I've run into this buzz saw on Fate groups as I struggled with the Declaration maneuver. I say "I'd like to have some kind of special written rule that lets me be able to say 'no' or 'yes, but' without having to have an unpleasant conflict with the players because I'm more responsible than everyone else for making a decent, challenging game session" and their response is, essentially, that I'm being a jerk and it's a non-issue (they're nicer about it). So, here's my 2 cents:

1. everyone being able to declare whatever the heck they want, at any time, makes the world feel not-very-real (not immersive) at least for a non-minority group of players;

2. no matter what the rules say, if you have created a character and you are in charge of that character, and you get benefits for that character being successful, you're primary worry is what benefits that character, at least for a non-minority group of players. A player isn't being a dick if he says "it turns out that I can turn any opponent to jelly with this fact I'm declaring". He/she is worrying about the character sheet in front of him/her.

3. no matter what the rules say, if there is traditional setup of players and GM's, the GM has more responsibility for how the session goes. If it doesn't go well, he/she is going to take the fall (or feel responsible).

4. good fences make for good neighbors. If you don't like confrontation, having a written rule that says "in this case, you can make a decision" helps people like that.

Just my two cents. I'm mostly just checking in for moral support to see if anyone else feels the same.

BTW, these rules don't apply to awesome GM's who are never stymied and can pull an excellent 4 hour session off of an index card seed. This isn't a joke. I know a lot of you out there are that GM. However, I wish Fate Core said that you should be that kind of GM if you're going to run the game without loosing players.

When I want to say No, it's not because I'm being a dick with power issues. The only time I ever say no or "yes but complication..." is because (1) it either derails the adventure in a way that I can't fix right now or (2) it makes your character overly spotlit compared to other characters or (3) it sets a precedent in a way that will make me unable to make effective sessions in the future.

It also strikes me as weird is that last year, Fate Core was presented as the best game that solves all your needs and if you're not good at running it you're a crappy GM with power issues, and now Dungeon World (or variants) is that game, even though in Dungeon World player's are limited to moves.

Also, the GM's I know who are good at running Fate, and this might just be a limited sample issue, are all GREAT GM's with STRONG PERSONALITIES, so no one ever comes up with game-breaking crap.

If I have been informed correctly, in Dungeon [strike]Turd[/strike] World  the players can declare whatever action they want and it's the GM's task to "take it out of Teh Fiction" and cram it into one of the available Moves to see what they need to roll. So, the Moves aren't really limiting the players.

I'd LOVE to use Fate Core (and all the PDF's I've bought for it) if I could say "no" and not have to worry about the consensus thing. I hardly ever say no to ANYTHING in non fate games, but I don't like saying NO and not having any way to back it up makes me super uncomfortable. I don't enjoy that.

I must really be missing something here - you're running the game, why can't you say "No"?

I refuse to believe any game system would say that as a GM you are not allowed to say no to your players. Your job is to moderate the world. If a player says: "I summon an X-Wing, therefore it happens", it's your job to say: "don't be an idiot, there are no X-Wings".

It sounds like the people you're playing with are either a bunch of jerks, don't have any respect for you, or both.

Further, if this is the case - why would you be running a game where you were just the player's entertainment monkey, a talk-back to facilitate their adolescently derived power fantasies?

Just say no. If that doesn't work, forget 'em.

//Panjumanju

I  don't think they're trying to be jerks. They're just advocating for their characters. Wouldn't Bruce Willis' character in Die Hard want to find a sniper rifle in a trash can and one-shot the big bad if he could? It's not the player of Bruce's character's fault that the GM can't figure out what to do on the fly after that.

Tabletop RPGs work best at presenting experiences, a pen & paper virtual reality run by the referee. Doesn't have to be immersive but it does have to be interesting and fun.

The whole story game movement is a meme gone apeshit. It strikes a resonance because many referee are shitty as referee and people are under a delusion they can fix it with rules. One extreme turns the RPGs into a wargame (like D&D 4e) the other is make everybody, in theory, equal participants (like storygames).

Storygames and wargames sound good because the former makes the process of the game more democratic and who isn't for more democracy right!. The latter gets rid of the pesky inconsistency of human judgement calls and substitute mor' rules.

But in the end they failed because folks find out they don't magically make people better tabletop RPG gamers.  The only effective way that been shown to do that is to teach people good sportmanship and the techniques that been proven to work with tabletop RPGs. There is no rhyme or reason that unifies these technique other than the fact that for certain conditions a referee used them with success.

Become skilled as a player or referee means learning as many of these techniques as you can and more importantly learning when to use them and when not to use them.

It is terribly unsexy compare to the latest ruleset and RPG theory. It is also a bit of work and disproportionately rewards experience.

Now Fate is in my opinion a nice little set of rules if you ignore all the narrative crap. It has some worthy ideas and can be used to great effect in a campaign especially for something who time pressed and can't do a lot of prep.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809261I  don't think they're trying to be jerks. They're just advocating for their characters. Wouldn't Bruce Willis' character in Die Hard want to find a sniper rifle in a trash can and one-shot the big bad if he could? It's not the player of Bruce's character's fault that the GM can't figure out what to do on the fly after that.

In my games players don't get to advocate for their characters, they get to immerse in their characters. I don't see Bruce Willis arguing with the director why the fuck the script won't allow him to find a sniper rifle in the nearest trash can, even though he has a Fate point.

I liked the idea in theory just because I like setting up self perpetuating systems that require no hands on guidance.

So basically it would let me be lazy. The game would run itself! But in practice there tends to be lots of conflicting directions between players and I still prefer to have the control. Even though injecting the players' idea into the game world helps, I can't bring to bear my interest and enthusiasm unless it's really my idea. I still try to incorporate as many facets as the player's ideas as I can though.

As for the general trend, it's the end result of trying to lesson the GM's (and therefore, bad GMs) impact on the game. That and these games often emphasize rules that direct the story itself rather than simulating a world. They're like metagame rules.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809239It also strikes me as weird is that last year, Fate Core was presented as the best game that solves all your needs and if you're not good at running it you're a crappy GM with power issues, and now Dungeon World (or variants) is that game, even though in Dungeon World player's are limited to moves.

Erm, no.

DW player says what they want to do. If this "triggers a move" (ie, is something that has defined game mechanics) then those mechanics are used; moves has specific descriptions saying what triggers them.

If they don't trigger a move, the GM decides what happens and the game carries on.

DW really doesn't do anything new, it's just very explicit about how it works.

Anyway, you're the GM, so M your G, say no, or just find a system that suits your group better.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809239It also strikes me as weird is that last year, Fate Core was presented as the best game that solves all your needs and if you're not good at running it you're a crappy GM with power issues, and now Dungeon World (or variants) is that game, even though in Dungeon World player's are limited to moves.

Also, the GM's I know who are good at running Fate, and this might just be a limited sample issue, are all GREAT GM's with STRONG PERSONALITIES, so no one ever comes up with game-breaking crap.

A GM is GOD in the game world.
A good GM, though, follows the rules, only to break or bend them when necessary, and to perhaps help out a bit for making the story great (YMMV).

Equal authoring isn't a holy grail for those who play rpgs, but it is for some of those who roleplay in other kinds of games.
....That is one of the reasons why the Pundit divided some rpg-like games into what he calls "storygames", unless i'm mistaken.

I'm not a fan of FATE, but in general GMless and limited-GM systems can be great. I love Polaris, A Thousand and One Nights, The Play's The Thing, and other systems. However, they are just another option - they are not the holy grail or a "fix" for traditional-GM systems. No system is the holy grail.

If some people really love GMless games, they're not wrong in loving them - they're just wrong in saying that they are the right thing for everyone.

As for DW, it's not terrible like D&D only players make it out to be. I like both.

You know how in D&D whenever there's something that doesn't fit the rules, you just fit what the player wants to do in-game into the rules yourself?

Well, that's what DW is, except for everything. The player describes what they want to do as if it was real life, then you see if it applies to any of the pre-made "moves" (abilities) that exist. If not, then you either just let it happen or ask for more detail so you can decide yourself.

So in that sense it's not different from D&D. What makes it different is that the dice rolls aren't to determine if you succed or not, but the direction the story takes. Is the next fork going to be "something good happens" or "something bad happens"? That "something bad" could be as simple as taking damage to having an ogre suddenly burst through the wall and interrupt the barroom brawl. The rules are set up in such a way to deliberately create a certain pace and story, rather than the story simply being whatever happens normally. It creates an ever escalating scale of conflict and action.

A lot of the rules are just good GM habits that have been hard coded into the system.

Since it's so freeform, it means that it is also very dependent on the GM. A boring unimaginative GM will make every "something bad happens" just be damage, zzzz. A good imaginative GM can make it full of twists and turns, using the system's prompts to steer the action in ways that it wouldn't normally have gone.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;809272That "something bad" could be as simple as taking damage to having an ogre suddenly burst through the wall and interrupt the barroom brawl.

You wouldn't, though, unless there was some logical reason why an ogre might just show up. *W always follows what makes sense in the game world, not actions for the sake of it or just because a player wants it.

Quote from: Ladybird;809278You wouldn't, though, unless there was some logical reason why an ogre might just show up. *W always follows what makes sense in the game world, not actions for the sake of it or just because a player wants it.

No, you could, as long as you can fit it to make sense.

Suppose they're fighting bandits in the tavern. Ogre bursts into room. Turns out the bandits had an Ogre under their control or something and unleashed it. The challenge is knitting this impromptu patchwork together into something sensible.

And yeah, what the player wants doesn't really have a bearing on it. I mean, it matters insofar as the GM wants to make the players have fun, but they don't get any authority on it or anything.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;809281No, you could, as long as you can fit it to make sense.

Suppose they're fighting bandits in the tavern. Ogre bursts into room. Turns out the bandits had an Ogre under their control or something and unleashed it. The challenge is knitting this impromptu patchwork together into something sensible.

Well, sure, that's something that would make logical sense... as long as it was a fact beforehand that the bandits had an ogre.

If you just pull it out of thin air, it doesn't make any sense.

(Of course, unless you do something stupid like tell the players it was an arsepull, they may never know. Again, no different to any other RPG.)