GM Fudging, System Purpose, and Archipelago

May 18, 2013 13:21

I was recently reading an online thread concerning whether a GM can cheat in an RPG. On one level, this is clearly dependent on the rules of the game - if a game's rules say that the GM should feel free to ignore them in the interests of the story, then the GM can't cheat. But really, the question the thread was asking was whether it's okay for the GM to bend or ignore the rules, no matter what the rules themselves say about it. Ultimately, this comes down to an issue of group preference - what's called the social contract of the group. If the group thinks it's okay for the GM to change die rolls to modify the story, that's okay. If they don't, that's okay too. Problems arise where people have different expectations and fail to discuss them. The arguments on both sides seem to be that: (1) fudging is good because it helps the GM keep the story from getting screwed up by some random die roll, like a mook in a random encounter killing a character with a lucky crit; and (2) fudging is bad because without randomness, the players' decisions don't matter because the GM is pushing the whole game down a predetermined path.

I recently raised the issue with Chris and Greg, who both told me their own preferences. Chris is basically totally okay with fudging as long as it helps the story. Greg said he didn't have a problem with a GM changing stats on the fly to modify encounters, but that he didn't like the idea of changing actual die rolls. My feelings on the issue are ambivalent. On the one hand, I don't really mind the idea of a GM fudging a die roll to prevent some crazy result. When I was running Shackled City, I fudged to keep things moving myself. However, the more I think about it, the more I kind of get upset by one of the traditional defenses for fudging, the idea of doing it to keep characters from getting killed by a random, unimportant encounter. If an encounter is so unimportant that the GM needs to change die rolls to keep it from having lasting impact by killing a character, why is it even included in the game? An encounter like that seems like a complete waste of time and should just be skipped altogether.

This led me back to a "rule of gaming" that I heard on an episode of a podcast called the Sons of Kryos a few years back, by a guy named Judd Karlman. Judd argued that if you find yourself fudging die rolls at the gaming table, your system is failing you. Whenever you roll dice, according to Judd, the result of both success and failure should be good story. If you find yourself making a roll where only one result is acceptable, you shouldn't roll dice for that. You should just narrate that result. So if your characters are in a combat that they have to win in order for the story to move along, you really shouldn't be bothering with that combat in the first place. If your characters are making a roll to find some clue, without which they can't proceed through the adventure, you shouldn't be forcing them to roll to find it.

A while back, I made the claim that the systems I'm most interested in are ones that "get out of the way" and let the players roleplay. Now that I think about that, I think I would probably revise my statement. There are systems that can do more than get out of the way (otherwise you could play with no system whatsoever, just mutual storytelling). The systems I'm most interested in are ones that actually support efforts to tell good stories. Trail of Cthulhu, for example, is based on investigation, and understands that the only way for the stories to conclude is for the investigators to actually, you know, solve whatever the mystery is. So there's no option in the game for them to fail to find the necessary clues. Failure on an investigation roll in that game means other complications arising, which often make the game even more interesting! Similarly, Fate helps you to tell meaningful stories through Aspects, which encourage the players to tie important character motivations to their actions. The die rolls in these cases make the game more interesting.

So this past week, we also got to try out Archipelago, a game that was recently given a glowing review by the folks at Shut Up & Sit Down. We had a great time playing the short version of the game with three players, but I really want to try both a longer game and one with more players. Archipelago is, I think, a good example of where board gaming is moving - it's a synthesis of European gaming (very little luck involved, several sets of rules working together elegantly to provide the gameplay) and American gaming (beautiful production design, attention to theme). You play explorers of an archipelago - the board is created by placing hexes as you explore them. As you go through, you can collect various resources, purchase native labor, buy and sell resources on foreign and domestic markets, build settlements, and the like. Each player has a secret card with an end condition and a victory condition, and the game ends when anyone's end condition is fulfilled (or when the natives revolt). You can modify the length of the game by choosing from different sets of end condition cards, some of which take longer to fulfill. At that point, everyone gets points based on everyone's win conditions, so part of the game involves trying to figure out what the other players' win conditions are to try to keep up with them. Really great game, and I'm excited to play it again.
Previous post Next post
Up