[Pitfighter] SBP: the GM's role in resolution
David Berg:
DWeird, that is really interesting. As GM, I would love those tools.
I also love what it says. It tells the players that their job is about momentary contribution, not story direction, and that their reward is in story discovery, not in character tangents.
On the downside, I think it puts player plot discovery purely in audience terms. It somewhat ruins one of the stronger roleplay opportunities that SBP provides, which is to experience and be changed by the unfolding plot.
There's probably a spectrum. At one end, the desired experience requires one character per player, at the other end you can play 20 characters in 20 scenes, and in the middle you get 2 or 4 characters per player, plus occasional one-scene characters.
Can you relate this idea to resolution? Under this system, what's the GM's role in determining what happens?
(Separately, a quick "hell yes" to plot-based GM direction of char-gen. I think we might have covered that in one of the other 2 threads, actually.)
DWeird:
It's a freeform thing where the 'GM' basically sets the scenes and puts pretty pictures along with forum posts. I'm not even sure it's roleplaying exactly, but it scratches the same itch for me.
Here's a link, if you want.
We are totally an audience to an author's story there. But, we're a specific kind of audience - we're fans who the author likes. It might be impossible to play SBP if your players are not fans who you like, maybe! So there's this occassional mindmeld that has player-created ideas slip into the narrative, or the 'author of plot' delegating an important in-character, plot-defining choice to the players.
Also, in our case, there's always a backdrop that ties in all of our choices regardless of what character we're playing exactly. We're part of a faction that's fighting a war. The leader's decisions matter when we're playing grunts, the grunts' successes matter when we're doing interrogation of the prisoners they caught, the information they give us can be important to the resources we can muster, and so on...
And, yeah, we're definitelly somewhere in the middle there. There are definitelly major characters we see every once in a while and will mostly likely get to control directly if they get into trouble, there are recurring dudes who we see when missions demand their special skills, and there are sometimes moments with guys we never see afterwards.
So we are constantly experiencing and being changed by the unfolding plot in the "I'm a part of this! Me!" sense. Whatever we do, our success matter and our failures hurt. That doesn't stop the big reveals from coming, but it changes how well we can deal with what they bring. It's completelly possible that, for example, the characters we're playing in a given scene are all going to die, and then we can zoom to another character to see what problems our deaths have caused her. That doesn't really hinder experiencing or being changed by the plot - it might even help it ("*what* are they doing with the corpses of the guys we played? Vengeance!" - look at what's happening! We're experiencing real grief and anger for these people who just died, and we still have legit channels to express it in game).
In terms of GM's role in resolution, or at least how player success can become problematic by causing plot derailment, this whole thing mostly ties into the question of what's getting resolved, exactly. If a player does not have primary authority over a character, then the GM doesn't even need to inelegantly remove options through fiction - he can do that through pre-agreed authority direct. "Okay, you've won that fight! Now you're back on the road to Haven." Not doing what the GM says the characters would naturally do is never really an option that resolution could result in - unless the GM fancies to allow such things. It's exactly what you present in the OP, I guess, it's just that it pushes the "if the GM wants it to succeed or fail, it does" deeper into the game, so it requires less moment-to-moment legitimation and is probably easier for the GM to deal with.
A bit of a trick is all this is, I guess.
David Berg:
I guess developments in any story where one has input are gonna feel like some sort of experience. All I can say is that I've played RPGs where input alone wasn't enough for me to get that "Oh my god!" rush I get from in-character discovery. That said, this actually does sound super fun:
Quote from: DWeird on January 13, 2012, 04:16:48 PM
"*what* are they doing with the corpses of the guys we played? Vengeance!"
Following the fate of the specific thing you formerly controlled may be powerful in a way that most mere "I did stuff in your story" is not.
Quote from: DWeird on January 13, 2012, 04:16:48 PM
If a player does not have primary authority over a character, then the GM doesn't even need to inelegantly remove options through fiction - he can do that through pre-agreed authority direct. "Okay, you've won that fight! Now you're back on the road to Haven." Not doing what the GM says the characters would naturally do is never really an option that resolution could result in - unless the GM fancies to allow such things. It's exactly what you present in the OP, I guess, it's just that it pushes the "if the GM wants it to succeed or fail, it does" deeper into the game, so it requires less moment-to-moment legitimation and is probably easier for the GM to deal with.
Hmm. I see how your crew does it (thanks for the link!), but in-person play presents different communication requirements than forum posting, and I'm failing to envision how to bridge that gap. Let's say a player rolls the dice to kill the last Diamondback warrior, then instantly has the idea to commandeer their boat. What do you envision happening there?
Does the player look to the GM for guidance on character motives, treating all their own inclinations as provisional? "My guy realizes he could board the other ship; does he want to, GM?"
Or does the player just play ("I board the ship!") until the GM interjects with a correction ("No, actually, that guy wants to go to Haven.")?
There might be options with passing of character sheets... A player's authority over the character would be complete, but the beginning and end of that period of authority would be clear. You kill the Diamondback and then as you're coming up with your idea you see the GM reaching for your character sheet, and that's that. Hmm...
DWeird:
Dave, could you tell me about an episode when you or your players experienced and were changed by plot, as you say? I don't know if I'm fully sure what you're talking about.
To me, there's nothing wrong with being an audience, nor is there a definite fix by giving players more control. Started my roleplaying in freeform where player contributions were the whole story. Most of that was of the "okay enough, I guess" variety, though there were some downright awesome moments as well. I do sometimes get that "Oh my god!" rush when I'm playing this current game, too.
Not sure if that's what you're talking about, though. Am sure that SBP play inevitably has the possibility of moments where the GM tells the players there's something their characters can't do. The secret is making them like it, I guess, and I suspect them "being an audience" may be one of the ways to do that.
Seamlessly making "GM character moves" is probably not as easy in a live setting, but it can probably be done. Something like "Yeah, you can take it, but the characters want to go to Haven right now. What do you do with it?" There's no changing what will actually happen - they're going to Haven, that's that. Details of the situation can change, though, and maybe the GM will incorporate that second boat into the story somehow sometime later.
This whole thing rests on the GM being able to say "the characters want to..." without breaking the social contract.
Works signficantly less well if going to Haven is not part of the character's motivations but plot makes it necessary for them to be there (because there is a surprise there that will, after the fact, make it part of the characters' motivations), which can be cool too.
David Berg:
Quote from: DWeird on January 14, 2012, 02:48:32 AM
Dave, could you tell me about an episode when you or your players experienced and were changed by plot, as you say?
One PC (Kwailun) had a mostly-offscreen relationship with Siltra. When Siltra came up to him and tried to convince him to side with the badguys, revealing she'd been working for them, his reaction was pretty intense. The player, Gabe, didn't generally react that strongly when he wasn't seeing things through his character's eyes. Out of character, betrayals were more like, "Whoa! Fuck. Neat." But in character there was a real jaw-drop shock moment. As GM, I loved producing those.
I think that's all I have to say on that topic, I didn't mean to derail. A lot of that comes down to taste, who finds what immersive, etc.
Quote from: DWeird on January 14, 2012, 02:48:32 AM
This whole thing rests on the GM being able to say "the characters want to..." without breaking the social contract.
Agreed! The thing I'm trying to pin down is how that's handled moment to moment, especially in transition between player and GM authoring the wants of the same character. Any ideas? I think passing the character sheet might work, but may not be the most elegant for back-and-forth switches.
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