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hyphz posted:
It's still "yes, but..." you just have to make those yeses interesting. You shouldn't be shutting down ideas, you should be giving them fun fiction to overcome so that they can do the cool things they want to do. "Can I shoot the forest spirit?" "Yes, but it'll be pissed and it's 100ft tall and terrifying." "Can I shoot it all the way to death?" "Yes, but it'll take a lot of bullets to that much damage, and staying alive while you fill it full of lead will pose further challenges." "Can I shoot it dead with one shot, so that I don't have to worry about staying alive?" "Yes, but you need the Mystic .50 Cal of Deforestation, which was last seen a century ago, at the bottom of a plot-filled chasm."
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May 26, 2020 20:39
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hyphz posted:I am reading the rules very literally, probably too literally, that's true. hyphz posted:But, almost every older RPG claimed that the reason to have rules was to ease conflicts between the players, or between the players and GM. At some level the player-facing rules are the illusion (and that's really all it is) that allows the social contract to include GM Fiat. And old-school RPGs generally didn't have anything circumscribing GM Fiat, and so their rules tended to be layered and complicated and arcane to help maintain that illusion. Aside from generally a single paragraph dedicated to "don't be a dick," I'd have to say that Apocalypse World was one of the first games I read that broke down and circumscribed GM Fiat through explicitly articulating the MC's "Agenda and Principles." hyphz posted:If the rules do not do that job, because conflict simply moves on to their interpretation, then that's a weakness. These are things you are supposed to keep at the forefront of your mind when describing "what happens next" after the PCs take some action. They are there to circumscribe your ability to say, "rocks fall, everyone dies." They are there to make sure you are always doing things that will make the situation interesting. So you tell me - what flows from the fiction (honestly conveyed and considering the risk) when the player says, "Yeah, we shoot him, right there in front of everyone"? Put yourself in that scene as an extra (a guest at the party) - what does that person do? Or maybe put yourself in the position of a City Guard hired to work security - what does that person do? And let's rewind a sec - is there no one here who is paying attention to the crowd and alert for an assassination attempt? What's all this security for? Are any of those folks able to interfere or make the PC's attempt more difficult? And success or failure aside, what's going to happen in that room the instant a gun goes off. Picture it in your mind. OK, now convey to the players in a way that flows from the fiction, is believable, and is honestly conveyed. I know what I think it looks like, but I'm curious how you picture it. I think part of the problem is that you're so focused on the player-facing end of things that you're totally glossing over the really important stuff, which is the GM-facing stuff. Also, all I know about Spire I have gleaned from these kinds of discussions, but a couple of things leapt out at me in your description of possible encounters. a) the fact that rivals are invited, b) the fact that the head of security isn't working with her own team, c) the fact that the "extra help" are the City Guard, and d) the fact that Winters is a crime boss. WTF is a crime boss doing hiring the City Guard? HUGE red flag. If I'm a player in this game and I put those nuggets together, I know something bad is about to go down. I'm thinking Mr Winters is trying to go legit, and is about to serve up his entire organization and half his competitors to the authorities as a way to buy his way out of trouble/into political power. And that's going to completely change the situation in which I find myself, and definitely make me want to get a move on and either nip this in the bud or get the gently caress gone before the festively decorated guillotine drops.
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May 26, 2020 20:40
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Old roleplaying games had a very toxic userbase in mind, and perpetuated toxic social behaviors. It's a weight that RPGs have been working under for a long time, especially in the American tabletop scene. That's true. But so many of these sections seem to be written with the assumption that the GM is vaguely toxic and will oppose the PCs hammer and tongs unless they are told not to. It would be interesting to see GM advice written for a GM whose default unadvised behavior is to yield to the PCs.
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May 26, 2020 21:01
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I just want to point out that ‘Fail forward’ in the Spire GM rules is literally predicated on the GM or the mechanics saying “no, but” or “yes, but” to the players. Fail Forward means you are expected to throw obstacles and problems at them and when they fail, you are to make sure that failure doesn’t prevent the story from continuing even if it changes the fiction and where they can go from there. You treated ‘Mr. Winters retreats from the party’ like it was the end of the story, for one thing, ignoring that (for example) if the Bound isn’t the one starting the festivities, they can show up waiting to usher Mr. Winters out of the room, then send him back in minus a head, or any other thing players roll with. It’s not your succeed at removing the story or you fail at your goal.’ Also, ‘situation’ in the Spire rules works like ‘scene’ in other games, it’s a term for what the players are doing in a scene. The Infiltration power of the Bound is using the terminology of the game to say that the Bound can appears wherever the table’s narrative viewpoint is and you as the GM have absolutely control of that camera. The Bound can only appear somewhere where interesting things are happening with that power, and in this one-shot the only interesting things happening are in the mansion or maybe the rabble outside — but only if they’re relevant to the events inside.
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May 26, 2020 21:04
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"Fail Forward" stems entirely from older games and gms where you get a situation of "the door to the house is locked, you don't have the key, what do you do" and the party proceeds to fail every roll at picking the lock or kicking the door in, and the adventure just stalls. "Fail Forward" means that when you judge the effects of the roll, a failure doesn't mean that the adventure grinds to a halt, instead something happens to complicate things. Maybe you make a ton of noise, or it takes a long time to get the lock open and you can hear a guard, or even the door opens right away and the place has already been ransacked. It means that instead of going around the table having each person roll to do whatever the situation changes and those players get to do something else to reach the goal. Note that you can apply this style to any system with a little work, and it makes games a lot more enjoyable. Its just pushed heavily in more modern games because things like D&D train people that they need to rub the one correct skill at a problem until someone hits the magic jackpot number (and with how the math works out either everyone has a shot or only the specialist should even try).
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May 26, 2020 21:31
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Oh, I know. My point is that ‘fail forward’ takes it as a given, and expresses it in those terms, that players will face something other than ‘yes, your intentions become reality and the game is over.’
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May 26, 2020 21:50
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Joe Slowboat posted:Oh, I know. Indeed. And as I mentioned, much of the advice takes this as a given but does not state it.
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May 26, 2020 22:06
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How does stating 'fail forward' not explicitly state that you are intended to make players face some degree or risk of failure as it stems from the fiction?
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May 26, 2020 22:16
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Joe Slowboat posted:How does stating 'fail forward' not explicitly state that you are intended to make players face some degree or risk of failure as it stems from the fiction? The text is: "A failed roll isn’t a block in a storyline, it’s a different branch – something always happens. Whenever a player rolls the dice, change the world in some way as a response, or give them some information." So, again the assumption is made that but for the advice, the GM would have not changed the world, or would have given them no information. How would you rewrite the advice for a GM who, but for the advice, would always have changed the world according to the PC's wishes?
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May 26, 2020 22:24
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 22:37
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hyphz posted:That's quite reasonable. But it's not what the book says. The book says, "if you can say yes to a question, do". And the GM can always say yes. If saying "yes" would end the game in two minutes, then don't say it. You've also missed something in your PbtA reading: the GM should be asking "how do you do that" until the players come up with a concrete piece of fiction and start actually doing things. Can we win the game right now ? Sure, how do you propose doing that ? We poison the water supply ! Sure, how do you propose doing that ? We get some drugs and dump them in ! That's a lot of water for three levels of the city and tens of thousands of people. How are you going to get them ? etc. etc. etc. until they start asking things like "well who sells drugs ? Where do they get them ?"
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May 26, 2020 23:27
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hyphz posted:The text is: "A failed roll isn’t a block in a storyline, it’s a different branch – something always happens. Whenever a player rolls the dice, change the world in some way as a response, or give them some information." I would tell them to read and understand the rest of the text, because they're doing the opposite of what the core concept of the game tells them to be doing.
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May 27, 2020 02:30
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i've been running a spire campaign since january, and while i feel that the game could use double or triple the amount of gm information that it currently has, i have not run into these problems before. i "say yes" to my players all the time, but saying yes doesn't mean they instantly and effortlessly get what they want, nor does it mean that it even has to be easy or immediately attainable. and most importantly, i also say no when i can't say yes. there are some questions to which the answer will be no, and that's okay. i let the players lead through their questions, i say yes and complicate things as needed, and say no otherwise when something doesn't work in the fiction or would just invalidate a lot of action. the players can show you where they want to go, but they don't want to arrive there on cruise control heart, by virtue of having a definite structure and mechanics for progression in how delves work, is like spire 2.0 in terms of the changes to how the basic gameplay works
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May 27, 2020 02:35
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hyphz posted:No, you can't shoot the immortal spirit of forests dead, Why do you keep harping on this point that has been shown to be in genre, in agreement with player expectations and also everyone agreed it was fun. Your phrasing is even wrong cause I didn't say they were immortal. The character totally hurt it, it just has a huge harm clock cause it's, you know, an uncaring eldritch god as established in the fiction. I said this in the game. You blew its loving hand off in the game you're referencing. If we had established that it was immortal then no poo poo you can't kill it cause that's what the word means. We didn't. This is a crux of your not understanding "yes and/but". I like improvising with my players and letting whatever schemes they come up with work, but that doesn't mean they can defeat a nuclear submarine via ballet unless there's some very specific (and probably cool now that I say it) fiction. Like, for example, when I make up some problem I like to have 3-4 canned options for how it could be dealt with and then also I'm open to anything that seems practical/awesome. There's a middle ground between "no you must do my prescribed method" and "yeah I guess you can defeat this hellbeast with hummus".
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May 27, 2020 05:14
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hyphz posted:I am reading the rules very literally, probably too literally, that's true. I don't argue that it's a good idea. But, almost every older RPG claimed that the reason to have rules was to ease conflicts between the players, or between the players and GM. If the rules do not do that job, because conflict simply moves on to their interpretation, then that's a weakness. every older rpg is loving garbage
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May 27, 2020 06:27
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Elfgames posted:every older rpg is loving garbage I'm trying to do some chemistry work but all the modern books talk about like atoms and poo poo???? What the gently caress even are those? When I learned chemistry we were trying to get the philosopher's stone.
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May 27, 2020 06:42
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mllaneza posted:If saying "yes" would end the game in two minutes, then don't say it. yeah, thank you, i was getting agitated by everyone else's responses. the moves in Apocalypse World are not how you get things done, they interfere with you getting things done by just saying how you're doing it, until oh, wait, you shoot Bosco and take his drugs? that sounds like seizing by force, lets see what the dice have to say about it. "to do it, do it" just means that you don't sneak in to places by rolling sneak, you do it by describing how you do it. you win by saying how you win.
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May 27, 2020 06:46
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Xiahou Dun posted:Why do you keep harping on this point that has been shown to be in genre, in agreement with player expectations and also everyone agreed it was fun. I'm really sorry because I don't want to upset you at all. My point is absolutely not that you did anything wrong. My point is that what you did was right, in that it was fun and necessary to establish the tone. But it is exactly the kind of thing that makes me nervous in GMing and unsupported by most GMing advice. That is not a criticism of you, it is a criticism of the advice, that as written it fails to indicate any balance. quote:This is a crux of your not understanding "yes and/but". I like improvising with my players and letting whatever schemes they come up with work, but that doesn't mean they can defeat a nuclear submarine via ballet unless there's some very specific (and probably cool now that I say it) fiction. Like, for example, when I make up some problem I like to have 3-4 canned options for how it could be dealt with and then also I'm open to anything that seems practical/awesome. There's a middle ground between "no you must do my prescribed method" and "yeah I guess you can defeat this hellbeast with hummus". There is. But the text written on GMing doesn't describe the middle ground or anything about a balanced approach. It goes all the way to one side - as I said above, it seems to be built on the assumption that if nothing was said then the GM would make the world impossibly hard. If the players ask "can we defeat a nuclear submarine with a pistol" then the answer has to be no. "Yes and" or "Yes but" still results in the submarine being defeatable. Now I agree that it's unreasonable to interpret "Don't say no" in a rulebook as meaning that the GM can't say no to even that. But at the same time, it is left to the reader's interpretation, rather than there being actual text on what the correct balance of saying no is, which is still an omission. And simple appeal to obviousness doesn't work, because this may be a cyberpunk setting in which pistols and/or nuclear submarines are very different from real ones, or where the differences are not clear. (Hell, in Shadowrun 6e you can just eat a nuclear sub..) As mentioned, the GMing text in Spire says that organization should be given weak points when the players search for them. At no point does it say they should be given any strengths, or that sometimes a search is not successful. Of course, a revolution against an oppressor that seems massively incompetent also wouldn't work in the tone, but that's never mentioned; and even if it's obvious, the balance of those strengths to weaknesses is not addressed. AW itself doesn't have that text, which is actually a plus point for it 
hyphz fucked around with this message at 10:59 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 10:55
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Do you think you're breaking the rules if you use GM advice or concepts from another game or from your own experience in a game where they are not explicitly laid out and detailed in the individual game's rule books? As for your example of "defeating a nuclear submarine with a pistol" I assume that you mean in the sense of "I have a pistol and am literally fighting a nuclear submarine as if it were Metal Gear Solid." However, one might very fairly infiltrate a nuclear submarine, armed only with a pistol, and destroy it through tense stealth activities, a brutal and bloody round of pistolero adventures in the engine room, and then somehow making your way out through the escape trunk. I believe the intended sequence here is something like: Player (Powerful, Strong, Eager To Reject Hyphz And Steal His Chips): I'm going to defeat that nuclear submarine with my pistol. Hyphz (Overcoming Terror Through The Use Of Powerful Drugs Sourced From A Distant Star System): Yes, but how do you plan to do that? Player (Smirking In Triumph, Thirsting For Chips): Why I'll shoot it of course! Hyphz (Awakening To The Power of Prescience): Yes, and it's a very large and durable metal object with all the important bits inside... long, hard and full of seamen. Player (Confused, Feeling The Awakening Of A Terrible New Feeling): Well I'll shoot the sailors, then! No sailors, no problem! Hyphz (Exploring The Recesses of Other Memory): Yes, but the sailors are inside of the submarine... lots of metal between them and you. Player (Sweating Bullets As He's Drawn Into The Patented Fun Vortex): Then I'll go inside of the submarine! Hyphz (Gradually Converting Some Seltzer Water Into The Water of Life): Yes, and you'll need to get past the security to get aboard... Player (Experiencing The Sensual Pleasure Of Beginning An Amazing Adventure): Then I'll mug a sailor out back of the combination taco stand, vapery and tattoo shop! Hyphz (in Whom the Sleeper has Awakened): Sounds like a Kickin' rear end to me, throw your dice. - Aha, an 8. So you've mugged the sailor, but as he strips down to surrender his uniform...
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May 27, 2020 11:11
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hyphz posted:If the players ask "can we defeat a nuclear submarine with a pistol" then the answer has to be no. You know how the plot of the original Doom is that you fight your way across a moon base full of demons, and then through another moon base that was teleported and is now floating over hell, and then through hell itself, all so you can finally defeat the spider-demon mastermind behind the whole terrible chain of events that led to said moon bases being in such dire straits in the first place? Can you remember what equipment you get at the start, and once you've remembered that it's a single pistol, can you tell me if your idea of how to make a Doom RPG is to have a single player make a single roll to see if they can defeat the spider demon with their pistol? Probably not, right? But the answer to the question "can I defeat the spider demon with my pistol?" is definitely yes <heavy metal music intensifies>. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 12:17 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 11:47
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:You know how the plot of the original Doom is that you fight your way across a moon base full of demons, and then through another moon base that was teleported and is now floating over hell, and then through hell itself, all so you can finally defeat the spider-demon mastermind behind the whole terrible chain of events that led to said moon bases being in such dire straits in the first place? There's a real problem going on here with people taking examples where they're trying to make the point obvious, but in doing so eliminating the complexities that make the question non-obvious. The "nuclear submarine with a pistol" thing is one of those. Those are two real things with understandable properties. It's a different matter when one or both of the things can be things that are just made up and may not even be statted out in advance. A better way to think about it might be to say, if someone asked "Can I defeat a Fronkilora with a Zydibel?", then what would you want to know about the situation and those two imaginary things - assuming that those things themselves and their relative strengths are also things you have to decide, but you need the information to make that decision too? Likewise, this Doom example has the problem that Doom is a pre-prepared classical dungeon crawl with predefined maps. Yes, you can technically defeat the Spider Mastermind with a pistol, it'll take like 200 shots, but it's possible. But the bulk of the game is in getting to it and the process of doing that has been predetermined externally in advance of the question. If you're trying to do it without a map and the question was "Can I take a shortcut straight to the Spider Mastermind?" then the answer has to be no, not yes but, even though without a map there's nothing requiring you to say that. And then you also have to judge exactly how much Hell there is between the PC and the Mastermind. Plus, if your RPG lacks a tactical combat system then the "can I defeat it..." question becomes a much different one. Can you really dodge everything the Mastermind throws at you to hit it 200 times? If it's the computer game then we just.. do it, and see if you can. If it's an RPG, we presumably have to do that by stats or something. If it's AW, you're just going do Single Combat on it, I guess? That makes the answer likely "No". hyphz fucked around with this message at 12:32 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 12:28
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hyphz posted:There's a real problem going on here with people taking examples where they're trying to make the point obvious, but in doing so eliminating the complexities that make the question non-obvious.
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May 27, 2020 12:37
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hyphz posted:There's a real problem going on here with people taking examples where they're trying to make the point obvious, but in doing so eliminating the complexities that make the question non-obvious. It's you doing that. hyphz posted:The "nuclear submarine with a pistol" thing is one of those. This dumb gotcha didn't work, and you got several real answers which you discarded in favor of this: hyphz posted:Those are two real things with understandable properties. It's a different matter when one or both of the things can be things that are just made up and may not even be statted out in advance. A better way to think about it might be to say, if someone asked "Can I defeat a Fronkilora with a Zydibel?", then what would you want to know about the situation and those two imaginary things - assuming that those things themselves and their relative strengths are also things you have to decide, but you need the information to make that decision too? No, it isn't. hyphz posted:Likewise, this Doom example has the problem that Doom is a pre-prepared classical dungeon crawl with predefined maps. Yes, you can technically defeat the Spider Mastermind with a pistol, it'll take like 200 shots, but it's possible. That's not what the question was, and you know it. The question meant "given my starting conditions (a pistol), can I succeed in this goal?" not "can I hurt the spider mastermind with my pistol". hyphz posted:But the bulk of the game is in getting to it This is what you've been pretending not to understand. hyphz posted:and the process of doing that has been predetermined externally in advance of the question. If you're trying to do it without a map and the question was "Can I take a shortcut straight to the Spider Mastermind?" then the answer has to be no, not yes but, even though without a map there's nothing requiring you to say that. But in a ttrpg, you can, in fact, do just that, if you succeed when you try. hyphz posted:And then you also have to judge exactly how much Hell there is between the PC and the Mastermind. No you don't. hyphz posted:Plus, if your RPG lacks a tactical combat system then the "can I defeat it..." question becomes a much different one. Not really, because you still have game mechanics to follow and those will give you the answer. hyphz posted:Can you really dodge everything the Mastermind throws at you to hit it 200 times? If it's the computer game then we just.. do it, and see if you can. If it's an RPG, we presumably have to do that by stats or something. Yes, we call this "game mechanics". hyphz posted:If it's AW, you're just going do Single Combat on it, I guess? That makes the answer likely "No". No, that's not how you'd do it. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:01 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 12:53
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Food for thought: the nuclear submarine and the pistol would also be made up!
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May 27, 2020 12:57
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ovenboy posted:Food for thought: the nuclear submarine and the pistol would also be made up! We're back at the part where Hyphz is pretending to not understand that though.
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May 27, 2020 13:02
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hyphz posted:If you're trying to do it without a map and the question was "Can I take a shortcut straight to the Spider Mastermind?" then the answer has to be no, not yes but, even though without a map there's nothing requiring you to say that.
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May 27, 2020 13:07
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ovenboy posted:Food for thought: the nuclear submarine and the pistol would also be made up! Yes, but their properties are not made up. The fact that you cannot damage a nuclear sub with a pistol is observable from the reference point of those real objects, which is known to both the GM and player in advance and defined externally. The fact that you cannot damage a Xydibel with a pistol is not. There is no external reference point for a Xydibel outside the GM's head. And even if that's valid, the issue as to whether or not it existed before the PC actually declared they were firing the pistol at the Xydibel is significant. Elector_Nerdlingen posted:That's not what the question was, and you know it. The question meant "given my starting conditions (a pistol), can I succeed in this goal?" not "can I hurt the spider mastermind with my pistol". Elector_Nerdlingen posted:This is what you've been pretending not to understand. I think that might be why we're talking at cross purposes. I do understand that the issue is in getting to it, but at the same time the answer to that question can end up having a radically different meaning. If there is a map already, as there is in the Doom computer games, then a reasonable answer to "can I succeed in this goal?" is "I don't know, can you?". The conditions are defined; let's play it out. The answer might be obliquely "yes" because it is theoretically possible, although this is not guaranteed to be accurate since a person may indeed have limited FPS skill that means they are not able to eventually complete the game. But if there is no map, and it's just made up on the fly, then whatever answer the GM gives suddenly becomes a declaration of how things are going to be made up. Giving the answer "I don't know, can you?" seems to be no longer an option because, since the GM is making things up on the fly, they can't not know how the player will do. They can put the Spider Mastermind around the first corner or they can make things up forever until the PC dies. Chances are, they ought to strike a balance between the two, but we don't know what that balance is; and moreover, after each successful encounter, the GM still has to make the decision "Spider Mastermind now?" which is strictly binary. Likewise, the answer "yes" no longer indicates theoretical possibility, but a promise. If the PC does get killed and fails to defeat the Mastermind, then there is no reference point by which it can be shown that it was in fact possible. The GM cannot lay the map on the table and point out the viable routes and the monster HP balances. In the absense of that, the only way that question can be answered with "yes" is if the GM ultimately allows the PC to defeat the Mastermind no matter what.
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May 27, 2020 13:40
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hyphz posted:Likewise, this Doom example has the problem that Doom is a pre-prepared classical dungeon crawl with predefined maps. Yes, you can technically defeat the Spider Mastermind with a pistol, it'll take like 200 shots, but it's possible. But the bulk of the game is in getting to it and the process of doing that has been predetermined externally in advance of the question. If you're trying to do it without a map and the question was "Can I take a shortcut straight to the Spider Mastermind?" then the answer has to be no, not yes but, even though without a map there's nothing requiring you to say that. And then you also have to judge exactly how much Hell there is between the PC and the Mastermind. Plus, if your RPG lacks a tactical combat system then the "can I defeat it..." question becomes a much different one. Can you really dodge everything the Mastermind throws at you to hit it 200 times? If it's the computer game then we just.. do it, and see if you can. If it's an RPG, we presumably have to do that by stats or something. If it's AW, you're just going do Single Combat on it, I guess? That makes the answer likely "No". recently i've been reading up on stuff like hex flowers and ways to randomly generate terrain and dungeons on the fly, which is something i'm more used to just doing myself but these tools seem interesting. and i think your obsession with maps and having predetermined routes is, as always, a result of the abusive gaming group who has broken you so thoroughly that you need a book or a module to shield you from them. but even if you can't deal with just making stuff up as you go, adding or subtracting obstacles as needed to keep the tension up, there are systems designed to allow for randomized generation that can be done in-game and will surprise both you and the players at once, so the idea that you need to have everything determined ahead of time is just nonsense from multiple points of view what's really wild here is that we now have verifiable proof that you have played through the exact sort of thing you're talking about, enjoyed it, and now you're here whining that it scares you to do the same thing because your group is lovely assholes who are mentally stuck/regressed to loving 40 years ago in terms of gaming philosophy. the solution to this problem is as simple and easy as it was from the moment we first determined that this was your problem: stop playing with them
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May 27, 2020 13:57
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Hyphz, have you considered just using something like a Pathfinder adventure path? They are generally good, and having everything be arbitrarily decided gives you a shield to cower behind. I have been playing the first one they have put out for Pathfinder 2E and that is a fun game with a very well defined system. Honestly, why don't you just quit being a GM? It is obviously something you don't want to do or are not willing to engage with. Taking an extended break and letting one of your play group take up that burden for a while will tell you everything you need to know. If your players are as bad as you are making them out to be just find another group and move on.
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May 27, 2020 14:08
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hyphz posted:I think that might be why we're talking at cross purposes. I do understand that the issue is in getting to it, but at the same time the answer to that question can end up having a radically different meaning. You could try reading whatever game's in front of you and doing what it says instead of inventing endless bullshit reasons that it's actually impossible to do what it says.
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May 27, 2020 14:12
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Hyphz, have you considered just using something like a Pathfinder adventure path? They are generally good, and having everything be arbitrarily decided gives you a shield to cower behind. I have been playing the first one they have put out for Pathfinder 2E and that is a fun game with a very well defined system. i can't tell if this is trolling, because like 10 pages back hyphz went over why even a pathfinder adventure path cannot stand up to his players' refusal to engage with games on their terms also i don't think hyphz should stop trying to gm, just stop trying to gm with these terrible people
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May 27, 2020 14:15
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hyphz posted:Yes, but their properties are not made up. The fact that you cannot damage a nuclear sub with a pistol is observable from the reference point of those real objects, which is known to both the GM and player in advance and defined externally. No, the fact that you probably can't shoot through a submarine's hull from the outside with a pistol is observable from the reference point of those real objects. I'm not in any way a submarine engineer, but I'm pretty sure there are loads of complex machinery bits in a submarine that you could damage with a pistol. hyphz posted:The fact that you cannot damage a Xydibel with a pistol is not. There is no external reference point for a Xydibel outside the GM's head. And even if that's valid, the issue as to whether or not it existed before the PC actually declared they were firing the pistol at the Xydibel is significant. This is where GM moves/advice like "always say what honesty demands" or "ask questions and build on the answers" come into play. GM: "Thy Xydibel rears up above the trees, its massive bulk blotting out the sun. It roars in defiance at you!" Player: "What the gently caress is a Xydibel?" GM: "It's a 100-foot high forest demon...god...thing." Player: "Can I hurt it with my pistol?" GM: (didn't actually consider this was something the player might do) "Umm... well, it's a 100-foot-tall tree monster, but on the other hand we have established that you have a huge gently caress-off pistol that blows massive holes in things, so... yeah, you can probably hurt it if you want to, but unless you can get close to a vital part of it, you're probably not going to accomplish much other than pissing it off. Is that what you're trying to do?" Player: "Oh no, I don't want this thing mad at me! I want to kill it. What's it's vital part?" GM: (also hasn't thought about this) "Umm... I'll be honest, I didn't really think you guys were gonna attack this thing and I don't have any good ideas for this. What do you folks think would be cool?" Like, your big problem, hyphz, seems to be, going by your examples, at least, you think of everything as binary. You keep phrasing things as either "the PCs can do this with absolutely no consequences or difficulty beyond maybe a single dice roll" or "this is completely impossible and nothing will ever make it otherwise." And that is very much not how this works. Yes, you should avoid straight-up shooting down player plans and ideas, but part of that means working with the players to establish ways to accomplish their goals that work within the fiction of the game. If your players insist on just shooting the submarine with a .22 from the outside like it's a video game boss with a health bar and not engaging with the fiction, then yeah, that's not gonna work. Your job is to facilitate the players' goals, not roll over to every inane thing they try.
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May 27, 2020 14:25
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Hyphz, the properties of your made up submarine and made up pistol is absolutely also made up.
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May 27, 2020 14:28
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Serf posted:i can't tell if this is trolling, because like 10 pages back hyphz went over why even a pathfinder adventure path cannot stand up to his players' refusal to engage with games on their terms I missed that earlier, but I am being serious. Being a GM is an extremely good calling but it is a big responsibility. It is clearly causing a lot of distress so I feel he should at least step a way for a while and reassess.
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May 27, 2020 14:30
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hyphz posted:But if there is no map, and it's just made up on the fly, then whatever answer the GM gives suddenly becomes a declaration of how things are going to be made up. Giving the answer "I don't know, can you?" seems to be no longer an option because, since the GM is making things up on the fly, they can't not know how the player will do. They can put the Spider Mastermind around the first corner or they can make things up forever until the PC dies. Chances are, they ought to strike a balance between the two, but we don't know what that balance is; and moreover, after each successful encounter, the GM still has to make the decision "Spider Mastermind now?" which is strictly binary. The GM makes up the balance. It's a judgement call. Sometimes you'll get it wrong. Over time, you'll usually get it "right", which is just whatever works at your table that session. Here, an example from my last round as GM back in, oh god it has been a while. I was using a Traveller Double Adventure, Across the Bright Face, in which the players find themselves on the wrong side of the planet from their ship and in the midst of a planet wide revolution. That they're on the wrong side of. The good news is that it's a small planet, and there are vehicles available that can make the trip. The twist is, this planet is like Mercury so they have their choice of routes: melt or freeze. A Double Adventure was half of a 32-page booklet; this one including a planetary map with encounter tables. Your classic hex crawl. I was testing my PbtA Traveller hack, so it was going to be like that. I'd never GM'd for this group before, but had played with them. So how long, at the table, playing the game does it take to get back to their ship ? How much stuff do they have to go through to get there ? We could skim through each encounter with a quick fight or maybe a puzzle if there's an environmental hazard, and get through in 3-4 hours. But that's not very satisfying, we're crossing a whole world here (even if it is a small one). I decided I'd aim for 2-4 sessions and try and get them on their way and ideally to a cliffhanger in the first session, try and evoke the alien, hostile environment in the second and introduce some conflict or obstacle as the big ending for that session, and then maybe do that again before the big finish in the third or fourth session. As it happened we got through in three sessions and a total in the 8-ish hours of play. It could have gone longer, but they were getting poo poo done. Along the way I spun out some of their decisions into plot points completely made up on the spot, invented NPCs, and staged encounters that weren't on the hex crawl tables. There could have been a bit more meat on the bones of each session, but the amount of improv a PbtA GM has to do was an unexpected strain. tl;dr Make your best guess as to how much play time you want it to take to achieve the player's goals, then be flexible with how it actually plays out. This is the GM's job in any system. It is a skill that requires both practical experience in a positive environment (which your play group does not provide) and theoretical study (which is happening here). Try GMing a PbtA game on the Discord with players who don't suck.
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May 27, 2020 14:39
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 14:50
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GimpInBlack posted:Like, your big problem, hyphz, seems to be, going by your examples, at least, you think of everything as binary. You keep phrasing things as either "the PCs can do this with absolutely no consequences or difficulty beyond maybe a single dice roll" or "this is completely impossible and nothing will ever make it otherwise." And that is very much not how this works. It's not so much that as that many of the times something appears non-binary, it's actually binary with a postponement; or binary after thinking is completed. Let's have a simple case. There's a red door and a blue door. One of the doors has $500 behind it, the other has nothing. There is other no difference between them and no context informing the decision. if we have decided in advance that that the $500 is behind the red door, then the answer to "can we get the $500?" is yes. They can get it, if they pick the red door. No problem. But if you have not yet decided which door it is behind, then at the moment when the PC chooses a door, you will either make up that it is behind that door or not. If you are going to make up that it is behind the door, then the answer to "can.." is yes; otherwise, it is no. There is no situation in which the PC can get the money but doesn't. Now, how about "can I defeat the Spider Mastermind?" You don't have a map of the distance between the Marine and the Spider. Now, how far the PC's going to go, and what's going to happen on the way, of course aren't binary. But, after each encounter, you still have to make a binary decision if the next encounter will be the Mastermind or not. And if we propagate your decision-making process on that back to the beginning of the game, then it will also resolve the "can.." question in all regards except dice rolls. We are doing a Pathfinder adventure path at the moment, but sometimes I want games that aren't purely killing things or even aren't traditional adventures, and that don't take me most of the previous evening to prepare. (And that don't fall into standardised combo patterns of two pick Double Slice + Shield Block/Glimpse of Redemption but that's another matter) millaneza posted:But that's not very satisfying, we're crossing a whole world here (even if it is a small one). I decided I'd aim for 2-4 sessions and try and get them on their way and ideally to a cliffhanger in the first session, try and evoke the alien, hostile environment in the second and introduce some conflict or obstacle as the big ending for that session, and then maybe do that again before the big finish in the third or fourth session. I understand the idea, but the difficulty here is how you avoid invoking "the Tyranny of the Wall-Clock". Like, say the PCs find a vehicle that would speed up their journey. However, it's out of fuel, and the only source of fuel is a nearby rebel cell who need it to run their generator. Will the PCs steal or otherwise demand the fuel and doom the rebels? Even if we assume that the rebels aren't established as The Good Guys and so the answer becomes an automatic No, there's still an issue if the players later find out that actually it doesn't matter if they get the fuel or not because using the vehicle will not actually get them to their destination any quicker. Maybe the flavor text will mention travelling a greater distance, but they will still have the same number of encounters because the actual journey is tied to the number of sessions - that is, the wall-clock - not to their mode of transport. hyphz fucked around with this message at 14:57 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 14:51
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hyphz posted:It's not so much that as that many of the times something appears non-binary, it's actually binary with a postponement; or binary after thinking is completed. Hyphz, the goal of an RPG is to have fun. If it would be fun for your players to encounter the Spider Mastermind next, then encounter the Spider Mastermind next. If it would be more fun to have other encounters first, then have other encounters first. The rulebook doesn't need to spell that out. That implicit to the activity. If you desperately need to know exactly how many encounters are between Now and Spider Mastermind, write down a few escalating bigger monsters on notecards and pull one out each time the PCs go to the next room. That way you don't have to improv it.
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May 27, 2020 14:55
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 14:56
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Serf posted:what's really wild here is that we now have verifiable proof that you have played through the exact sort of thing you're talking about, enjoyed it, and now you're here whining that it scares you to do the same thing because your group is lovely assholes who are mentally stuck/regressed to loving 40 years ago in terms of gaming philosophy. the solution to this problem is as simple and easy as it was from the moment we first determined that this was your problem: stop playing with them I don't know it's that. Here's the thing: I don't know if XD's game is affected by the tyranny of the wallclock or not. I'm enjoying it but furthermore, I'm not going to act out and kick off against that kind of thing because XD did me a huge favor by inviting me to join the game. But if I run an indie game for a group that's normally used to D&D / PF.. or even if I ran the game for the same group.. then that's flipped around. They're doing me a favour by playing. So if they do object to stuff like that or call it out, I can't really complain much.
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May 27, 2020 15:02
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