thread: 2011-02-21 : Into the Unknown?
On 2011-03-30, Josh W wrote:
Even if you don't select between them with dice or something, outcome lists do one big change in terms of GM thinking:
Instead of going "what do I think should happen now", they go "what is most plausable to follow on out of these possibilities".
In other words, the GM adds a step in his head where he selects a certain type of responce, and then follows logic within that. Rather than treating them as scene finishing conditions, you use them to pace and condition all your responces:
"This guy is standing off and is unmoved by their offer because he doesn't actually want what they were told he wants, a [reveal character is not involved in the supernatural events] outcome, so now the players can look at who else could be a suspect"
The advantage of this kind of system is the way that carefully picking those means that GMs can make fruitful and futureproof decisions; you know generally the sort of things he's going to be doing during design and can play off that. The disadvantage comes when a GM can't really sit himself within that structure, and keeps bumping into the walls between categories, or when he stays within them and misses out on doing what would otherwise be very fun.
But resolving that is a design problem; building categories to fit "what GMs should be wanting to do", and it can be enhanced in playtesting by keeping track of all the stuff you wanted to do but couldn't, and seeing how it can be fitted into the existing structures.
Basically you would end up foliating that flow chart of yours, with those arrows turning into multiple channels containing different kinds of GM action, then you'd focus in the rules on those actions and how they'd actually be done in the game, rather than giving them the flow chart.
Actually using that as a workflow might have some unintended consequenses of course, as your putting more weight on that flow chart, upgrading it from illustrative to an actual full spec for the game.
There's also the danger of missing how you could tweak existing systems to provide similar dynamics.
