The rule "'fiction' determines what rules can be deployed" - definition of murk?
David P.:
Quote from: Callan S. on August 22, 2010, 03:52:35 AM
Quote
During the game there will be times when another player’s actions just don’t feel right. Maybe you think a particular tactic is dirty pool, or a particular action is a cheap shot. Most of the time when a move feels cheap or lame or uninspiring it’s because it was not properly embedded in the fiction.
When you have the right lead in, the right foreshadowing, the right justifications, then that very same move will feel right. It will feel like it belongs, like it’s a natural next development in the story.
When it doesn’t feel right, Rise Up and Challenge it. You can’t Challenge the move, after all it’s a competitive game and your opponent can act as he likes within the rules. But you can Challenge the fiction surrounding the move. It’s a rule of the game that every player is responsible for embedding their mechanical choices in the fiction according to the story aesthetic appropriate to your group. Failing to do so not only produces lame play, it’s against the rules.
Bold mine.
There can't be a 'maybe' in 'successfully playing Blood Red Sands does rely on the thing he's talking about'. Your either doing it, or your not actually playing the game. If the rule somehow doesn't 'embed' in the fiction, you can't use the rule (someone will challenge you and if it hasn't embedded right, the challenge will be backed - you have to choose some other rule to invoke). That fiction comes ahead of the rules use. All of the other rules.
I'm confused as to what you're getting at with this. The way I understand what you're saying is that the above section is an example of Fiction coming first, but my interpretation of that section of rules seems a bit different from what you're saying.
What I'm taking away from that is if your move is challenged, you're not forced to use a different rule, but rather to change the fiction until it allows the rule to be 'successfully' embedded, which seems to be completely counter form what you're saying.
However, if you were arguing that it was an example of the mechanics first, then we're on the same page, and I simply misunderstood what you were saying. Could you clarify which is your stance?
Alfryd:
Quote from: Jim D. on August 04, 2010, 06:16:35 AM
The problem with this concept is that it's so completely subjective. It feels like the "fiction first" quandary, as you phrase it, is rooted in the same nebulous decisionmaking as the "+2" debate from a couple of months ago. Ron's got a point, I think, when he says that using "fiction" to railroad your players or make the action go the way you want is bullshit.
It's possible I'm jumping in too late here, but I think that Callan may be conflating two entirely different priorities here. I mean, the initial examples that Callan gave with respect to, well, maintaining some modicum of respect for in-world plausibility seemed to be plain-and-simple maintenance of Exploration or suspension of disbelief (and, if that's your topmost priority at all times, Simulationism.)
But the later example given here seems to contradict that substantially.
Quote from: Callan S. on August 09, 2010, 06:09:50 PM
Quote
Example: We were playing a D&D game set aboard a ship, and one of the PC's was playing a dwarf. The DM, in order to express the prowess of an NPC we were suppose to be scared of had this NPC push the dwarf over easily. Everyone thought, "okay" except for me. There are a hell of a lot of rules in D&D that say when and if someone can push someone else and how hard and how far, and some that specifically say that dwarves are harder to push than other people, but because the DM assumed/thought that having the PC be pushed down would make for better fiction, the rule was ignored. Now, I guess D&D has a 'rule 0' but this wasn't explicitly invoked...
So, Callan, is that play example one that was 'fiction first'?
It seems a very high likelyhood of being 'fiction first', where the integrity of the fiction (to some individuals mind) comes ahead of the ruleset. Indeed, to that individual, that's the procedure of play - rules follow this function, as David put it in his latter example.
I think the 'integrity of the fiction' in this case refers, rather, to a given individual's (i.e, the DM's,) conception of 'how the story ought to turn out', and has nothing to do with maintaining in-world plausibility. AFAICT there's nothing about the hypothetical situation, considered in 'real' terms, which wouldn't allow the dwarf PC a fair chance to resist being pushed, so breaching the rules which model that would actually undermine suspension of disbelief.
Now, this example might well be largely harmless, if the DM didn't take particular advantage of the dwarf PC being knocked down, but I think this definition of "fiction first" conflates Sim priorities with whatever metagame agenda (Positioning?) the players might have. Of course there's nothing wrong with metagame per se, but "fiction first" here seems to amount to 'ignore any rule that interferes with 'fun''.
masqueradeball:
I don't think the question is about railroading or about CA, I think its about procedure, which has president, the RAW or the fiction. Its not the same as railroading because its not about GM limiting player authority, and its not about CA because it could be used to support or detract from any. It seems like its a basic social contract issue: How much do I have to "narrate" my use of the mechanics into the story before I'm allowed to use them and how much power does Player X's vision of the narrative allow them to override the mechanics (when interpretted in their most simple or direct way, that is to say, is the in game narrative that decides if the "spirit" trumps the letter of the law). If this isn't understood as part of the Social Contract, than its really hard to identify because where the fiction:mechanics split happens is entirely within a given players head.
I'm sure Callan will tell me (and everyone) if I'm not getting his point.
Alfryd:
I agree with Nolan that this is a basic problem of procedure, but I'm not certain this can really be separated from railroading.
This is why I mentioned the 'golden rule' of white wolf games- as Ron observed, it's a covert way of saying that the GM may ignore any rule, or any player who invokes it, that interferes with his or her idea of what should happen. Oh, it all sounds very well-intentioned- who in their right mind could object to "fun"?- but the problem is that it gives no useful guidelines for mediating disputes when two or more players disagree about what constitutes 'fun' in a given situation. Given the GM often has the most power at the table, s/he is most likely to get his/her way.
masqueradeball:
Alfryd: probably the GM isn't necessarily the GM. Though I'm sure he's the most likely culprit. Plus the GM could be allowing the fiction to trump the mechanics to give the players what they want, or to open up there options, which would still be "Fiction First" but wouldn't be railroading. Also, I could use game mechanics, without consulting the fiction, to railroad my players. This is actually a classic bad-GM tactic, penalizing the players with the rules as harshly as possible when they don't do what the GM wants.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page