Maybe it's "Authored" vs. "Emergent"

[Tanarii]

If you expect a more-or-less static sandbox, you're going to expect different things than if you expect a "world sim" game.

Interesting. Most CRPG sandboxes are relative static due to the limitations of the media. But that's not something I'd expect from a TTRPG sandbox.

[BRC]

Now we can't be friends anymore.

I refuse to believe that agency is ever meaningless. What you choose to do, when there are no constraints, is perhaps when agency matters the most. 'You can do anything you want. What would you like to do?' defines who you are as a person.

If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?
If you had exorbitant amount of money, what would you do with it?

There are several personality-defining hypothetical questions which ostensibly remove constraints in the real world, and what you would choose to do when those constraints are removed are fundamental questions of who you are.

...We call this, the 'power fantasy'.

A shame, our friendship will never be, we must settle this on the field of honor, as the challenged, you may choose the weapons.


...But more seriously, you DO raise a good point, and I think I was being overly broad there.

I think there is a difference between Aspirational and Strategic exercises of agency. Aspirational is about setting Goals, Strategic is about achieving them. Both have a place in TTRPGs, but serve different roles. In more open games, the PC's set goals, and then the GM constructs a scenario around achieving those goals. The Aspirational can roughly correspond with the Supermacro and Macro scales, while the Strategic roughly corresponds with the Micro and Supermicro scales.

This isn't ALWAYS the case, and your Aspirational Agency can provide a constraint for Strategic Agency. If you have the Aspirational Goal of "Don't hurt any innocents", and the local evil cult has framed you for their crimes and whipped up an angry mob against you, that's a constraint you've placed upon yourself when it comes to using your Strategic Agency to figure out a way to escape.


I was mostly thinking about Strategic exercise of Agency, the challenge of figuring out how to apply your assets to a scenario in order to achieve your goal. THAT is meaningless without constraint.

A Power Fantasy is a valid thing, but that scratches a different itch than a strategic exercise of Agency. "Tell me how you solve this problem, you can do whatever, just make it cool" is a fine thing to do, but it's not what I normally think of when I think of exercising strategic agency.


Edit: Looping this back into the topic, I feel like a strong chance to exercise Aspirational Agency is going to be vital for any sort of Emergent Game, probably more so even than Strategic Agency. Emergent Gameplay is almost entirely based around Players being able to set their own goals.

I'm curious, if OP sees this, would you define a hypothetical game with Absolut Aspirational Agency (All goals are set by the Players), but zero Strategic Agency (Once a goal has been set, the GM lays out a strict, single path to achieving that goal) as "Emergent" or "Authored"?

Like, regardless of it would be a fun game, would that be Emergent?

[kyoryu]

I'm curious, if OP sees this, would you define a hypothetical game with Absolut Aspirational Agency (All goals are set by the Players), but zero Strategic Agency (Once a goal has been set, the GM lays out a strict, single path to achieving that goal) as "Emergent" or "Authored"?

Like, regardless of it would be a fun game, would that be Emergent?

I would say Authored. Again, it's the path, and the fidelity of the changes your actions make in the world. And I said in the OP, and I think at multiple other places, that a game with a set goal can still be Emergent. I made a post a while ago where I talked about types of games based on who comes up with the goal/problem vs. who comes up with the solution (at least at the macro level). In that grid, I would say that "players determine the solution" would typically be Emergent. But Emergent is really about "the things that I do cause changes" - again, the pool game is probably the best analogy. It's not just what shot you make and whether you make it or not - it's what other balls are hit, how they move, what balls they hit, and so on.

And Emergent and fun are orthogonal :) I have said in nearly every message on this that in no way am I trying to declare superiority of one over the other.

Interesting. Most CRPG sandboxes are relative static due to the limitations of the media. But that's not something I'd expect from a TTRPG sandbox.

Yeah, I'm comparing types of games - a "static sandbox" being one where there's locations, and things, but they don't really impact each other, in comparison to a TTRPG sandbox where there are things happening, and the player actions do have an impact on the setting as a whole.

I'm not saying that "static sandboxes" are or should be the norm, or only type of sandbox. But it is a type of play that comes up often in these discussions. I guess the point here really is "yes, that thing you're describing does have those properties, but that's not the only type of sandbox that exists". Because we've seen a number of posts talking about "sandboxes" in exactly those terms - and that is explicitly not what I mean by an emergent game. If that makes sense?

[KorvinStarmast]

A shame, our friendship will never be, we must settle this on the field of honor, as the challenged, you may choose the weapons.

Cream pies at dawn, ten paces. Do you need seconds?

[kyoryu]

Cream pies at dawn, ten paces. Do you need seconds?

I always want seconds of pie.

Mmmmmm, pie.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I would say Authored. Again, it's the path, and the fidelity of the changes your actions make in the world. And I said in the OP, and I think at multiple other places, that a game with a set goal can still be Emergent. I made a post a while ago where I talked about types of games based on who comes up with the goal/problem vs. who comes up with the solution (at least at the macro level). In that grid, I would say that "players determine the solution" would typically be Emergent. But Emergent is really about "the things that I do cause changes" - again, the pool game is probably the best analogy. It's not just what shot you make and whether you make it or not - it's what other balls are hit, how they move, what balls they hit, and so on.

What about "the things I do cause changes at one scale but those changes are mostly lost in zooming out to the largest scale" or "some of the things I do cause changes".

Because if we're going to require every action to have noticeable changes at every scale, there are no Emergent games. And any but the most tightly-plotted/constrained games have player actions making changes at some scale, some of the time. And there are substantial differences in feel and how things work and are best approached at different points along both lines.

And in any verisimilitude-inducing scenario (for me at least), actions at one scale tend to get "washed out" at larger scales much of the time. The round-by-round details of combat don't matter (as) much after the combat is over, if the overall result (in resources expended, who got away, etc) is the same. But it makes a difference at the single-combat scale. And there are things in any verisimilitude-inducing scenario that the player actions can't affect (e.g. a level 1 party and the orbit of the moon(s) or the onset of an earthquake).

Which says to me that it's a multi-dimensional problem/solution space, not a strict binary.

[NichG]

What about "the things I do cause changes at one scale but those changes are mostly lost in zooming out to the largest scale" or "some of the things I do cause changes".

Because if we're going to require every action to have noticeable changes at every scale, there are no Emergent games. And any but the most tightly-plotted/constrained games have player actions making changes at some scale, some of the time. And there are substantial differences in feel and how things work and are best approached at different points along both lines.

And in any verisimilitude-inducing scenario (for me at least), actions at one scale tend to get "washed out" at larger scales much of the time. The round-by-round details of combat don't matter (as) much after the combat is over, if the overall result (in resources expended, who got away, etc) is the same. But it makes a difference at the single-combat scale. And there are things in any verisimilitude-inducing scenario that the player actions can't affect (e.g. a level 1 party and the orbit of the moon(s) or the onset of an earthquake).

Which says to me that it's a multi-dimensional problem/solution space, not a strict binary.

There's a difference between a controllable change and an uncontrollable one though. The impacts of small scale decisions on large scale outcomes can be chaotic in nature.

Bottlenecks in the course of play that discretize possibilities and throw out minor variations do feel to me to make games feel less open-ended and more designed. Even if those variations aren't part of an intentional plan.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There's a difference between a controllable change and an uncontrollable one though. The impacts of small scale decisions on large scale outcomes can be chaotic in nature.

Bottlenecks in the course of play that discretize possibilities and throw out minor variations do feel to me to make games feel less open-ended and more designed. Even if those variations aren't part of an intentional plan.

Generally, chaotic systems exhibit attractors. And large and complex chaotic systems tend to sit really darn close to the attractors, since there's enough noise to wash out the little differences between paths. Butterfly-theory is pretty heavily disfavored these days--an arbitrarily small change on an otherwise balanced system at T = 0 does not generally produce an arbitrarily large change asymptotically at T = N > 0. And this holds for real life as well (which isn't, as far as I know, Authored). Turning points/critical points, where small inputs can have large outputs are fairly rare. At least for normal values of "small" and "large". Effectively, life "smooths out" the course. You could even swap out one person for another (within limits) and nature would self-heal at some level. Because in the end, we'll all be forgotten by history--our lives won't have mattered individually at all.

And anything done by people must "bottleneck" changes. You have to decide "of all of the things that happened, which ones matter at T + dt" for every T and dt. Discretization and "smoothing" are necessary and inevitable. Because no human can handle all the changes. Plus, that's normal. That's the game abstraction. It's constantly abstracting tons of stuff away from the players, because that's how it has to work. And lots of systems abstract even more than D&D does.

For example, wearing a red shirt vs a blue one in a combat does not change anything meaningfully. Taking 1 damage on the first round vs 1 damage on the second (for the same total damage taken, where total HP > 1 and taking damage did not disrupt anything) makes no difference after combat is over.

[KorvinStarmast]

I always want seconds of pie.

Mmmmmm, pie.

Mmmm, yes.
The only emergent aspect of pie is blackbirds: four and twenty of them, if my memory serves.

[Quertus]

Okay, quick guide on how to do that:
to avoid time loops and paradoxes you must first do alternate timeline theory. this is only the first step, because while it does solve the paradox problem and make sure you don't end with time loops which cause a free will problem, it creates a different problem entirely: branching timelines being created from different decisions violates conservation of matter and energy as it means that simply making a different decision somehow creates an entire universe out of nowhere. also since there is no telling what the outcome of a decision is, you get the problem that multiple alternate universes can spawn from one action, thus creating a tangle of alternate universes out of nowhere from your meddling which can get overly complicated and hard to keep track of.

thus you must do the second step: making sure that while alternate universes exist, branching timelines do NOT. universes are parallel to one another and do not branch out from one another. all timelines not connected to each other, and thus each one is a straight line. this doesn't mean timelines can't be similar, just that going back in time on a timeline to change something can't make a branch.

the third step is making it so that the way of "going back in time" is actually traveling to a parallel universe where the beginning of reality simply happened later than it did in your reality thus the universe is younger but it still pretty similar to your own universe at the time. Since its not your universe and technically is that universes "present" there is no time paradox arising from interfering with it in any way. any changes you make only makes one future in THAT universe. its malleable but doesn't allow for branching timeline shenanigans. future timelines similarly, are simply those whose beginning of the universe started earlier and thus are older.

anything else is simply recognizing that all similarities or differences between universes are simple matters of coinflips that could go any way you want them to, so they can be as different or as similar as you want them to be. all timelines, however old or young they are exist as they because thats simply how their big bangs happened, and can be as many or as little as you want. this model of time travel neatly avoids all paradoxes. the only problem, is that you cannot technically go back in time to change a bad future ever, because even going back in time is just a younger parallel universe unrelated to the universe you came from in any way. you can still make a timeline where things are better like a branching timeline model, but without violating conservation of matter by creating a new universe out of nowhere.

Although a fan of this theory of Time Travel, it is rather... bleak horror, as, to the reality you left, you just... left.

And the extra copies of yourselves in the new universe can get a bit troublesome.

It certainly does, at least in the most technical sense. It reduces the options the PC's can take, or at least makes those options harder/more expensive, which is a lesser version of the same thing.

"Can we get to There from Here?"

"There is a mountain range in the way. Going around it will take months, crossing it will take a week and be very dangerous". Even if I'm not saying No, I'm saying "If you go, you'll probably regret it".

I fly. The mountain does not impinge my Agency. In fact, it increases my options, as now I can put a mountain between myself and some ground troops.

I really don't think a ttrpg forum is the place to start an argument on that first point.

Plus like, a redhead isn't the middleground between a man and a women, it's orthogonal. What I'm describing is the middle ground between Authored and Emergent, not some orthogonal concept.

Back on the topic of rpgs though, I'm not objecting to Authored-Emergent being one axis by which you could judge an rpg. I'm objecting to the clean "All DMs are either [A-F] or [F-L]" argument that Kyoryu seemed to be making.

I think a better example would be how you can measure games on the Combat vs Roleplay axis. There's a clear difference being measured. Some games are super combat focused. Some games are super roleplay focused. Most games are a split between the two.

If someone were to say "I only like Roleplay focused games", that'd be a useful way to find a group that matches their preferences. If someone were to say "All games are either combat or roleplaying", I would push back on that.

OK, this is tricky, so... I'll probably break it down wrong. Be forewarned.

1) You are assuming that [A-L] constitute a range, and aren't simply [Athens, Berlin, Cairo, Delhi, ...].

1a) If [A-L] do constitute a range, then

1a1) liking a "middle ground" is a valid preference

1a2) but having names for the ends of the spectrum is also inherently valid (say, "North" and "South")

1a3) even if a binary segregation ("northern hemisphere", "southern hemisphere")

1a3a) may be entirely arbitrary

1a3b) or may carry unexpected value (current season, direction water drains)

1b) If [A-L] do not constitute a range, then

1b1) the concept of a "middle ground" is invalid

1b2) having a preference for a middle ground is invalid ("I like whichever cities you list in the middle, regardless of which cities you list, or the order in which you list them")

2) What was being described by [A-L] was the outcome of the game, not the style.

2a) If you think that you prefer an outcome "somewhere in the middle" of a supposed binary style...

2a1) my best guess is that you mean you prefer a style which is neither "pure Authored" nor "Pure Emergent", but which lives closer to the boundary of the two? Authored with heavy Emergent, or Emergent with heavy Authored?

2a2) I am curious what traits you believe such outcomes have, that differentiate them from the outcomes of more "pure" Authored or Emergent games.

2b) As a style, "Authored vs Emergent" was described (defined?) as being a binary segregation, with no middle ground. If you disagree with this assessment, I'd be really interested to hear your reasoning.

3) Looking at the content of my post misses the point - my point was about the form of an argument. I was demonstrating how the form of your assertion was not valid, by creating another assertion with the same form. And my example wasn't as odd as it might appear at first glance - remember that the discussion at this point had turned to defining based on "liking" something.

[NichG]

Generally, chaotic systems exhibit attractors. And large and complex chaotic systems tend to sit really darn close to the attractors, since there's enough noise to wash out the little differences between paths. Butterfly-theory is pretty heavily disfavored these days--an arbitrarily small change on an otherwise balanced system at T = 0 does not generally produce an arbitrarily large change asymptotically at T = N > 0. And this holds for real life as well (which isn't, as far as I know, Authored). Turning points/critical points, where small inputs can have large outputs are fairly rare. At least for normal values of "small" and "large". Effectively, life "smooths out" the course. You could even swap out one person for another (within limits) and nature would self-heal at some level. Because in the end, we'll all be forgotten by history--our lives won't have mattered individually at all.

Chaotic systems exhibit strange attractors, which are manifolds of dimension > 0. That means that there are a number of phase angles equal to the dimension of the attractor which are effectively infinitely sensitive to small variations in the asymptotic limit, even if there are also things which are insensitive. In orbital dynamics for example, specific relative orbital phases drift in response to n-body and relativistic corrections 10 orders of magnitude smaller than the primary forces determining orbits.

Generally from a macroscopic perspective we just call this stuff temperature and give up on deterministic prediction of details. But it's a strong enough effect to force us to give up on determinism.

And anything done by people must "bottleneck" changes. You have to decide "of all of the things that happened, which ones matter at T + dt" for every T and dt. Discretization and "smoothing" are necessary and inevitable. Because no human can handle all the changes. Plus, that's normal. That's the game abstraction. It's constantly abstracting tons of stuff away from the players, because that's how it has to work. And lots of systems abstract even more than D&D does.

For example, wearing a red shirt vs a blue one in a combat does not change anything meaningfully. Taking 1 damage on the first round vs 1 damage on the second (for the same total damage taken, where total HP > 1 and taking damage did not disrupt anything) makes no difference after combat is over.

The influence doesn't have to be systematic. Information deletion is fine if what you care about includes uncontrolled influence, so long as you replace it with entropy (or 'entangle' it synergistically in a way that makes it impractical to decode) rather than also shrinking the entropy.

So e.g. order of taking damage may change even if only by a tiny amount how everyone feels about the encounter. That may again alter, by a tiny amount, follow-up behaviors. In an emergent mindset, you don't have to explicitly account for those things because you're making decisions after having experienced them, so the influence is through your mental state. In an authored stance you may have pre-determined a rubric for, say, NPC decisions before having experienced those subtle variations, so you zero both the information and the induced entropy. In the former case, the influence is present but hard to invert; in the latter case, the influence is zero by construction.

Edit: Also, it bears keeping in mind that someone who says 'I want an emergence-heavy game' may explicitly be looking for a game in which the influence of individuals is not erased by time, even if you find that particular view more verisimilitudinous.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also, it bears keeping in mind that someone who says 'I want an emergence-heavy game' may explicitly be looking for a game in which the influence of individuals is not erased by time, even if you find that particular view more verisimilitudinous.

Given enough time, we are all fertilizer. How deep are you taking this?

[Cheesegear]

Edit: Also, it bears keeping in mind that someone who says 'I want an emergence-heavy game' may explicitly be looking for a game in which the influence of individuals is not erased by time...

I think another issue with this entire thread, is people love giving definitions, but they hate giving examples.

[NichG]

Given enough time, we are all fertilizer. How deep are you taking this?

Extent of campaign is the practical measure, but...

There are biological events on Earth whose planet-wide consequences have carried forwards for billions of years, and whose protagonists probably had lifespans a hundredth of ours and physical scales a millionth of ours.

I feel like this may be a glass half full / half empty kind of thing. In one mindset you may find the reasons for something to not matter be the ones that jump out, whereas in another mindset you might find the opportunities for things to matter be the ones that jump out. Is it so odd that someone might rather play a game with a GM who is more interested in the latter than the former? That being told 'ultimately, you could have removed a PC from this adventure and at the scale of the campaign it wouldn't've changed much' might be off-putting no matter what realism argument you make?

[KorvinStarmast]

Extent of campaign is the practical measure, but... That being told 'ultimately, you could have removed a PC from this adventure and at the scale of the campaign it wouldn't've changed much' might be off-putting no matter what realism argument you make?

The point of most RPGs is that the players are the star of the show. That has nothing to do with authored & emergent as alleged ends of an axis.
As to "losing a PC from the campaign doesn't matter" - well, in some campaigns it doesn't.
The PC is dead, they mourn that PC, and the player has/generates/obtains another PC and play continues from that point on. Depending on how far that campaign progressed, there may have been some very memorable scenes/events during the dead PCs tenure, or not.
Or, the player rage quits and the campaign goes on without them.
I've seen both, more of the former than the latter.

'I want an emergence-heavy game' may explicitly be looking for a game in which the influence of individuals is not erased by time,

That's something to discuss before play begins.

[Talakeal]

I think another issue with this entire thread, is people love giving definitions, but they hate giving examples.

For sure.

Still waiting for an example that is even from the RPG or adventure genre, let alone the tabletop medium.

[OldTrees1]

I think another issue with this entire thread, is people love giving definitions, but they hate giving examples.

It is easier to give an example of an Authored game since the poster is a single person or they can using existing examples by pointing to one of the many authored games sold as products. The DDEX1 season of Adventure's league modules is a good example of an Authored campaign. The campaign already makes assumptions and plans choices for module 14 before you start module 1.

Giving a definition of an Emergent game is much easier that assembling a playgroup merely to write an example post. Even if you do assemble a playgroup to write the example post, how do you convey that information to the reader? Or will the reader assume that post was an Authored game as a result of the limitations of the forum thread post medium?



Given the additional effort required to give an example of an Emergent game, you should not be surprised that the only examples are high level examples. For example the "The campaign used Barovia as a sandbox. The Party in Barovia decided to reinvigorate the Barovian wine industry. The campaign followed the choices the players raised and made rather than the GM authoring a linear branching* structure in front of those choices. The impacts of the steps towards reinvigorating the Barovian wine industry had long reaching impacts throughout Barovia.".

*Linear branching structure: Choice nodes with each option branching off to another choice node. This tree exists before the choices are made. This term is frequently used when the number of options per node is small. For example the Stanley Parable is a linear branching structure that you can replay multiple times.


Or a micro example of an emergent campaign:
We are in a scifi campaign (spelljammer) right now. We have a FTL ship and can travel wherever we want. We happened to visit a system that was evacuating citizens off of inhabited asteroids and then throwing those asteroids into the sun. A city located on the sun was being bombarded by these asteroids (We did not know this). We sent a landing party to one of these falling asteroids and they were teleported to another (not falling) asteroid. The crew of the ship decided to wait for the landing party and thus fell into the sun with the asteroid. The GM did not expect this. However that choice of the ship crew resulted in them finding the pre-space flight civilization living in the city on the sun. They chose to take representatives from that city up out of the sun to the spacefaring civilization that was accidentally(?) bombarding the city.

The GM had created the system and granted us players enough agency that we could do silly things like abandon our captain on our ship while the crew chased someone through a portal, and then the captain deciding to wait for the crew even if it meant falling into the sun with the asteroid. The GM did not plan out a linear branching path of choices that included a route to the sun. Instead they relied on their preparation of the location and adjudicated the choices we raised and made. As a result the party used the granted agency, raised choices, and had a sizable impact on the campaign so far. We don't know the extent of the impact of introducing a pre spaceflight civilization to the FTL civilization. So far they have been busy with diplomacy.

[Vahnavoi]

For sure.

Still waiting for an example that is even from the RPG or adventure genre, let alone the tabletop medium.

Example of what?

Emergence? Okay: Lamentations of the Flame Princess module, Weird New World. There is particular sentient aurora that can warp reality based on thoughts and fears expressed by the player characters upon meeting it.

Since it is mostly seen as a random encounter, it is impossible to say exactly when & where it will be encountered in the module, and its effects can be anything from trivial to campaign altering. The sample effect is that of an evil wizard appearing because of players idly wondering about an evil wizard.

It's a great example otherwise too, owing to its nature as a really large hex crawl with climate zones, rules for weather, random encounters for different terrain types, random encounters also keyed to hexes etc..

Except that you wouldn't play it because I doubt you or your players would appreciate such emergent features as player characters getting stuck in an ice floe for three months or getting stranded in the middle of nowhere due to a shipwreck with no way back.

[Cheesegear]

Giving a definition of an Emergent game is much easier that assembling a playgroup merely to write an example post. Even if you do assemble a playgroup to write the example post, how do you convey that information to the reader?

I would contend that if people in this thread play as much RPGs as they appear to, and, if Emergent gameplay is as...Favourable...As people make it seem, by now I should've read dozens of emergent gameplay examples as people try and prove their point about what it looks like, in practice. I haven't, I think, one (which is also the example below)? Not even the OP has an example, just definitions.

So far it's either/and:

a) The players do something that the DM doesn't expect. This is entirely subjective to the DM, their ability to plan their scenarios correctly, their ability to think like their players, and simply a reflection on the amount of introspection the DM is willing to do when creating a scenario. Some DMs might not expect their players to use Mage Hand to solve a problem, and have to react on the spot. Isn't it crazy that the McGuffin is flying!? How will NPCs in the room react? Is it a spooky g-g-g-ghooost!? Another DM might reflect on their players, know that the spellcaster tends to use Mage Hand a lot, and create their scenario using an 11 lb. McGuffin, just to take the solution they've used a lot, off the table.
...I don't like this definition. It's too subjective to the DM and their table. It also really only applies at the scenario level, and not really at the story level. Any DM can have emergent gameplay at the scenario level - if the players are more creative than the DM, they're already halfway there.

b) The DM does little to no prepwork on anything - including maps and RE tables. Content is sort of generated as the DM thinks of it - usually at the prompt of their players. Ideally, the DM doesn't think about the game at all between sessions, but it's probably okay if they do, if they don't write anything down or attempt to commit anything to memory. This works really well for one-shots and 'non-serious' games. But once you start getting to know your players' characters, and like, they actually want to have a story, and a connecting narrative between sessions, and a reason for the things that keep happening, this becomes more and more difficult. Under this framework it seems like the DM eventually - inevitably - must create planned content. Otherwise you'll end up with 'And then...And then...And then...', or just Murderhobos.
I do like this definition. I typically run my first session of a new campaign this way, and only that session. It can work. But I don't think it works long-term. Eventually the DM has to make something in advance.

[NichG]

The point of most RPGs is that the players are the star of the show. That has nothing to do with authored & emergent as alleged ends of an axis.
As to "losing a PC from the campaign doesn't matter" - well, in some campaigns it doesn't.
The PC is dead, they mourn that PC, and the player has/generates/obtains another PC and play continues from that point on. Depending on how far that campaign progressed, there may have been some very memorable scenes/events during the dead PCs tenure, or not. Or, the player rage quits and the campaign goes on without them.
I've seen both, more of the former than the latter.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Of course different campaigns will be different, that's why it's useful to have words to express one's preferences. If we made up two terms but it happened that every game fell into only one of the two, that wouldn't be a useful distinction.

That's something to discuss before play begins.

That's basically what this thread is doing - introducing and explaining an axis of style preference, so that it becomes easier to express e.g. "I don't care as much about agency as I do about emergence" or "I want a lot of choices, but I'd prefer the overall story be carefully authored"

[Stonehead]

OK, this is tricky, so... I'll probably break it down wrong. Be forewarned.

1) You are assuming that [A-L] constitute a range, and aren't simply [Athens, Berlin, Cairo, Delhi, ...].

1a) If [A-L] do constitute a range, then

1a1) liking a "middle ground" is a valid preference

1a2) but having names for the ends of the spectrum is also inherently valid (say, "North" and "South")

1a3) even if a binary segregation ("northern hemisphere", "southern hemisphere")

1a3a) may be entirely arbitrary

1a3b) or may carry unexpected value (current season, direction water drains)

1b) If [A-L] do not constitute a range, then

1b1) the concept of a "middle ground" is invalid

1b2) having a preference for a middle ground is invalid ("I like whichever cities you list in the middle, regardless of which cities you list, or the order in which you list them")

2) What was being described by [A-L] was the outcome of the game, not the style.

2a) If you think that you prefer an outcome "somewhere in the middle" of a supposed binary style...

2a1) my best guess is that you mean you prefer a style which is neither "pure Authored" nor "Pure Emergent", but which lives closer to the boundary of the two? Authored with heavy Emergent, or Emergent with heavy Authored?

2a2) I am curious what traits you believe such outcomes have, that differentiate them from the outcomes of more "pure" Authored or Emergent games.

2b) As a style, "Authored vs Emergent" was described (defined?) as being a binary segregation, with no middle ground. If you disagree with this assessment, I'd be really interested to hear your reasoning.

3) Looking at the content of my post misses the point - my point was about the form of an argument. I was demonstrating how the form of your assertion was not valid, by creating another assertion with the same form. And my example wasn't as odd as it might appear at first glance - remember that the discussion at this point had turned to defining based on "liking" something.

That's an excellent breakdown of your argument, and it's very appreciated. I do take issue with one point though, 1b.

"If [A-L] do not constitute a range, then

1b1) the concept of a "middle ground" is invalid

1b2) having a preference for a middle ground is invalid"

We're getting real abstract here, but [A-L] not being an ordered range (ie: 1 < 2 < 3 etc), and instead being an unordered collection of things (ie: oranges, apples, bananas, grapes) doesn't invalidate a preference for [D-I]. It makes the concept of a "middle ground" nonsensical, but liking "apples and bananas" is just as valid as "oranges and apples", or "bananas and grapes". That's pretty much tangential to the point though.

I've somewhat clumsily explained my reasoning for why it strikes me as a continuum not a binary split across the thread, so I'll try to structure it a bit more.

1) The games I've been in, both as a GM and as a player don't fit cleanly into the classification system. The way it's been described in the thread, Authored games include a DM preparing an expected path of what they think the players will do. Emergent games on the other hand, allow the players to make choices that impact the world in a meaningful way. These aren't mutually exclusive things, and there are definitely DMs who do both. If I was more confident in my DMing skills, I would say I was one of them. To answer 2a2, I described a campaign earlier in this thread where the DM prepared a plot about inter dimensional invaders trying to invade the players' home plane. The players, upon seeing how massive the threat was, decided not to fight, but instead to evacuate everyone from this plane, and lock the door behind them. The DM prepared a fairly linear adventure (authored), and the players chose their own actions that heavily affected the game world (emergent).

More recently, there was a session where a DM prepared two feuding gangs, one of which had something the players needed. The DM prepared a scenario where the players do some favors for gang A in exchange for the mcguffin. Instead, they met Gang A, immediately didn't like the way they acted, and helped Gang B raid Gang A's warehouse and steal the McGuffin. The DM prepped a session with specific encounters (Authored), and yet the players made their own decision to go their own way (emergent).

2) At the point where "Authored with heavy Emergent, or Emergent with heavy Authored" start becoming valid options, the distinction really starts looking like a continuum. If some games are "Pure Authored", some games are "Authored with some emergent aspects", and some games are "Pure Emergent", it is no longer a binary classification, there are things in the middle. "Pure Authored" games must be more authored than "authored with some emergent aspects", which must be more authored than "Pure emergent". In a true binary classification system, "More X" isn't a sensible statement. One true statement can't be "more true" than another, they are both simply true.

I'm sure you could look at my two examples above and classify them as Authored or Emergent, but I think they're clearly not as authored as a module, or as emergent as the types of games the OP described. "not as emergent" doesn't make sense as a phrase in a true binary classification. 1+1=2 isn't more true than 1+2=3.

3) DMs are human beings and traits of human beings very rarely fall into clean binaries. Introversion vs Extroversion are two human traits that exist on opposite sides of a continuum. They are not a completely distinct, binary classification of people however. Everyone is a point on a line, not a checkbox. That's why the phrase "I'm more introverted than Steve" is a coherent thing to say. DMing style, being a human trait, likely works under the same logic.

That doesn't mean the terms are useless, someone saying "I'm an introvert", or "I want to meet more extroverted people" are good, useful things to say. "Introversion and extroversion are two completely distinct ways of being, and all people are either one or the other, with no crossover" is both not a useful statement, and an untrue one. Same thing applies if you swap out "introvert vs extrovert" with "authored vs emergent".

[KorvinStarmast]

That's basically what this thread is doing - introducing and explaining an axis of style preference, so that it becomes easier to express e.g. "I don't care as much about agency as I do about emergence" or "I want a lot of choices, but I'd prefer the overall story be carefully authored"

To which a prospective GM can respond "then why aren't you the GM?" and then where does the conversation go? I am still not sure that the dichotomy presented in the OP is how the conversation needs to begin in the first place. The OP's descriptive system looks to me to be primarily post hoc.
As Stonehead has observed:

1) The games I've been in, both as a GM and as a player don't fit cleanly into the classification system. The way it's been described in the thread, Authored games include a DM preparing an expected path of what they think the players will do. Emergent games on the other hand, allow the players to make choices that impact the world in a meaningful way. These aren't mutually exclusive things, and there are definitely DMs who do both.

I am not sure how, for example, a Call of Cthulhu game can not have a heavily authored element given how that system is set up to be like being in a horror novel. And yet the OP seems to take the position that the a/e tension is system agnostic.

[OldTrees1]

I would contend that if people in this thread play as much RPGs as they appear to, and, if Emergent gameplay is as...Favourable...As people make it seem, by now I should've read dozens of emergent gameplay examples as people try and prove their point about what it looks like, in practice. I haven't, I think, one (which is also the example below)? Not even the OP has an example, just definitions.

You may try to contend that but
a) It does not address the difference in effort required to provide an example for Emergent games rather than Authored games
b) It does not address the difference in effort required to provide a definition of Emergent games rather than an example of Emergent games
c) The definitions are sufficient for us to talk to each other about what the Emergent games look like in practice.

No, I would have been surprised if there was even a dozen examples of emergent campaigns. It is much more efficient to communicate with definitions than with examples.


Of course, if you wanted to encourage people to take the time to do the harder task of giving examples, you could incentivize it by lowering the communication barrier. Remove a few erroneous preconceptions. Take a bit more care to avoid misrepresenting what is said. Adjust your negative tone.

[NichG]

To which a prospective GM can respond "then why aren't you the GM?" and then where does the conversation go? I am still not sure that the dichotomy presented in the OP is how the conversation needs to begin in the first place. The OP's descriptive system looks to me to be primarily post hoc.

Well let's see...

If the prospective GM responds to an honest attempt to communicate preferences with snark, unwillingness to compromise, and 'you have no where else to go' kinds of manipulative remarks, then just don't play with that person and find someone else to play with instead. Congratulations, you just avoided bad gaming.

But if they're more reasonable they could listen and say for example 'Ok, I'll run something in that style' or 'What I was going to run is close to that except X and Y bits, is that okay?' or 'well I really want to run this other thing, but from what you said you probably won't like it, so maybe skip this one and next campaign will be like that' or 'I don't run that way, but Bob does, why not join their game?'

No one is obligated to play with any particular other person. If people can't get on the same page, best to discover that early and rearrange so that people have the kind of gaming they'll enjoy. If someone says e.g. 'I need to plan so that the story is coherent (because I assume everyone prioritizes there being a coherent story)' and someone else says 'I don't want a coherent story, I want things to follow organically', well, that resolved something. Maybe one or the other changes or they go off to play with others or they drop the RPG and play boardgames instead.

[Vahnavoi]

@Stonehead: I feel the level of abstraction is making you miss something obvious here.

Let's suppose there are two processes: a juice machine and a guy named Steve.

The machine can create various soft drinks tasting like fruits. Steve can also create various soft drinks, by going to the market and buying fruits to make into juice. They have some overlap in what kinds of drinks they can make - let's say banana, pear, lemon and pineapple. They also have some non-overlapping options - the machine can make various colas, but Steve can make tomato juice etc.

If you prefer drinks capable of being made by both, all else being equal, it makes no sense to have strong preference for either process. For example, If all you want is banana, pear and lemon juice, either the machine or Steve is sufficient.

If you prefer mostly drinks capable of being made by both, plus some choice only one of them can make, then you favor the process that gets you all drinks you want. For example, if you want banana, pear, lemon juice and cola, you prefer the machine. Steve's ability to produce some drinks you want is irrelevant.

If, instead, you prefer some drinks capable of being made by only one AND some capable of being made only by the other, it again makes no sense to have strong preference for either process. For example, if you want both cola and tomato juice, you need both the machine AND Steve.

At no point do your preferences imply existence of a third, "middle ground" process. There's a continuum for how much you use the machine and a continuum for how much you pester Steve and you can put the two side by side to get yourself a ratio, but there is no continuum of processes. There is just the machine and Steve.

[Tanarii]

As Stonehead has observed:

I am not sure how, for example, a Call of Cthulhu game can not have a heavily authored element given how that system is set up to be like being in a horror novel. And yet the OP seems to take the position that the a/e tension is system agnostic.

Yeah. Take a Linear adventure with plenty of opportunity to branch out and do other things that meaningfully impact the world and make it non-linear. The GM could do a lot of planning on the adventure it self, then start having to wing it as it progresses or the players go do things that are non direct. Mostly authored, some emergent.

A fully emergent game to me would be default Apocalypse World.

Two that blends the two is Forbidden Lands with e Rafen's Purge adventure, or Mutant Year Zero with the Path to Eden story built in. Both with a lot of places detailed carefully and tied together with an overarching story, other places procedurally generated, and both planned events and an underlying story the players can engage with or not as they see fit, changing the world by their decisions. They aren't one or the other or even a spectrum, they have both, sometimes in the same events or location.

[Cheesegear]

it becomes easier to express e.g. "I don't care as much about agency as I do about emergence"

That's fine to say. But as a DM, what do you do.

A player says 'I want an Emergent game.'

The DM says 'Okay,' and then does...What?

It is much more efficient to communicate with definitions than with examples.

Except if someone doesn't agree on the definitions (or more accurately, thinks the definitions are basically distinctions without difference), you need examples to prove your point.

Perhaps more accurately, describing an example of emergent gameplay, basically sounds like nothing, and is just more or less playing the game. A good DM will react quickly to whatever the players do and try to steer them back to the authored content in ways that make sense. 'Remember that time the PCs Intimidated the Goblins into surrendering?' ...Sure. I guess that's emergent gameplay? Is that really so weird a concept that we've dedicated over 10 pages to it, now? Maybe that's not what people are talking about.

Of course, if you wanted to encourage people to take the time to do the harder task of giving examples, you could incentivize it by lowering the communication barrier. Remove a few erroneous preconceptions. Take a bit more care to avoid misrepresenting what is said. Adjust your negative tone.

Players start in a tavern.
The DM expects the players to talk to the barkeep, maybe the bouncer. Has set up a few NPCs for plot hooks.
**** that.
The group's Bard punches the lute-player in the face, takes their spot on the platform 'One, Two, THREE, FOUR!!!', and begins playing, and rolls a 22 for Performance, indicating that whatever they've done, they've probably done successfully.

The DM was not prepared for this. Mentally throws out most of their notes, as the lute-player retaliates because the DM has to address this (or don't they?), a bar fight starts, the Guards are called. NPCs scatter. One of the players, in the confusion, throws a lantern, starting a fire to delay the Guards.
a) The DM did not expect this.
b) Whatever plot hooks the DM had prepared, aren't really relevant anymore. We're now looking at a jailbreak scenario. Possibly a fight to leave the city to become outlaws and bandits.

Wow. Providing examples of emergent gameplay is so hard.
That being said...That's the insane version of emergent gameplay, where anything the PCs do has to be as disruptive as possible.

Alternatively, the right hook, and the roll of 22, means the lute-player simply nods to himself and skulks away. The crowd wants what the crowd wants. It's just business. Nothing happens. The game essentially continues towards the DM's authored content. Even though the player made an emergent decision that the DM didn't really expect, it's not too difficult to explain away if the DM knows what they're doing.

How do the players know what they do - or don't do - actually makes a difference unless the DM makes a Critical Role-esque stupid expression to a non-existent camera, throws their hands up in the air and makes a massive deal out of a small decision? What is emergent gameplay, and how does the DM give it? What does that look like? And, perhaps more importantly, how can a DM who doesn't want to play with emergence, pretend to their players that they actually have agency when they really don't?

PC punches NPC in a tavern:
a) Who gives a ****? Welcome to life. People get punched in taverns all the time. Can we play the game now? Didn't we hear something about Zombies?
b) HOLY ****!? DID YOU SEE THAT!? Suddenly, bar fight. Guards are called. RIOT! Half the town burns down! Such emergence!
c) Nothing happens - right now. But it will be easy enough to slip in an encounter later with the Lute-player and a couple of Thugs. That wont actually change anything. It's another encounter later on in a string of encounters. Of course a PC can punch someone, they made a choice. It's not like that choice really means anything in the long run, though. A disgruntled lute-player doesn't change the fact that there's a Vampire in the town's graveyard.

[NichG]

One way to set out to run an emergent game:

- Determine the major salient aspects of the setting as a whole. What's going to jump out to distinguish the setting from others and provide the things factions might care about or levers of power? Planar alignments driving magical seasons? Recent contact with aliens? Societies dependent on a rare dwindling resource? A new philosophy spreading, with attendant technological or political revolutions? Is it a world in growth, decay, chaos, constraint, etc? Repeat this question at the nation level, regional level, etc, with different answers - either before game or during in response to PC attention.

Write a set of cards specifying 'what is it I can trigger?' for these considerations - a planar eclipse, a spirit beast awakens, etc. Add these to the GM moves deck.

- Determine locations (broadly) and their attributes. Decide what is commonly known about these, and communicate that to the players pre-game.

- Determine the major forces in the setting, their motivations, resources, principal actors, relationships, patterns of awareness, and abilities or powers. Detail as desired now, or as needed during game down to regional, city, etc levels. Decide what is commonly known about these, and communicate that to the players pre-game for any that would be in play where the PCs will start.

For each force in play, create a card to remind yourself to take a turn for that faction. Remove or add those cards as the focus of play shifts.

- Drop the PCs into the world at their starting area and have them describe their character, circumstances, and immediate interests. Play proceeds in rough (macro) rounds where each player takes a turn. Each faction in the active faction deck gets a turn as well, and the GM plays those factions as if they were their character and the GM was a player. The GM also takes a 'world update' turn where they can introduce some new element in response to what has happened, draw an event from their deck of triggers, or just pass.

At each turn, ask the player what they do, or if they seem stuck, ask them 'what do you want to know or look into?'. Determine if there are any needs which must be resolved within a turn to avoid consequences and make sure that's broadcast.

If something someone does in a turn calls for more fine-grained play, leave the round where it is and play the fine-grained stuff out. Improvise or pause to detail on the fly any stat blocks, maps, encounters, items, etc that come up as a result. Get into a habit of running with it, rather than 'let's wait till next session so I have time to prep'

- Make note of what happened in each turn, what each faction could perceive of those events, what might have changed about the world as a result. Consult those notes when taking faction turns.

- Determine things on GM turns based on 'how would this react?' rather than ideas for future scenes or plots. Do not think in terms of telling a story. To the extent that as a GM you desire something from the game, express those desires as questions or themes rather than as outcomes, the same way you'd detail a character's personality rather than detailing their story arc. It won't break emergence to e.g. trigger a volcanic eruption because you wanted to ask 'how does the world deal with disaster?' at some point, but it would if you trigger the eruption because 'I have in mind this scene where the PCs have to rescue their farm workers from the path of a lahar'. Mindset matters here.

Is this the only way to run an emergent game, does it have to be so regimented? No, of course not, you could just take an appropriate attitude, avoid planning scenes or stories, and run your game. This kind of rubric just forces things to be more in that direction.

[OldTrees1]

Except if someone doesn't agree on the definitions (or more accurately, thinks the definitions are basically distinctions without difference), you need examples to prove your point.

You could incentivize it by lowering the communication barrier. Remove a few erroneous preconceptions. Take a bit more care to avoid misrepresenting what is said. Adjust your negative tone.

Until then, you have over 10 pages. If you are actually interested, you can learn about the topic from the conversations other had.

[Cheesegear]

One way to set out to run an emergent game:

- Determine the major salient aspects of the setting as a whole. What's going to jump out to distinguish the setting from others and provide the things factions might care about or levers of power? Planar alignments driving magical seasons? Recent contact with aliens? Societies dependent on a rare dwindling resource? A new philosophy spreading, with attendant technological or political revolutions? Is it a world in growth, decay, chaos, constraint, etc? Repeat this question at the nation level, regional level, etc, with different answers - either before game or during in response to PC attention.

- Write a set of cards specifying 'what is it I can trigger?' for these considerations - a planar eclipse, a spirit beast awakens, etc. Add these to the GM moves deck.

- Determine locations (broadly) and their attributes. Decide what is commonly known about these, and communicate that to the players pre-game.

- Determine the major forces in the setting, their motivations, resources, principal actors, relationships, patterns of awareness, and abilities or powers. Detail as desired now, or as needed during game down to regional, city, etc levels. Decide what is commonly known about these, and communicate that to the players pre-game for any that would be in play where the PCs will start.

For each force in play, create a card to remind yourself to take a turn for that faction. Remove or add those cards as the focus of play shifts.

That sounds like a lot of authoured content.

Each faction in the active faction deck gets a turn as well, and the GM plays those factions as if they were their character and the GM was a player. The GM also takes a 'world update' turn where they can introduce some new element in response to what has happened, draw an event from their deck of triggers, or just pass.

And this isn't authored content? This isn't just DM Fiat?

You could incentivize it by lowering the communication barrier. Remove a few erroneous preconceptions.

Wish people would tell me what those are. So far it's been a lot of 'You don't understand.' and then not explaining further. If someone has tried to explain it, and I just didn't respond, then I'm sorry I missed it. But I'm pretty sure I've responded to everything I've seen that doesn't make sense to me.

Take a bit more care to avoid misrepresenting what is said.

Like I just said; Such as? Remind me again. I don't remember.

If I've misrepresented something, please feel free to re-represent in different words. Or, y'know, provide an example so instead of me thinking what you mean, I can tell what you actually mean.

You'll notice that I spend a paragraph each on the two definitions I'm willing to accept. Both more or less based on what it is said in the OP.

Then I provide an example.

Adjust your negative tone.

Weird. I don't feel negative. Mostly confused, and the more questions I ask and the more holes I poke, the more people tell me I'm stupid... People telling me I'm stupid and then proceeding to not explain why, doesn't make me feel negative at all...Just confused and passive-aggressive...And actually aggressive. But I'd hardly say negative.