thread: 2010-06-14 : A Bit of Hardcore
On 2010-06-18, Rafael wrote:
But these are mechanical impact of player decision, aren't they? If I shut the door, I'll roll less dice (or smaller dice) than if I go on, and the resulting difference in how much I'm wounded could impact heavily on the story.
I've not clear what do you mean exactly by saying that you prefer player's choises to have non-mechanical impact on the story; do you mean that the mechanic should impact after the choise, and not the choise itself?
I phrased that poorly: I mean that the narrative effect of the choice shouldn't be determined mechanically, even if it is modelled mechanically.
In the scenario we described, if the player chooses to shut to the door, then the GM (and to some extent the players) know the broad narrative results before any dice are rolled: the characters will be slightly wounded and the NPC will die.
What if the player thinks that another outcome'd be more interesting? Some time ago I was discussing with a friend of mine, and while in a game he'd have preferred his character to die (because he chose to risk his life to save another character, and he was willing to die for that), the master made him survive thinking it was the only satisfying result.
Poor communication! Explicit stakes negotiation (as described in the very helpful Mother May I article) could have avoided that problem, at the cost of some loss of immersion, but doesn't seem necessary if the group communicates well.
