing! Scary! :eek:
;)
Quote from: Xanther;379945Exactly. In a way you have an outline, a reasoning, behind the setting, NPCs, that you can use to fairly and consistently adjudicate how they might respond to the outlandish crap your players pull.
It's actually very fun prepr for me. It's at a high level.
The other prep that I've seen is pre-prepped stat blocks and such for off the cuff encounters. I use a pretty low load game so I can wing the stat block thing.
Yup me too, depending on the complexity of the game. For
In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas, for instance, I had stats of Templates I had created for myself for quick reference in game. What the stats of a uniform cop, or firefighter, or annoying secretary, or street doomsayer are, for instance. Or an average Baal Grade 1 Demon. Or an Angel Messenger from Notre Dame fan of Soccer. Whatever. A bunch of characters I could just pick during the game, probably changing one stat here and there on the spot, to vary characters, and so on.
Also, about the logic underlying the setting, it's also very fun to find out for the PCs. It's akin to the challenge of wits during the game between players and PCs EGG is referring to in his method of GMing. The players will have fun finding out how the universe around them works, and you, as a GM, will then have opportunities to surprise the players based on these assumptions. It's part of the game, too.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;379842Ack, no. This is a subtle philosophical point that drives some people up the wall. Personally, it doesn't bother me, but I can understand why it might bother others.
In one case (roll to hit) you're modeling outcomes based on decisions, using a stochastic model. ("I try to hit him!" "Okay, roll to hit.") In the other case, you're modeling something like a Bayesian inference regarding pre-existing reality, based on current knowledge.
I don't even think it is that subtle.
Nor is this style anything but that, a GM style, something we probably all use to some degree. We all have to wing it a lot or a little every session.
But there is a difference in rolling to see the outcome on what the PCs affect on the game world is based on a probability,
versus
rolling to see what exists in the game world for the PC's
to affect based on a probability.
The PCs, however, do not know what you are winging or not. They don't have the script. Its like they teach acting, if someone fumbles, go with it, the audience does not know the script.
My PC's count on the abilty to come up with the perfect plan, to have their playing affect the outcome as honestly and authentically as possible. I would guess, in situational gaming (and all gaming, to some degree), this means they are affecting the probabitites with their actions. In the earlier hospital scenario, this would mean if they came in at night, they would find less onlookers, thus reducing the probability.
Quote from: LordVreeg;379959I don't even think it is that subtle.
Nor is this style anything but that, a GM style, something we probably all use to some degree. We all have to wing it a lot or a little every session.
But there is a difference in rolling to see the outcome on what the PCs affect on the game world is based on a probability,
versus
rolling to see what exists in the game world for the PC's to affect based on a probability.
Right. It was a bad analogy. It's more like the player rolling to see if his PC brought along some esoteric bit of gear or remembered to perform some non-routine action that hadn't been explicitly stated before.
QuoteThe PCs, however, do not know what you are winging or not. They don't have the script. Its like they teach acting, if someone fumbles, go with it, the audience does not know the script.
My PC's count on the abilty to come up with the perfect plan, to have their playing affect the outcome as honestly and authentically as possible. I would guess, in situational gaming (and all gaming, to some degree), this means they are affecting the probabitites with their actions. In the earlier hospital scenario, this would mean if they came in at night, they would find less onlookers, thus reducing the probability.
Yes, exactly! The player's actions definitely can affect the probabilities.
-clash
Quote from: Benoist;379956And knowledge of your subject matter, and knowledge of your setting, and common sense... OMG! You have to trust your GM knows what he's doing! Scary! :eek:
;)
I ask these questions not as a player with GM-issues but as a GM who's instincts don't always lead him right.
I am a GM, have been for a long time, but I don't always know what I am doing, hence the questions.
Soylent Green, it should be noted that Benoist is the first person in this thread to talk about "sandbox", while you were originally interested in Situational GMing.
I think there's been some unclarity because the approaches, "sandbox" and "situational" can be viewed both in terms of the type of prep they require, and how they're used in the course of play.
While the prep part is fairly clear for "sandbox" and "situational", including how they differ from each other, the use in play isn't. That's what led to some confusion in the other thread and it's causing confusion here.
Basically the idea of prep in both cases is to establish certain facts and frameworks that will either be used directly, or at least to inform judgments made by the GM. The two approaches differ in terms of what gets prepared and what gets left out, with sandbox focusing much more on concrete detail ("thing X is at location Y", "person P has powers Q") and "situational" focusing more on relationships and motivations. A sandbox is almost impossible to conceive without some sort of map of physical space that situates all the setting or scenario elements; a "situation" might be able to do without.
[I should say that Clash may jump in at any point to correct me; I'm trying to explain his style based on little things I've picked up in forum threads and blog posts.]
Now, in play, with either method of prep, you're going to run into questions whose answers aren't spelled out beforehand. Then the GM has to decide how to decide, not only what criteria to use, but also whether there's room for doubt, risk, or whatever you'd use dice for.
With a well-detailed sandbox, the GM may not have to decide on the spur of the moment whether the hospital is close to the police station. But there are certainly some details, or some NPC reactions, or some dynamic situations, that are hard to model deterministically from first principles. So, for example, if the question is "Did Vincenzo send his soldiers to search the warehouse?", the GM might not know for sure. For a "situational" approach, that question might apply but so might the location of the hospital. And unlike the sandbox, maybe the GM would have a better idea of Vincenzo's motivation, whether he'd be more likely to negotiate with the PCs or fight them, etc.
My feeling is that, when there's substantial doubt, it's a good idea to go to the dice--much as Mythic suggests. And the reasons are what we've been talking about: dice help avoid bias and stereotyped patterns, they help generate risk and excitement (largely because they introduce an element of the unknown), and they help model complex situations stochastically.
Nope! You are bang on there, Elliot! As for maps, a Situational GM may have as much use for a relational map as for a physical map. Personally, I like physical maps, but I could easily see someone preferring to run with just a relational map.
-clash
Exactly Elliot, it is a question about deciding how to decide. I like what I am hearing and I think it could be particuarly apt for my group in which we are all experienced GMs, so we all know GM make it up as they go long half of the time and cannot possibly "know" exactly where every NPCs is every single minute and what they are doing.
Yes, I was talking about sandbox GMing, to be clear. For me, a sandbox may be a physical map, just like it might be an organigram of relationships between factions and NPCs. Depends.
Your "Situational GMing" thing is a bit fuzzy, to me.
Quote from: Benoist;380030Yes, I was talking about sandbox GMing, to be clear. For me, a sandbox may be a physical map, just like it might be an organigram of relationships between factions and NPCs. Depends.
Your "Situational GMing" thing is a bit fuzzy, to me.
I think it may be related to math, actually. Some people are geometric, and think best in relationships (Situational) while others are algebraic, and think best in concrete numbers (Sandbox). Of course, there is a spectrum between, as always. I am personally extremely geometric, and have no problem visualizing and mentally manipulating objects in time-space, highly curved n-space, and other weird geometries, but have trouble with simple numbers - they are just instantiations of particular relationships at a particular scale to me. I started working Situationally because it was easier for my mind to deal with.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;380024Nope! You are bang on there, Elliot! As for maps, a Situational GM may have as much use for a relational map as for a physical map. Personally, I like physical maps, but I could easily see someone preferring to run with just a relational map.
My general preference is to have a few notes on relationships, a few notes on authority structures, and a list of "contacts, encounters, and confusion".
These don't usually form a relationship map, but the purpose is similar-
ish.
A physical map is possibly my favorite game accessory, even when it's not necessary.
Quote from: Soylent Green;380029Exactly Elliot, it is a question about deciding how to decide. I like what I am hearing and I think it could be particuarly apt for my group in which we are all experienced GMs, so we all know GM make it up as they go long half of the time and cannot possibly "know" exactly where every NPCs is every single minute and what they are doing.
Yes, that brings up an even better example. Whether you use a more location-based, concrete prep (what I'm calling "sandbox", Benoist might disagree on terms), or a relational, situational setup, either way it might be obvious that Vincenzo will send his soldiers to the warehouse--but how does the GM know whether they'll be there at the same time as the PCs, and who got there first?
This is the kind of thing that's prime railroading material, depending on what the GM thinks is most fun. He can deny or feed the players clues this way, or he can force a fight, etc. By using the dice you reinforce verisimilitude and increase player agency.
Also, even the most detailed sandbox could be missing some details, not because the GM or setting designer intentionally thought "there is no widget at point X", but simply because they couldn't think of everything and note it down. Therefore, is there a baseball bat behind the counter at the bar? Could be--decide a probability and roll dice. (Again, I like how
Mythic does this with a plain-English scale of likelihoods.)
Quote from: Levi Kornelsen;380045My general preference is to have a few notes on relationships, a few notes on authority structures, and a list of "contacts, encounters, and confusion".
These don't usually form a relationship map, but the purpose is similar-ish.
A physical map is possibly my favorite game accessory, even when it's not necessary.
That's much how I do it, right down the the (at times) unnecessary physical map.
-clash
Quote from: Soylent Green;379806Thanks, that makes sense. I can see how it works. I imagine a minority of players might find the rolling of dice to determine the state of reality a bit anti-imersive, but I'd be fine with it.
As long as the ultimate state of the game reality is consistent and has verisimilitude, how it's arrived at is largely irrelevant. Where the dice can improve reality for me is that they'll often lead the game reality down paths that a GM wouldn't pick and that often feels more realistic to me than the reasoned choices of a person, especially if they are always picking the most likely or obvious choice or are making choices for metagame reasons that have nothing to do with the setting such as story, balance, what they think is fun, and other personal biases.
Quote from: Levi Kornelsen;380045My general preference is to have a few notes on relationships, a few notes on authority structures, and a list of "contacts, encounters, and confusion".
These don't usually form a relationship map, but the purpose is similar-ish.
A physical map is possibly my favorite game accessory, even when it's not necessary.
I do that too, actually. It's weird. I'm talking about Sandbox, but according to your descriptions there, guys, it sounds to me that you'd say I'm conflating sandbox game play and situational GMing into my own way of running things. It's interesting.
Quote from: flyingmice;379762I judge how probable it was that there were witnesses, and if any, were they taken to this particular hospital. Then I roll the dice.
I often use a much more basic roll than that. I roll whatever dice are handy and high rolls mean that things go in the player's favor while low rolls mean that things go against the player's favor. The highest roll possible might mean that there was a witness who saw everything at the first hospital that they check while a mediocre roll might suggest one or more witnesses that can only provide a few weak clues and a bad roll might suggest that nobody saw anything useful. If I need more detail, I'll roll again. For example, if I wanted detail about the witnesses, a high result on the first roll tells me that someone knows a lot, a low second roll tells me that it's only one person, and a mediocre roll on the third roll tells me that they need to check two or three hospitals to find them. I don't do any detailed odds. I just roll on a good to bad scale and make a subjective assessment based on the result. I often do those rolls closed but sometimes do them open (if, for example, I'm answering a specific question from a player instead of generating behind-the-scenes details). I can run a whole game like that. ADDED: And, of course, the situation and what the PCs are doing factor into my assessment of the roll. If the PCs are in a good position and have covered their bases, what a bad roll means will likely be better than what it might mean if they are in a bad spot with no plan and a good roll will likely be better, too.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;380049Yes, that brings up an even better example. Whether you use a more location-based, concrete prep (what I'm calling "sandbox", Benoist might disagree on terms), or a relational, situational setup, either way it might be obvious that Vincenzo will send his soldiers to the warehouse--but how does the GM know whether they'll be there at the same time as the PCs, and who got there first?
On this specifically, yeah, I sort of see where I wasn't getting it. For me, a sandbox can be expressed as a physical, concrete representation of areas and locales, or take the shape of more relational material between groups, individuals, who thinks what about whom and so on.
So clearly, to me, you guys are making a distinction between the two terms, sandbox and situational GMing, I wasn't instinctively making, because to me they are in effect the same thing. As I said somewhere else, in my mind, I switch an X on a map for a potential situation or event in the game, switch a dungeon for an investigation, a room for an NPC, a trap for a red herring, and I'm there.
I think I see what you guys are talking about, now.
Quote from: Benoist;380227On this specifically, yeah, I sort of see where I wasn't getting it. For me, a sandbox can be expressed as a physical, concrete representation of areas and locales, or take the shape of more relational material between groups, individuals, who thinks what about whom and so on.
So clearly, to me, you guys are making a distinction between the two terms, sandbox and situational GMing, I wasn't instinctively making, because to me they are in effect the same thing. As I said somewhere else, in my mind, I switch an X on a map for a potential situation or event in the game, switch a dungeon for an investigation, a room for an NPC, a trap for a red herring, and I'm there.
I think I see what you guys are talking about, now.
Like I said before, there is a spectrum between Sandbox and Situation where a lot of GMs find a place they like. I'm pretty far out on the Situational wing, but I should not be taken as representative or typical. Sandbox and Situation are both sets of techniques to avoid railroading players by giving them control of where they go and what they do. They are not in any way conflicting - all Sandbox GMs use at least some Situational techniques to bridge unavoidable holes in their prep, and all Situational GMs use at least some Sandbox techniques to set a - perhaps sketchy - baseline for the setting. Some people use these techniques fairly even-handedly, which sounds like is your case. It's really a difference in emphasis, not kind.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;380235Like I said before, there is a spectrum between Sandbox and Situation where a lot of GMs find a place they like. I'm pretty far out on the Situational wing, but I should not be taken as representative or typical. Sandbox and Situation are both sets of techniques to avoid railroading players by giving them control of where they go and what they do. They are not in any way conflicting - all Sandbox GMs use at least some Situational techniques to bridge unavoidable holes in their prep, and all Situational GMs use at least some Sandbox techniques to set a - perhaps sketchy - baseline for the setting. Some people use these techniques fairly even-handedly, which sounds like is your case. It's really a difference in emphasis, not kind.
-clash
Yep. I see. Glad I'm getting it now. The nuance was escaping me. :)
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;380049Yes, that brings up an even better example. Whether you use a more location-based, concrete prep (what I'm calling "sandbox", Benoist might disagree on terms), or a relational, situational setup, either way it might be obvious that Vincenzo will send his soldiers to the warehouse--but how does the GM know whether they'll be there at the same time as the PCs, and who got there first?
This is the kind of thing that's prime railroading material, depending on what the GM thinks is most fun. He can deny or feed the players clues this way, or he can force a fight, etc. By using the dice you reinforce verisimilitude and increase player agency.
Also, even the most detailed sandbox could be missing some details, not because the GM or setting designer intentionally thought "there is no widget at point X", but simply because they couldn't think of everything and note it down. Therefore, is there a baseball bat behind the counter at the bar? Could be--decide a probability and roll dice. (Again, I like how Mythic does this with a plain-English scale of likelihoods.)
I do like where this is going.
I enjoy finding continuums describing how we make our games happen, and how the GM play affects game play, and vice versa.
'Sandbox' normally does not have anything to do with the amount of prep. It normally defines an openness for player option/objective. Often described as 'Non-linear', 'Sandbox' is really the opposite of 'railroad'. (But not on the other end of a continuum with "Situational', becasue you could certainly have a Situationally GM'd Sandbox game). Sandbox RPG or CRPG games very oftendo have a lot of detail, however.
Now, when you start talking 'heavily detailed sandbox', if you do well, you end up with what we call an 'emergent-sandbox', where the detail and immersion is heavy enough that the PCs start finding relationships and soulutions and storylines that the GM or designer did not even intend.
More later, I am at work.
Here's something I posted (http://www.enworld.org/forum/5167589-post5.html) on another board.
Quote from: The ShamanI think of my prepration time as 'prepping to improvise.' I can't detail an entire game-world, or game-universe for some games, so I'll detail a few obvious locations then focus my preparation on what I need to know to differentiate the cultural and natural landscape the adventurers may discover in their travels. From this I can draw things like npc characterisations on the fly, and from there I'm simply reacting to whatever the adventurers do.
In my experience, successful improvisation comes from knowing the setting well, not in terms of where this city or that river is located, but how the inhabitants of this area differ from the inhabitants of another area, in their outlooks, lifestyles, and subsistence, then bringing that out in response to the actions of the adventurers. . . .
The same is true in the game I'm prepping to run: how does the outlook of a noble with a small estate in Languedoc differ from one in Aunis? I don't need to know every valley of the Cévennes or beach of the île de Ré to create a (hopefully interesting and distinctive) characterisation of each.
I also prep random encounters in advance of actual play. For me random encounters are the 'living setting' - I spend time thinking about the origins of the encounter, identifying the motivations and methods of the antagonists, and so on.
For example, a randomly generated 'bandit' encounter becomes rebellious Huguenots in the Midi foraging for supplies for the duc de Rohan, or ragged, half-starved mercenaries returning from the Holy Roman Empire and resorting to brigandage in Picardy, or chauffeurs roaming the pays of Normandy looking for victims to capture and ransom. In this way there are no 'generic' random encounters; each is a reflection of the game-world where the adventurers are standing at the moment.
Wrt to the situational-sandbox axis, I tend to think of these as two sides of the same coin. The process of improvising the physical and cultural landscapes is the same as the process for improvising relationships of the figures who occupy that landscape.
Let's say the adventurers are travelling across Languedoc. They randomly encounter a member of the local gentry. Is he a Huguenot or a Catholic? If he's a Huguenot, is he loyal to the crown or is he a member of the rebellious faction of the Reformed Church? If he's Catholic, is he a native of the province or was he installed during the Wars of Religion to maintain control on behalf of the crown? Is he a sword noble, one of the traditional warrior elite of France, or is he a robe noble, one of the emerging bureaucratic elite?
Answering these questions allows me to determine something of the character's outlook as well as identify the character's natural allies and rivals, which of the major non-player characters in the setting he's likely to know, how he makes a living, what resources are available to him.
So for me, prep is not only to improvise the conditions of the box, but the interrelationship of the contents as well.