[Pitfighter] SBP: the GM's role in resolution
David Berg:
"SBP" stands for Story Before Participationism. It's basically gaming where (a) the GM makes certain things unavoidably happen in play as a part of getting across a "story" (by which I mean a plot, experience, or other sort of vision) they've conceived, and (b) the players are aware of this and are engaged in contributing meaningfully to that story.
The end of my "decoupling rewards from plot" thread serves as a jumping-off point for my current work in developing and cataloging SBP techniques.
The next step I took was to explore alternatives to rolling for characters' success/failure. In that thread, it was pointed out that the functionality of such formal mediation depends largely on how it interfaces with the GM's role in resolution. That's what I want to talk about here.
How do we take the things that good, experienced SBP GMs do, and turn them into a system that is more reliable, clear, easy, and/or fun?
David Berg:
In college, I ran a Story Before d20-derived game called Pitfighter. I've described how I wound up running it in my own principled Illusionist style here.
I think the variety of approaches I used as GM to resolve events in play covers most of the relevant bases for this discussion, so I've bolded them in the play report below.
I hope this example can serve as a springboard to discuss approaches to SBP GMing and how to systematize them.
The scene:
The player characters Garek (John), Rafaenn (Ben), and Kwailun (Gabe) were sailing to the city of Haven, there to rendezvous with the Silent Wolves, an assassins' guild they were on uncertain terms with. The Silent Wolves were key to my mega-plot, and I was eagerly anticipating the revelations and questions I'd get to throw at the players once they reached Haven.
One of the Silent Wolves' enemies was a strange behind-the-scenes power-broker organization known as the Diamondbacks. Before the PCs met the Wolves, I wanted the PCs to establish some sign of their combat-worthiness and allegiance. Accordingly, I had their boat attacked by some Diamondbacks, intending for the PCs to defeat them and escape, while noting enough distinctive features to surmise the Diamondbacks' identity.
The Diamondbacks' ship appeared out of nowhere, and their warriors quickly attached grappling hooks to the PCs' craft.
Ben said, "I wait by one rope until the guy's almost within slashing range, and then I cut the rope with my diamond razor."
I quickly responded, "Nice idea. He never expected you'd be able to slice it so quickly. He's in the water. Well done!" My rationale was: that's clever, sounds like it ought work, and won't ruin my plans. So: it works!
Garek and Kwailun didn't have diamond razors, so they dislodged as many hooks as they could and then readied themselves to duel their assailants. John said, "I'll crouch down, with my sword behind me, so the first guy over the side sees my unprotected back and leaps down at me. And then I'll spin and skewer him."
This struck me as really cool, but also a bit chaotic and uncertain. You wouldn't know if this would work until you tried it, right? There should be some suspense. "Cool, the pirate sees you, and you see him spring forward! Roll to attack!" It was probably around when John was picking up the d20 that I decided that his action was going to work. (We played with hidden target numbers, so I wasn't forced to communicate this.) It was pretty open in my head how completely it'd work and what it'd look like; so, though I knew basically what was going to happen, I let the dice guide me on the particulars. If he'd rolled a 1 on his d20, I would have felt obligated to support the idea that the roll mattered (remember, this was Illusionism, not Participationism!) by announcing failure. If he'd rolled anything above a 15, I would have announced that he completely skewered the guy and looked slick doing it. In reality, he rolled a 5. So I said, "You suckered and surprised him so much that even your crappy attempt to stab him causes him to try an awkward mid-air tumble to avoid your blade. You don't hit him, but he crashes to the ground at your feet, losing his grip on his sword." This NPC was still dead meat, but it'd take John another combat turn to make that happen.
(Note: this is close to how Jay's Middle Earth game plays, as described here. Their system: 1 = horrible disaster, 20 = brilliant success plus XP, 2-19 = whatever the GM wants.)
Kwailun, meanwhile, faced off against a badass Diamondback warrior. They both had enough hit points that no single blow was going to kill anyone, so I was content to sit back and see what the dice produced. In general, I didn't involve myself much in combats until permanent death was about to occur.
Rafaenn levitated out of reach and cast some spells, Garek and Kwailun out-dueled their opponents, and I slipped in my distinctive Diamondbacks color, so I was pretty much satisfied with the encounter. At some point the Diamondbacks' leader, Collan, with all his crew slaughtered, ran to the edge of the boat. I liked the looks and persona I'd come up with, and wanted the option to use him as a recurring badguy. John decided to chuck his sword at Collan's back while he ran. Since this was an action with a weapon, John expected a roll, so I gave him one. But I didn't think this would work, and didn't want it to. So, I decided it wouldn't work, and let the die roll guide me on how to implement that result. John rolled quite well, so I narrated that damage had been dealt but that Collan was just enough of a badass to not slow or stumble in his dash. He then jumped over the side and was gone.
The players then came up with the brilliant idea of grabbing the Diamondbacks' now empty ship and using it to infiltrate their lair. It was a cool idea, but would have totally derailed my planned Silent Wolves rendezvous in Haven. So, I said, "Their boat's on fire" -- basically, no, you can't do that.
The system:
Looking at this 12 years later, my impression of this resolution system is a sort of flow chart:
Step 1:
If the GM wants an action to succeed or fail, it does.
If the GM has a preference but wishes to include other factors, go to step 2.
If the GM has no preference, go to step 3.
Step 2:
Some additional resolution method is employed to navigate the range of outcomes that are acceptable to the GM.
Step 3:
Some additional resolution method is employed to determine the outcome.
contracycle:
I think the above is pretty close to the way I do things too.
Just to expand a bit, what I meant by abandoning system also looks as if it shows up here: almost all the stuff OTHER THAN to-hit and damage gets taken ito my hands. All the stuff that would be governed by maps or intitiative rolls or periodic recharge etc. gets moved to fictional positioning handled by narration.
Poss. more later, just been interrupted,
contracycle:
So I'll try to add a bit more.
I think one aspect of the above style is that this fight scene isn;t really there to "see if the players win" or anything like that. It has quite different goals: it;s primarily a piece of exposition. The GM wants to communicate with players, telling them things about the world and the NPC's in it. It's set up as a fight scene partly because that can be a fun activity in its own right, partly becuase it allows the players to show off their characters to each other and the GM, and partly becuase interacting with the world is much more engaging than just sitting through a lecture.
So, the question of who wins the fight is pretty much already answered. Some would think that because this is not in doubt, is not a Question being asked by the game, it should be skipped over or abstracted so that play can move on to something more interesting. But this I think is to laregly miss the point, because the right players for this sort of style are going to be interested in "having the experience".
So the question then is how to do this elegantly, without sending false messages to the players, such as implying they can bump off the Big Villain if he or she appears. Also, as suggested by my comments above, hen I do this sort of thing I don't like "rigid" systems that trap me into tightly governed situations. Fictional positioning is king, and rules about how far one can move on a map and so on tend to get in the way and detract from the experiential aspects of the effect I'm trying to create.
On that note, Story Games has a current thread on "Are maps bad?"which provides some discussion that is pertinent here.
Now I was quite intrigued by the fairly abstracted system that was used in 3:16. Working in terms of abstract ranges, abstract threats, rather than concrete descriptions. I think I could work with something like that, and certainly the AP accounts I've seen suggest a powerful role for fictional positioning, and ionterpreting mechanics into the fiction and out again, all of which looks quite useful.
That I think provides an interesting starting point gfor looking at how you might design a system that was useful for this sort of play, provided some sort of structure to the otherwise pretty vague and possibly misleading impressions that arise from using conventional RPG rules in this manner.
Anders Gabrielsson:
So is the question now "How to do this well if the players are aware of and embracing the fact that this resolution system is being used"? Or perhaps I'm moving ahead.
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