[Forge Midwest] Trollbabe- Player Choices, and a Question for Ron
Ron Edwards:
Hello,
Those are all good points and suggestions. I am reluctant to abandon all of the nuances of Pace too.
As far as the innkeeper goes, this is what I recall, anyway. (Also, that was in Frünhilde's adventure, not Zara's)
In the conflict, after Oskel had been named as a Relationship and designated a comrade, our hero had suffered an initial failed roll when the cooking staff stole into her room through a trapdoor in the floor - narrated, I think, that she was sleepy and didn't wake up until they grabbed her (not sure if that's 100% correct, in memory). Willow called in the Relationship as a re-roll ... but here's where I either exerted proper rules use or overstepped Trollbabe-GM bounds. I said, "he's not available for that purpose."
See, there's the problem - I would have done much better to have reviewed and trusted the rules, which were smarter than I-the-person was being at the table. The rules say that the player has authority over the Relationship-NPC's actions, and the GM has authority over what he thinks and says. My proper response should have been to ask Willow what Oskel was doing, and have that be established - then play his thoughts & statements - and then rule that no re-roll was forthcoming from him. His thoughts and statement would have been something like, "Boys! I told you a thousand times, keep the dinner quiet before you cook it!"
See, that way, the reason for the no-re-roll would have been explicitly present in the fiction already, and that's exactly what would have happened if I'd applied my own damn rules just the way they are supposed to go. He's her comrade, sure, but that would apply against a common enemy or anything in tandem with his own interests.
It worked out OK, but only in a way that I do not consider satisfying/fun at the table, nor reliably successful for play in general.
Best, Ron
Arturo G.:
Hi again to everyone! Long time without being around.
Ron, this point is really interesting for me. I'm always a little fuzzy about these type of rules, and I'm always getting into trouble because of not using them properly. And I'm never sure what is going wrong until I read everything again slowly.
In this actual play example, assigning the appropriate narration rights would have produced the same effect but through content in the fiction. However, the player should be really aware of the rules about what type of relationships may provide what kind of help (or you need to stop and explain it). If not, from her point of view, it may sound like if you were cheating the right to get the re-roll.
For the first session of new players I also encourage the use of the quicker/simpler system based on 1-row. Although I use the 1-row system most of the times afterwards, we have had some nice moments of detailed conflicts with the 5-row system. It is only for a few situations, but I think it would be a pity to miss it.
The more detailed paces also may require more resource-expenses (boxes checked) to succeed, but I don't have the feeling that the economy of the game works so much different. I'm never thinking on that when suggesting the pace of a conflict. Am I wrong?
Ron Edwards:
You're right, Arturo. I've never had a bad experience with using any of the Pace rules, and in fact, ever since the first playtest, everyone has enjoyed arriving at the Pace for every conflict. No currency issue has ever arisen, and besides, it's fun to check off all of one's re-roll boxes anyway, and thus be forced to rely on relationships.
I think I let the fact that I simply forgot to explain and use those rules, in this particular game, and that distracted me from the obvious success of the design. Pace will remain as written.
Best, Ron
rafial:
Ron, thanks for the more detailed description on how it went down with the innkeeper. So this for me brings up an interesting question on how authority over relationships is set up in Trollbabe. The text says "The player gets to state what the person is doing or trying to do, but the GM provides any details or nuances or verbalized role-playing for him or her." So I can see if the player says:
- "As they are grappling me, the innkeeper bursts into the room", the GM is free to turn that to "Hey boys, keep the dinner quiet"
But if the player said:
- "As they are grappling me, the innkeeper comes to my aid" or
- "The innkeeper comes in and tries to free me."
What would the GM's authority in this situation allow? Would the GM have to invent a reason for the cannibal innkeeper to come to the defense of dinner? Or would it fall back to "he's not available for that?"
I'm also curious how much of "here's what's really going on" had been shared with the player at that point. Did the player know that the inn was full of cannibals? Did the player know that the innkeeper was the ringleader? I ask this, because in the way that I have been playing Trollbabe, the GMs idea of "what is really going on" is only advisory until such time as you the GM open your mouth and share that with the players. If a player uses one of their moments of authority to narrate something that contradicts what you the GM were imagining, then too bad, that's in the fiction now. So as a result, the GM is motivated to not keep secrets and get all their stuff out into the player knowledge (if not the character knowledge) pool.
I'm curious to know how you manage this kind of stuff, and how your idea of how this stuff is suppose to work is different from mine.
Ron Edwards:
Hello,
We play very similarly. Trollbabe is not a "group storyboarding" game; it is played from very deeply from within the imagining-process. Everything about its design - starting all the way back to the first step of character creation is built to enhance this.
Quote
But if the player said:
- "As they are grappling me, the innkeeper comes to my aid" or
- "The innkeeper comes in and tries to free me."
What would the GM's authority in this situation allow? Would the GM have to invent a reason for the cannibal innkeeper to come to the defense of dinner? Or would it fall back to "he's not available for that?"
There are two issues here.
The first is that both of these are pretty weaselly statements for a relationship-NPC. The rules for conflicts are written to avoid this sort of thing. You'll see that the only intention that matters in the conflict is the trollbabe's, and that the actions of anyone in the conflict must be stated. "Comes to my aid" and "tries to free me" are awfully vague. They are almost entirely stated in terms of narrating outcomes or inner states, not actions which the character is doing.
An intention-based statement is absolutely necessary for the trollbabe, in addition to her action, but the narration for the relationship-NPC needs to be a description of action. "The player has authority over what the NPC does."
So the thing to do with statements like that is to ask the player for the action, and take it from there. With that in the imagined space, the GM's contribution about attitude can then explain why the action does or does not merit a re-roll.
The second issue concerns whether the relationship rules are too picky in the first place. Should a relationship simply always be available for a re-roll? Are the distinctions among the relationships too much work for the ultimate 'reward' of saying "no, it doesn't work?" I need to think about that in some detail, because as it happens, I haven't seen enough comrade relationship play - in my experience, people tend to go for Sidekicks, Romance, and Enemies.
I do want to avoid the situation, however, in which the player gains full GM authority over relationship NPCs simply by dictating what they're doing, why, and what they think about it. The player does not fully "own" the NPC in a relationship, and that's important. If they did, then the game would devolve into a competition over ownership and thus control over full sectors over the imagined space concerning characters' actions. My goal is for there to be no such control, but for actions and intentions and attitudes to emerge in a natural-feeling, painless dialogue.
I know it can happen and the question is whether any of the lesser-seen rules are simply getting in the way.
Best, Ron
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