Regarding the Design I noticed that it strongly suggest as a GM to never tell ones player “No”. I do see the reasoning and understand why it is important. Not only is it empowering the players but it does as well help to further the collective process of creating the narrative.
As I started reading the Quickstart, I am not fully done as I am kinda slow in regards of reading PDFs, I noticed at page 17 that it explicitly states that the player may say “No. That doesn’t happen. I take the stress.” which is described as empowering, boldly so.
It did occur to me that it is empowering the player by letting them shut down input regarding the narrative from the GM. Though it doesn’t come across as empowering the GM her-/himself. Actually for a small frightful moment it occurred to me that the GM may have to deal with an awful lot of “No”s and with his suggestions to the narrative been shot down.
Is it a conscious choice in regards of the game design towards the player who takes the GM position? Maybe there’s some compensation for the player of the GM for it?
It won’t bug me as much that I wouldn’t GM it, and its not meant as some harsh or even hard criticism, it just struck me as curious. ^^
I read that not as “No it doesn’t happen”, more as “I am choosing to take the stress option rather than the stab in the eye choice, so No it doesn’t happen.”
Not about limiting the GM’s power, but exercising the players game resource options.
But that is just me.
what sort of compensation would you consider for a GM?
like, what can the game give them that they don’t already have by virtue of being the GM?
Adam McConnaughey I don’t have an idea, it seems that the game does give rather little to the GM. Its not like he gets to roll dice and in some instances his contribution to the game can get a straight out no. Even the threats and plots are decided by the players.
The only virtue I see left is facilitating the game and making the other players happy. (Which I think is already great)
James Dillane Regarding the Design I understand that usually the GM will only describe the result of the action roll and the effect that could happen. If a player takes stress it is something that the player but not the GM will describe.
Given your example it could be something like “No. He won’t stab me in the eye. I see the knife approaching, Move for the minimum and it passes my eye at a distance where I think I can almost feel the steel. I blink nervously and it will haunt me for sure. Making me more anxious about the things to come, as my eyelids flatter nervously. I take 4 stress.”
The GM doesn’t get to describe the option after the No. As far as I understood the design, might be I am wrong.
The GM never tells the players, “No, you can’t do that.” It’s well within the GM’s rights to say, “That roll went poorly. No, that doesn’t happen. Instead this other bad thing happens.”
But the GM gets to say things are happening all the time. The Bluecoats are after you. A ghost appears. Your old friends show up, demanding payment. Players can deal with the problems, but they can’t just say no.
The “don’t say no” is really all about not shutting down players’ ideas, plans, and courses of action. Tell them it’ll be hard, tell them it’ll require setup, or tell them it might have to happen a little bit differently. Don’t tell them it can’t be done because that’s boring.
Jennifer Fuss you say “he doesn’t get to roll dice” i say “he doesn’t have to roll dice”–what the gm says just happens in the fiction, most of the time! only in the specific instance where the GM throwing a failure consequence at a player does that player get the opportunity to say “nah, i’m gonna take stress instead”.
in terms of plot ideas getting shot down, there’s also devil’s bargains, where any player can suggest a plot twist, and the player rolling gets to decide whether it happens or not.
I think the gm of any game has a lot of inherent power in a game. In the history of Gaming it was generally in inequity of power that could easily lead to abuse or too much responsibility to the gm. I think a lot of newer games are trying to rebalance the situation. In any case, it isn’t really a player saying no since it will be a common occurrence for a character to take the stress. Instead it’s a choice, where the norm is the stress with a buy out of a consequence. The difference is that it is a backwards design of the situation. The player isn’t given the choice when the damage happens. Instead the player sees the danger coming, has a chance to react and to decide if the consequence is more interesting than the stress.
It also may be helpful to think of it this way:
The GM says some situation arises or something is going on. The players say what they want to do. The GM says what the result is. The players reply. And so on.
At some point the GM says, “No, that doesn’t happen, at least by default. Roll to make it happen.” Or the players say, “Whoah, no way we’re letting that happen, GM. I’m rolling to make something else happen!”
The game is a conversation in which the way you say no is by rolling or calling for rolls. They’re the way you inject control and uncertainty into the game.
Daniel Helman From what I understand the game design is pushing into a direction in which the GM doesn’t get to say the things you mentioned. Its the players who decide which tasks are how important and how to pursue them.
In the “Murder in the night” example its not the GM but player who decides that the NPC tess got to be murdered or even is a interesting victim, its not the GM who decides which version will be taken and its not even the GM who decides which steps are needed to be accomplished.
While I agree that “don’t say no” is an approach to not shut down players actions or description, it occurs at curious to me that the players get to do so with the effects. ^^;
Adam McConnaughey The quickstart has a nice exerpt about why dice are rolled in general. Basically to make the fiction more exciting, to add some game aspect to the fiction. Not being allowed to roll dice removes that aspect to a certain degree.
I wouldn’t necessarily agree that most the time the GM can say what happens. If there are consequences to it the player roll and determin the outcome, if there are effects the player may say (most of the time) “No”. Feels a bit like its mostly left to atmosphere and “outfitting”.
Its true that devil’s bargains ist something that may effect players as well, though at the end I believe its the GM who gets to make most of those.
David Rothfeder Its part of why I am interested to which degree it’s been a concious choice of design. ^^;
If I maybe overlooked something as I am not yet fully through the PDF and it could be that I maybe missed something. ^^;
In regards of the interaction from what I understood the players got two choices. First to engage in the action at all after effects and risks are clear, then the choice to take stress after the effect is described.
Jennifer Fuss The players deciding what they want to do is no different from most games, D&D on. Sure, the player decides Tress has do die, but Tress is probably an NPC the GM introduced. The player decides which actions, but the GM arbitrates whether they’re reasonable, in part by deciding which of the versions/levels of detail is used. Sure, it should be based on how much the group is interested and the importance, but assessing that is part of the GM’s job. This isn’t a game that takes a strong stance on whether the entire story is left to the GM, the players, or collaboration; it would work well with any stance.
How is it different from the traditional “bad stuff happens, roll to save vs. whatever or you’re in trouble!” Effects are just saving throws to see how much damage/stress you take. Maybe the D&D GM can, by the rules, get away with more unavoidable grotesque injury, but it’s not a huge difference. Or “no, the bad guy doesn’t escape after the monologue, I’m casting Hold Person and my buddy here is going to charge!” Games are all about the players interrupting the GM’s story with their own version of the story and vice versa. That’s RPGs in a nutshell.
The GM can and should also put his/her foot down about unreasonable activity: no, you can’t just roll Murder to kill Tress, you have to figure out where she lives and how to get in and all that, it’ll be a bunch of rolls. Or a session. Or a whole campaign! That’s what the GM is for! Or even no, you can’t say you’re going to poison her, roll Supply to get poison, and call it a day, that action doesn’t fit. That isn’t saying no and blocking the game, that’s saying no, your plan doesn’t fit. It’s going to require something else. It’s going to be harder. Let’s play it out.
The extreme example might be, “I’m going to walk up to the Immortal Emperor and cut his throat. I’m rolling Murder!” To which the GM, flabbergasted, says, “Um, no. It’s a bit more involved than that.” And that’s a fine and good thing.
Yeah, just don’t get dogmatic about it. This isn’t some kind of doctrine, it’s a style. Don’t use the game text to enforce permissions. Everyone’s “allowed” to say whatever they want.
The game text describes some best practices to use, which you usually do and which are often a good idea. They’re not laws and restrictions. Don’t turn them into that.
Also, stress isn’t limitless. If you have a purposefully obstructionist (or even gamey) player that loves to reject your narrative consequences, they will eventually be so stressed out they will take trauma.
This has the implied effect of hurting the other members of the team in group efforts too. Maybe the player wants to stress out though…. For extra vice and character development? Maybe they really really really don’t want that knife in the eye?
I think its a beautiful synergy between GM fiat and mechanical design.
.
Not planning about getting dogmatic about anything.
Just wondering a bit about the design ^.^;
Sorry, Jennifer, I wasn’t directing my comment at you, specifically. 🙂
No problem 🙂
Either was I Jenn! I think its a neat observation on the system you have made. I think its great to have these play ‘behaviours’ identified and talked about. The meta of John’s game is pretty rad!
.