anyway.

See also: Villains & Vigilantes second edition, which had huge lists of powers to roll from or choose from, but also the rule:

You can make up a set of powers completely, using the list in the book or else just coming up with them out of your imagination.  If it's OK with the GM, you can play them.

Same principle.

Compare to: Champions, where coming up with that stuff is all between the player and the designer.

And: Superhero 2044, where they did it like V&V but didn't bother giving lists of powers to roll from (!!)—every character's superpowers were made up from scratch, and precious few examples were given!

I played a hell of a lot of V&V and the system, including the fiat, works fine.

I have played comparatively little Champions and no Superhero 2044, to compare it to...

Mmmm....  I am old enough to have played some old-style (pre-Dragonlance) AD&D 1st edition, where the GM had to do a lot of these decisions... and one of the bigger problems was that is was very, very difficult to find a GM who would "get it right"...  the GM usually were divided in "monty haul GMs" (or "pushovers") who would give you a double-damage fireball at first level, and "stingy" GMs (or even killer GMs) who simply considered their job to thwart anything that the players wanted from the game. Because anything could "ruin" the game.

Why do you think that being in the GM's seat would turn a player who would push the game "his way" when playing a PC, into a model of equity?

If you have a "good GM", OK. But then, with a "good GM" (with a adaptable definition of "good") you don't even need a game system, right? He would rule in the best way every single time...

Long time no comment.

Maybe this is a terms thing, but how is that sort of thing "fiat"? That's authority. Used consistently and in accordance with principle. Fiat, in my experience, is when authority is used without a principle grounded in the integrity of the fiction, fairness, or some other commonly understood goal shared by GM and players alike.

Not that I'm part of the gang, but if the GM isn't interested in winning or losing, then he wont be thinking in terms of balance(whatever balance is - it's an often used and rarely defined word). If winning or losing doesn't matter to him, then if it just feels right to the GM for the spell to have a year long duration, then it does. If it feels like it should have no duration at all/not work, then it does. This ties into Moreno's post.

Same goes for making a spell that's fun - if the players are going for the fun of winning, but your not thinking about winning and losing, you wont be making a spell that's fun in that way.

There's no conflict of interest because there's no interest in balance or that type of fun.

That's all working from the idea that if a person is thinking about one thing, they are not thinking about another thing. Flicking back and forth between the two isn't impossible to do (nor would I say it's easy), but that raises the questions of how often and when?

Ed, Moreno, one of the important things that makes this work is that it's a structured collaboration, it's neither "the player does whatever, the GM approves (or not)" nor "the GM does whatever." The player does some real creative work, but leaves some real creative work for the GM, and it's perfectly clear which work is whose.

(Oh! Ed! Email me, I need to talk to you about Dogs' illustrations.)

Another important thing that makes it work is that the rules overall are also, at this point in play, a tight constraint. The _ no miscast line, for instance, which is required, sets a scale: this is what size a single hit is.

There's a substantial question that you're getting at in particular, Moreno: "what causes the GM's agenda to be to make the game's world seem real and to create and play interesting monsters, without investing in their winning or losing?" It's beyond my mere blog to get into this; all I'll really say is, it's the same as Dogs in the Vineyard. "What causes the GM's agenda to be to find out what the characters will do with the town, having intense curiosity but no particular preference?" - same thing.

Mark, a terms thing, I think. I'll happily cede the word.

Callan, of course the GM is thinking about winning and losing. The GM's very curious to know which will happen, is acutely aware of the shape and bounds of the issue, and wants to create a spell that won't screw the question up.

I find my reaction to this interesting, to me. At first, I'm like, "This seems totally OK. I get it. And baking in judgment calls into rules is a lot of the way it's done in games I love."

Then I start to think, and worry about slippery slopes, and think of the ways it can go wrong, and get nervous again.

Hmmm, I don't know of being very curious in whether a win or lose happens, without having some sort of vested interest in one result or the other. Eg, who cares about a sports game where none of the teams you root for are playing? Without that vested interest, how often are people interested in the win/lose?

Callan, your knowing about it, or not, aside, that's how it works. It's like when two teams are playing, and you're a fan of both, and you and your friend have been trying to figure out which has the better quarterback. You don't prefer which has the better quarterback, but you care which does.

Please be less combative in your posts here. Please ask for me to help you understand, instead of expecting me to refute combative assertions.

Hi Vincent!

I see your DitV comparation... up to a point!

Playing GM in DitV, I usually HAVE some particular preference for an outcome (the one I would try to get if I was a player, saving the NPC I like, etc.), but I don't worry about it because I don't have to "measure" myself when I play different NPCs: I play all of them to the hilt, and it's the game system that let me do it without worrying too much, by giving me a fixed amount of dice to play that NPC (I can add some dice here and there, right, but not too many without some extraordinary effort)

But if I would have to "create NPCs" in DitV like I did in the old days with AD&D ("mmm...  I hope this will be strong enough to scare them, but without killing them... but what if I misjudge their strenght? Well, I will have to fudge some roll behind the screen..."), the game wouldn't work so well.  And this is what it seems you are talking about in your post: having a "impartial judge" judging how strong a spell has to be (or a monster, or a trap, or...). Like if being impartial would mean being right.

But if you say that you talking about doing that with rules like the ones in DitV, that allow me to be impartial without worrying about having to be "right" all the time, I am interested. But hurry to that point because all this talk of the "GMs of old" is giving me goosebumps!  =:-I

"Callan, of course the GM is thinking about winning and losing. The GM's very curious to know which will happen, is acutely aware of the shape and bounds of the issue, and wants to create a spell that won't screw the question up."

This makes sense to me. It's really just a variation on being a game designer in the first place. When you design a rule, you care about outcome (in this place, winning and losing). However, you're not vested in *who* wins or loses, but in crafting a superior experience for the players which provides the context for the *players* striving to win.

I now have a nagging sense that I've just stated this point in a way that I can understand, but that I may have muddied the point for everyone else.

Oh well. Let's hit the submit button and find out!

Vincent, I'm assuming you mean combative but in good will (as someone who didn't have good will toward yourself and others wouldn't care about the request anyway).

I dunno - the idea of asking for help to understand seems to presume the thing works to begin with. I work from what I think is a scientific approach, where it's just a hypothesis with whatever amount of evidence that has been provided. Rather than combative, I encourage everyone to assume peoples assertions do not in any way work or exist, as a starting point of examination. If that doesn't fit the social context here, I understand. But in such a case, I'd say I don't think it's very thorough. But I'd leave it at that. Call it a critical agenda clash (*boom ching* get it? CA? Like a creative agenda clash...okay, really bad, really in joke...I'll get my coat...)

Moreno: But if you say that you talking about doing that with rules like the ones in DitV, that allow me to be impartial without worrying about having to be "right" all the time, I am interested.

Yep!

Right now, Storming the Wizard's Tower has an irritating scaling problem, so if you have 3 players you don't have to worry but if you have 5 players the game breaks down - so it's not done yet. But yeah, it works just like you say, if you have 3 players.

(For people following the game's development: I'm talking about the manuscript rules, not my attempts to make the game scale, which still aren't working.)

And this ties back into giving the judgment to Player #3 who is only interested in getting it *right*. The critical distinction here is that "right" means "providing a superior play experience for everyone" and nothing else. That implies Player #3 knows what his group wants and how to give it to them.

If the game text explicitly tells y'all "here's how to provide a great play experience with this here game" all the better; add some group communication and it should work fine.

The way I interpreted Callan's post (#4) is that he was talking about a situation where there's some sort of disconnect between the players' and the GM's expectations/assumptions (this might, but not necessarily, include some sort of CA incoherence). Vincent, however, seems to be assuming a functional social dynamic where everyone is on board with a shared set of expectations.

Would you two agree with that assessment?

I think Callan's concern is legitimate, given the hobby's history. But as I've matured as a player, I've come to see relying on player judgment and skill as a perfectly sensible design option. The caveat, though, is that the game needs to be clear on what the social expectations are, or at least on how the group can come up with their own.

Hi Tim,

The rules appear to drive a disconnect between players and GM expectations, rather myself refering to some pre existing quality in the group. Keeping in mind the rules of most sports drive a disconnect between umpire and player. The umpires choices aren't innately 'fun' or 'balanced'. It's actually an effort of good sportsmanship on the players part to internalise his choices as fun or balanced. It's typically an act on the players part to see the umpires choices as being true/without a conflict of interest - so I'm skeptical when I'm told it's not just an act and actually is true.

This makes sense to me. It's really just a variation on being a game designer in the first place. When you design a rule, you care about outcome (in this place, winning and losing). However, you're not vested in *who* wins or loses, but in crafting a superior experience for the players which provides the context for the *players* striving to win.

Seth, I urge you to consider me rocked by this.

Re: Some game designers.

We're certainly taking a stab at it—but even with our approach (and throwing resources at the problem) we know we can't get it right everywhere. For everyone. Which is fine: that's why there's a GM—as noted here (even if a somewhat traditional game answers most questions it needn't always answer all of them).

But regardless, this post (and the other arrow posts) are to my read pretty much dead on. Having a missing/weak arrow will likely, at some point, result in someone suffering a legitimate discontinuity between what happens in the game and what they think should happen.

-Marco

Ha ha! You're playing a semantic trick and Mark is right! You're talking about a structured distribution of creative authority. You say so yourself.

The GM doesn't have the right to do things that are contrary to the vision the players share about the fictional world. Therefore, the GM can't say, "It doesn't work", or "It sprouts flowers from your nostrils instead."

...one of the important things that makes this work is that it's a structured collaboration, ... The player does some real creative work, but leaves some real creative work for the GM, and it's perfectly clear which work is whose.

That's just like an Antagonist player putting your dad's life in danger in Shock: It's within the authority of the GM because it's the GM's job to make interesting choices with elegant connections to other phenomena in the fiction. It's not the GM's job to keep the players from winning, it's not the GM's job to disrupt the players' paradigm, nor is it the GM's job to establish all of the elements of the fiction.

As long as you avoid conflicts of interest, you're cool.

"This makes sense to me. It's really just a variation on being a game designer in the first place. When you design a rule, you care about outcome (in this place, winning and losing). However, you're not vested in *who* wins or loses, but in crafting a superior experience for the players which provides the context for the *players* striving to win."

"You" as in the idealized version of You, might not be invested in their success.  But in practice the GM may be invested in the PC's winning because he wants them to succeed; or in them failing because he is caught up in being the adversary.

So as I read it you (Seth Ben-Ezra) are saying that a "good" game should yield an enjoyable experience regardless of how the dice fall?

—-

We also see the common bit of text in RPG books (paraphrased)"Lie, cheat and make stuff up and hope the players enjoy it."

In a "good" game this would be unnecessary, because the game will be fun, no matter how the random elements fall?

BG Josh:
"We also see the common bit of text in RPG books (paraphrased)'Lie, cheat and make stuff up and hope the players enjoy it.'

"In a 'good' game this would be unnecessary, because the game will be fun, no matter how the random elements fall?"

I for one take this as a baseline guiding principle for my design work. I wouldn't publish a game that could be ruined by how the dice fall.

The Shadow of Yesterday has this same thing you have in Storming the Wizard's Tower, except blown up 100-fold. Players have to be making up rules-elements all the time, starting with abilities and ending with spells. What makes it work is pretty simple: the players making the choices have no ulterior motives, and the system language is clear, clean enough to make the choices simple.

What differentiates between StWT and old D&D is that in D&D the system language is much less structured, and it includes plenty of colorful fluff that might or might not have significant impact on actual play. It's pretty difficult to make good and balanced choices in that environment, while the spell-creation rule you describe is outright simple to use in comparison. As you say, the miscast provides a point of comparison, and creating new effect tracks is easy when you remember that each step should have meaningful in-play significance; I can't imagine going too far wrong with creating spells in that system as long as I ensured that the spells only have variable effects that I could frame into important strategic resource pivot points.

If I'm violating etiquette by posting 2 weeks late, someone please admonish me.  Just one thought to share:

Your GM's agenda for the game is to make its world seem real, and to create and play interesting monsters, without caring whether the monsters win or lose.

FWIW, my experience doing exactly that tends to lead to the following chain of reasoning:
1) for monsters/adversity, "interesting" often equals "threatening"
2) spells that empower the PCs to the degree that it's hard to make them feel threatened are bad
3) I can't quickly anticipate all the ways the PCs might milk this power they've proposed for all sorts of empowerment
4) I don't feel like puzzling it out in my head or hashing it out aloud
5) I err on the side of nerfing the power
6) players are disappointed, and claim the nerfing is unnecessary, but also don't want to take the time to hash out all the ways the power could play out

I think this poses some very solvable problems.  Any thoughts on how you intend to deal with 'em?

No violation.

Yeah, very solvable, and very avoidable. To start with, two things: 1 the GM's going to be creating monsters all the time, and spells only occasionally, so the way to keep monsters interesting is over in monster creation; 2 the game's currency is clear and above-board, so it's quite easy to create effects that are both fun and not insane.

Clear currency...  Does that mean that when the players are building a spell to throw at the GM, some expectations have already been established about, y'know, what's roughly reasonable?

Are there some numerical or other measures to relate one parameter (say, extent of Protection) to another (say, extent of Clairsentience) in terms of reasonableness?

I'm really interested to see how your player-GM back-and-forth plays out socially... I could see the GM making his decision quietly by himself while the players await... or I could see a long back-and-forth of "but in play, this would be cool, so maybe it should be easier" etc.

I can't speak for how V does things, and I don't do STWT, but I've used similar methods in freeform-y games. My experience is that the latter is really tough to use - it tends to lead to long, intensely entertaining, digressions into armchair worldbuilding rather than play. That may just be my tables, though. I like to have a mechanism for invoking cloture on those back-and-forths.

My usual approach is "here's how I think it ought to work, any questions/comments?" and if we can't come to a quick consensus I just make a call and move on.

Vincent's "umpire" analogy is really spot-on. Video review happens at the next break in play, not right away.