I have a question for those who play and run freeform games.  How do you resolve skill/power level?  I see this as applying both in a more fantastic sense, and a more mundane sense.

If you have players with abilities, how do you determine who is better/worse?  What system do you use, and does it work well for you?

it applies both to pvp and pve.  IF you have two players that can sing, or shoot a gun, or sword fight, or ride a horse, who is better?  I understand that some games would simply avoid player versus player direct competition, but it may still come up.  But in the same context, if you have, say, a soldier who is a crack shot; is he a better shot than the enemy sniper?  or a knight in a fantastic setting.  Is he a better swordsman than other knights?  than the kings champion?

it becomes even more murky with fantastic powers.  If a player is a wizard, or sorcerer, or witch, or fantastic being with magical powers, how do you gauge just how powerful they are?  Magic can range from a simple spell to light a candle, to magic that curses or destroys entire peoples.

and do you have a system in place to allow players to get better at these abilities over time?

Just gauging how freeform players/gms handle this issue.  Trying to decide if freeform is best for a few game ideas I have, or if it would be better to find a system that fit them.

Thanks for asking this, I've always wondered.

Along those same lines, is there a general common standard freeform games use, just for player etiquette? How does one know from game to game what the experience is likely to be?

Edit: I'm finding that there's actually a lot about this topic on Wikipedia.
This message was last edited by the user at 00:01, Tue 13 Feb 2018.

I've been in a lot of FF games. That said, in my experience if the GM doesn't trust the players to be fair, it's hard to have a fair game. I would strongly encourage you to look up the rules on various Star Trek sim sites (not posted here 'cause it's against the rules - a few suggestions are Bravo Fleet and Frontier Fleet, both of which I've had dealings with in the past).

The idea is generally not to "win," though, rather it is to tell a story. So the question isn't "Who wins, the guy that's good with a sword or the girl swinging her axe?" it is, "How can we enhance the story through this battle?"

By the same token, the OP asks if a PC crack shot is better than a (presumably NPC) sniper. The answer is: the PC. Why? Because it's a PC. The only time there's an exception is when the story calls for the NPC to be better (and even then he wont kill the PC).

As far as powers, generally speaking there's no reason why they shouldn't always work (barring, again, story reasons). What purpose does it serve to have the magician fail at casting a light spell? If there's no benefit, why bother? If the benefit is a better story? Bam! Spell fails.

Players should just get better over time, and show the growth process in their writing.

Engine, same deal - look up Star Trek simulations. The rules they have tend to work pretty well.

The long and short of freeform gaming is - you need writers. If the players have no interest in writing, it's not going to be enjoyable for anyone involved. FF games aren't really designed for "John looked at her silently." "She shot the man. (I rolled a 6.)"

Edit: Also, the depending on the setting the highest ranking character (ie, captain, etc) is usually NPCd by the GM, which gives him/her a great deal of control over the game and how it proceeds, as well as in-character progression.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:09, Tue 13 Feb 2018.

I have been the primary GM for one Freeform Game for about six years now.

In my view, these types of games are mostly about talk, and there is usually input from more than just one GM as to how plots start, develop, and work out. Then, there are 'initiatives' in which a group of player characters gather to do something along these same lines vs. NPCs.

Each day of game time takes three months of 'real time', so these both can get tricky.

Now there are some game systems that I really would like to try that have a hierarchy of abilities for character creation that would permit players to assign values to these in the Freeform format. Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to do much on this; but it is on my list of wants here on RPol.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:50, Tue 13 Feb 2018.

I really don't like this line of thinking. Why must the PCs be the best? Why should they be so much better than everyone else? Also, why should there be such an aversion to PC death? Many stories feature protagonists that are average people that succeed via luck, chance, or simply being in the right place at the right time.

Further, while narrative is nice, why does everyone shy away from more "pure" roleplaying, as in games where the players are not there to make a good story but rather are there to experience being the protagonists, to be able to say "I don't open the door cause I just know the monster is in there." All those scenes in movies where you groan at the stupidity of the characters, well now you get the chance to be that character, are you just as dumb? To me, this is my favorite way to play, yet it seem harder and harder to find people who get it and acknowledge it's validity as a style of play distinct from collaborative storytelling or narrative wargaming.


Anyway, for me, the entire point of using any kind of system is to resolve the very questions the OP asks. The system measures these things, acting as a way to describe what a character is capable of which aids in maintaining character consistency and communication about the characters and world, not to mention how it helps the inclusion of a random element which has benefits of it's own.

My experience with freeform is limited, but that is in large part because freeform lacks any play aids for these things, which for me has led to inconsistent characters and settings, poor communication and confusion.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:44, Tue 13 Feb 2018.

Thanks for the explanations. As a fan of improv theater, I like the idea of freefrom in general, but I think I'd have to work with a group to narrow down a theme we'd stick to.


Would this result in the PC still being "better" (as in, succeeding over the NPC) but for a diffrent reason than pure skill?


I'd say the simple answer is because, as dumb as it might be (and some movies and stories are better at this than others) not opening the door is boring. Extend that out to the rest of the story. Why go to the haunted house in the first place? Why become a paranormal investigator? Those choices, in so far as they're likely to lead to even the opportunity to make a dumb choice, are also dumb. Anything other than just living a normal, uneventful life, is likely to be "dumb."

Granted, there are some people who like to roleplay normal, uneventful lives. More power to them, I say. But generally, doing the thing we wish the characters in the stories would do is going to lead to, if nothing else, shorter stories. Is that what we want? Do we want the marines to be able to take off and nuke the site from orbit, or are we glad when events conspire to prevent them?

There are shows and stories that I enjoy only by deciding, yeah, okay the details surrounding the trouble they're in right now are ridiculous, but I want them to be in trouble, so something had to give. I can often even imagine what that something might have been, so that, to me, it's still plausible for them to be in the exciting situation and for me to still think of them as smart.

Roll Play and Role Play are at opposite ends of a spectrum. It is difficult for either type of player to see what works for the other. Some of us stand between the two and can see both sides.

As Big Brother says, Freeform requires an entirely different mindset. You are not there to win a game, you are there to tell a story together.

It's like asking who is the best, you or your wife? If you're even asking that question, you're in the wrong relationship. You're not there to compete, you're there to collaborate.

If you're writing a novel, how do you determine whether the protagonist or the antagonist is the better sword fighter? The character who wins the fight is the one whose winning will best enhance the story. They may not always win. They may win now only to be defeated later, but these twists are included because they make the story better.

The skillfulness of a character will be determined by the story as it is told, not decided by a roll of dice at the start.

@ DLH, this story is the occasion when the PCs were in the right place at the right time, that's why they win. There wouldn't be much point in telling the story if the bad guys wasted them in Chapter One, would there?

@ Azzuri, I'd be happy to discuss light rules systems for midway games, if you're willing.

Games in the middle ground can often include Character Sheets that define the character up front, and simple dice rules that are only used for combat. The rest of the time, the game is about personal interactions.

No.

I understand the desire for creative writing, and of cooperative writing.  I fully understand that the goal of most freeform games is to create an enjoyable story together.

But I also know people are competitive by nature.  People also disagree on what us fun, and what makes a good story.  So you will inevitably end up with situations where, say, several knight players go to war and all want to defeat the enemy champion.  Or two players compete to win the affection of one NPC.

How do you decide who wins?  I understand some players would be willing to lose to another to make a good story.  But many other players wouldn't be happy with that.

So in your games how has this been resolved?  Has it always worked for you?  Have you had problems?

How do you resolve situations where a player believes his character should be able to accomplish something, but others disagree?

You are explaining freeform games in broad strokes, the philosophy behind it.  That I already understand.  I am asking for examples of how this was resolved in practice.

If the ground rules for the game is that character can die at another player's decision, then everyone involved should be the kind of person who is happy about it.

Here's one such set of ground rules I found:
http://www.imaginechat.com/creed.shtml


I haven't done any free-form, really, but I could imagine one approach would be "If it has been stated, then it has happened." Others can "disagree" but they can't prevent it after the fact. If they wanted to be in a position to prevent things, they'd have to be able to point to something they had stated that would prevent it. If X wants to prevent Y from shooting B, X needs to say "I position myself to be able to stop Y from harming B." If X has superspeed or a magic spell, maybe that "position" is on the other side of the football field, or in another dimension, but the point is that they've established their "fictional positioning" and it can probably be generally agreed that if Y tries to shoot B, X will be able to intevene in some way.

What wouldn't work would be for Y to shoot B and then for X to say "But I was in a position to stop that" when X didn't specify that. Maybe X has superspeed and is standing right next to B, but without that positioning X is out of luck. (Probably, any character with superspeed would have had some overarching description relevant to the story that always lets them react, but without that, well, I guess they're just not quite super enough).

So, basically, it could be (roughly) about precedence.

Which doesn't necessary leave X entirely at Y's mercy. X has narrative power too, and can potentially add to Y's fiction. Unless Y has established that they're a crack shot with an intimate knowledge of anatomy, there's potentially room for X to state that that the shot, while injurious, hasn't killed B outright. It probably depends on the game whether or not and what X can add on to Y's fiction. But that would be my preferred flow of things: you can't block fiction, but you can add on to it.

An exception I would make would be if a PC were taking action against another PC. In that case, my preference would be to let the targeted PC decide the outcome of that action. If the outcome somehow redirects it back to the first PC (or some other PC), that PC gets to decide the outcome. In theory, one could extend this to aspects of the game beyond one's own character. If, in the above example, B is somehow crucial to X, X could get to decide everything about how Y's action played out - until Y would be suffering the consequences.

Obviously something like that could be gamed by a dedicated person, or could lead to oddness even between well-meaning people, but I think the overriding expectation is that players will sort things out among themselves.

I've found that conflict in Freeform often boils down to GM fiat. Now legitimizing the ruling is the tricky part.

Some games I have been in have fallen down to secret ballot. Each of the players involved (but not the competing pair) send a vote in to the GM(s) by PM with their reasoning.

Players who want to accomplish something need to explain how, exactly, their character is capable of that.

I have played in games where the GMs ask PCs to quantify skills with an adjective. They can only have so many superlative skills after all. If you have a rank system that goes, say, Untrained-Apprentice-Journeyman-Expert-Master-Genius-World Class then the PC will have to understand that even a Master Swordsman is not defeating a World Class swordsman anytime soon. The old White Wolf system of giving a short descriptive paragraph to denote general ability can be helpful.

Some GMs I have played with have basically gone with pure fiat justifying it that they go with logic first, narrative second and hilarity third. This has caused problems though when the GM has a posse that goes from game to game. Newcomers might not even try or become quickly disheartened because all of us are only human.

For example I was in a House of Cards style RP where I was tasked with playing the lead villain. His job was to put up obstacles in front of some of the other PCs. Problem was that this involved manipulating the President who was a GM NPC. Normally quite doable for most freeforms. The trick was that the head of the Democratic Caucus (the main PC) was also a GM who played the President. So I am effectively asking him to rule against himself. So when arguments could not be won, the President would simply ignore my character, be called away for meetings or just be unavailable.

Ultimately if you have plenty of players who are trying to "win", then the freeform game can quickly become untenable. This usually requires swift action by the GM. For example by introducing new love interests, making the PCs natural allies as a third force appears to muck up their plans or simply embroil them in events bigger than themselves so that they can have victories without stepping on the toes of other PCs.

Truth be told, two or more players who must win at all times for any reason will quickly break a freeform game. When other players are writing nuanced, fallible characters and they are playing Wesley Crusher and Ensign Mary Sue things can get out of control fast. At that point the GM has the option of containing them, kicking them out or pray that the other players are remarkably mature.

Ultimately clarity and communication is the key. Why exactly did the GM make this call, how can the player justify that his character is capable of accomplishing this feat. If the players are second guessing themselves all the time then it will have a chilling effect on the game. This is especially true if the GM has ruled against something that is genre convention. In a Batman game, ruling that people can't traverse by using whips and grappling hooks will have the players look at each other in puzzlement and be quite unsure of what their characters actually can do for example.

I wasn't just talking about PVP.  I'm talking about disagreeing on where the story should go.  Unless you guys are playing games where the entire character arc is agreed upon before the game begins, you're inevitably going to run into a situation where a player or players want to do something that the gm or other players don't want.  If one layer's whole goal in joining the game is to play out a story of a lonely knight finding redemption and marrying the widowed queen, and another player wants to overthrow said queen and rule the land, one of them is not going to get what they want.  So how do you decide which story to follow? Who decides what makes the best story?

If it is simply GM fiat, has that worked for freeform gms in the past?  have they had players complain, or quit?  How have you managed through it?

Togashi, you posted while I was writing my response, but your answer is much more of what I was looking for.  so perhaps use a system where everyone gets a certain amount of, say, good skill points, so they can only be so good at so much?  something like that?

Everything I'm reading is indicating that players who want freeform to work don't have goals like that. The characters might have that goal, but the player's goals are different. A player would play their character in the direction of the character's goals, and when these bumped into someone else's goals, then lots of sub-goals would arise. A player who has come to the game only willing to see one outcome hasn't really come to the game in good faith.

Edit: Come to think of it, a player who comes to almost any game with a "whole goal" for their character that doesn't take into account the vagaries of the rules, the other players and the GM, is probably going to have a hard, conflicting time as things develop.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:35, Tue 13 Feb 2018.

then that makes me even more confused, honestly.  Because everyone talking about the philosophy of Freeform is talking about working together to create a good story.  That would imply to me that each player has an idea of what sort of story they want to play.  So how do you figure out where to take the story?

and I'm not saying the example players only want one outcome. I was just giving an example.  Generally speaking, all players will have expectations of what they want to do with their character.  Those expectations will inevitably clash.  I wanted to know how Freeform players and GMs handle that clash, and how it has worked for them.

In general when two conflicting goals clash, it is good to sit down the players about why their characters pursue those goals.

In the example given, the knight marries the widowed queen and tries to rebuild the kingdom while another PC wants to depose her and become king. The former's story is a classical chivalric romance but how about the latter? He or she wants power, yes. With a new king on the throne, he could take power simply by becoming the chancellor or the local archbishop. Power will come but not as immediate as he would like. In the first place, why not court the queen himself if he wanted the crown? If he cannot be king, perhaps the PC could turn his efforts to ruling the criminal underworld, becoming a de facto power. There are plenty of means to satisfy the PC's ambitions that I think a reasonable player can agree to.

Ultimately I believe that most freeform players are attracted to such games because they have a kind of story they want to tell. Usually it is not such a hard and fast tale that it cannot abide divergence (at that point you might as well write a novel) so work with the players and usually some sort of compromise can be had.

As for fiat, it can be clunky. It falls to the GM explaining well the rulings and appearing impartial. Votes and ballots can also work since the story is shaped by the majority of the players.

I do think that giving out ranks or points to quantitate skills does work for some freeform games. There are no dice involved so they only serve to show relative levels of skill. Another system I remember is that each PC has a number of points they can invest in scenes. The more they invest, the more the scene goes their way. Every chapter or so they get a new allotment of points so it allows a canny player to save up and have a big effect at a crucial moment.

Do players complain or quit? Sometimes. There will always be those who will do so unless everything goes their way. I find that if players are well aware of what they signed up for, they generally are more congenial about it. If they know that they are minor nobles and that they will have to play a balancing game around the interests of the great nobles, then they would be fine with that. Spring it on them suddenly and many would baulk, seeing it as a fait accompli or the GM acting in bad faith.

If it's anything like improv theater, then it's like I said above: one person states something and everyone else builds off of that. Unlike improv, there's probably a lot of discussion up front and during the game and I imagine that goes like most other constructive discussions, with give and take, with an overall goal of compromise. Players who see that one player isn't getting anything they want are probably somewhat obligated to send a little in that person's direction.


"Expectations" is, I think, the wrong word. In a game with a lot of numbers, where things are balanced, and players can have a pretty good bead on things even though they have little direct control, then they can "expect" to get a certain outcome. "I'm going to take the two-weapon fighting tree, and then this rad paragon path, finishing with this epic destiny," might be a fair thing to expect in such a game, less so in a freeform game, even apart from the rules terms.

Or, apart from rules, on might make a tough-guy in a game and "expect" to get some good punches in. But to "expect" anything beyond that is just asking for clashes. If that tough were in a position where he was definitely going to die, rather than retire to coach boxers, but he's going to get some good punches in as he goes down, then the player should probably be reasonably satisfied.

I don't mean to pick on your wording, but I think it might be part of the confusion.

But you're sort of arguing with my wording and not actually addressing what I'm asking.

  I tried to join a freeform game a while back.  I went into it hoping to play a wizard struggling against a curse on his family line, and slowly giving in to darker powers in the hopes of breaking it to save his family.

that was my character pitch.  That is a hoped for character arc.  The game didn't get off the ground, but I entered it hoping to play something along those lines.

I assume many players enter freeform games with similar story ideas.  The type of game they want to play, the type pf character they want to be.  But those hoped for arcs will come into conflict in game when players start interacting.  So how do you decide which story works best?

as you said, it WILL lead to clashes.  That's what I am asking about.  How did games resolve those clashes.  They will always happen, because we're human. So what have people done to make it work?

As I said, I didn't mean to be doing that, but one's approach (which can be reflected in wording) matters.

Conflict can't be entirely avoided, but it can be reduced, and one way to reduce it (as is handled in improve) is to minimize one's preconceived ideas. If you establish that your wizard is cursed and is slowly giving in to it in hopes of breaking it to save his family, that's fine. That's just how things are now. But if five minutes into the game the paladin lays on hands and lifts the curse, then that's what happens. You, as the player, shouldn't have a problem with that, assuming no one promised you that arc, or even encouraged you to expect it to happen.

Maybe it's a misunderstanding, though, and you would have established upfront that the curse couldn't be broken that way, or maybe the GM, knowing the arc you hoped for, steps in and negates it. If curing everyone in sight was the paladin's arc, well, I guess the GM who let both of those arcs into the same story is probably prepared to deal with that.

Other than that, there's any number of ways. Random selection, GM fiat, GM fiat along with telling one player to describe what happens, something unexpected happening to interrupt the conflict, heck, even the end of that game and the immediate start of a new one. The conflict might be just that epic that no one sees anywhere else to take the story.

But the point is that it's about creating the story. If no one creates huge chunks of the story beforehand, lots of potential conflict goes away.

Communication can also be key. If you talk to the other players, see how thing could fit in with what they are doing and mesh stuff. Since unless your playing a solo game it can't all be about just you. There will be clashes with each other but if you reach out, I think that might help.

<Chuckles> The bane of Freeform games is the player whose RTJ says/implies that we wants something that is too selfish to work in a cooperative Freeform format.

Usually, he wants a one-on-one game with a GM. Freeform games don't work like that.

Or he wants to oppose a whole bunch of NPCs, in effect cause trouble with GM NPCs.

Even worse, he wants an opportunity to screw with a whole bunch of PCs, perhaps anonymously, who have been on the game for some time! Why should a GM agree with this!?

Having GM'd my one game for 6 years, I have a pretty good idea what character will work and what won't.

Such an RTJ is rejected out of hand unless the player is willing to change it. And, if that player lies, gets accepted, then reverts, he just gets deleted...

Engine, I get that. I also understand there are many ways to resolve it.  My post was asking freeform gms and players of experiences handling it, and what worked best.

and again, I'm not talking about my expectations for playing a game.  but in ALL roleplaying games, players have expectations. They quit over those expectations all the time.

 Players join a scion game hoping to fight big monsters.  The game ends up bogging down in a back and forth game of social interaction that the other players are really enjoying.  SO the one hoping to fight monsters vanishes.

players join a vampire game hoping to fight against the prince and overthrow him, when the story setting is that the prince was intended as their one true ally.  So the player ends up setting himself up at the beginning to conflict wit hthe entire party.

The D&D game that takes too long to get out of combat, or takes to long to get into combat, so players start vanishing.

Or players who make one aspect of their character much more of a focus than the GM realized until after the game starts, and finds that that one characteristic really doesn't fit well in game.  I had a player years ago decided several months into the game that her character would never be taken alive as a prisoner, and would rather fight to the death.  This was discovered after my story plan, which had already reached the point of her inevitable capture, was for her to be taken alive, only to discover the captors were good guys and they all end up working together.  But her insistence that she would rather fight to the death meant either I kill her, or kill my main plot plan.  Really an expectation about the game that should have been discussed prior to that point.

My whole post was to ask how freeform gms and players have handled these problems in the past, and how it has worked for them.  I am not asking for general ideas on how it COULD work, but how it has, or hasn't.  To simply say 'well, those players have unrealistic expectations' is to dismiss the problem I am addressing.  You might not always know their expectations until it leads to conflict, so it would still have to be dealt with.

and for clarification, my wizard character concept was put up as an ad in GM Wanted, that's why the game was created, so I guess it wasn't an unreal expectation for that gm.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:37, Tue 13 Feb 2018.

Maybe not, or maybe they just assumed it wasn't. You mentioned one situation above in which a GM had an expectation that didn't pan out because of player decisions.

If you were a player in one of the conflicts you're imagining, what possible resolutions would you accept? Would you undertake any kind of resolution yourself? Maybe the answer is you wouldn't accept any, and wouldn't offer any, in which case I don't think there's anything anyone might suggest that is going to work for you. Anything that has worked for anyone has worked because of agreement and compromise. Someone could give you an anecdote, but would that help you?

I understand. My character was, I thought, a friend of another PC. Then, out-of-the-blue, it seemed that that character put himself in danger, mine tried to rescue him at no small effort, but then he 'died' anyway- without the apparent understanding/agreement of the GM!

What a mess.

Engine, I'll say this again.  I'm not asking for hypotheticals.  I'm asking for actual examples of what worked and what didn't.  anecdotes is exactly what I am asking for.  If a gm that runs freeform games has used the same method over and over to resolve problems, and it works, that's what I want to hear.  Or if it didn't work, what might work better.

People keep saying over and over again 'work together to create the best story.'  How do you decide what is the best story if there are several people's opinion on it?  I'm trying to see how it has actually worked in the past.



you're really throwing a lot of what you think I'm doing into your posts, and it just isn't what this is about.  It's actually coming from decades of gming games, but never gming a game that didn't have some sort of built in way to resolve issues.  So I'm asking what people have used in freeform games instead of dice rolls, etc, that has worked for them.  make sense?

and yes, I have expectations for games.  When you run a game, you always have expectations of how it will go, what type of game and story you want to play through.  That's why you work to pick the players that best seem to fit that idea, and eliminate player applications that go against the type of game you want to run.  But players also make decisions in game that go totally against what you thought they'd do, leading you to have to change.  Or leading to conflict.  Those conflicts are what I'm asking about.

Depends on the subject of the game. For Freeform I don't allow a motley crew of people to be present. If its a game about seasoned wizards then everyone is a seasoned wizard, if its about newly turned werewolves then everyone is both a werewolf and newly turned.



All player characters are inherently equal unless some obvious disadvantage or advantage changes that. Using the wizard example from before if you are a wizard who focused almost exclusively on glamours and another wizard is immune to mind altering then you don't have anything to bring to the table. That also brings up a point of always balancing powers with weaknesses, skills with ineptitudes.



PvE or PvNPC more correctly: The PC is superior to the common person unless they are common people. A sniper is a better shot that your local gun enthusist and the knight is a better swordsman that a brigand. Unless the NPC has some reason to be superior then they aren't. The King's Champion is literally the champion of the kingdom. Unless it's beneficial to the story for the PC to be greater (a.e. they are primed to take their place or need to defeat to them) then the NPC is superior.

PvP: If the game is about PvP then I judge exclusively off powers/weaknesses and roleplaying. If Player A and B are both "sword masters" but Player A tells me he "swipes for their neck" and B tell me "they parry the blow upward and turn the motion into a fluid downward blow across the chest" then B succeeds. This is also why I require my players to clarify all powers, skills, etc. with flavor text. A bandit king trying to fight a knight in a fair fight has probably lost. Regardless of how "swordmaster"y they might think themselves they aren't superior to a knight who has had the benefit of years of proper training, conditioning, etc.



Magic in a freeform game must have rules. It has to obey some convention regardless of how diceless it is. If you have a theurge who says they can summon angels to do their bidding then there needs to be equivalent conditions. So you summon a Seraph then 1) you have no other magical potential 2) this isn't going to be instant or propless (gestures, hymns, the whole nine). Always layout how a particular magic will work before the game even begins. These rules should be immutable unless something narratively changes that.



I do. I do all improvements narratively. I put obstacles in the path of my players that went they overcome them they are granted some permanent boon. Magic characters can also seek out more spells and such, which typically warrants a side quest more than a trip to the library. I've also seen people awarded a out-of-universe improvement resource (XP, Spheres, Influence, etc.) You get a base amount each week based on your activity + roleplaying bonus. Players that post more and better get appropriately rewarded.

Its not equal and that's the point.

I hope that answers all your questions but bare in mind all of this stems from my own personal experience as both a GM and player.

thank you, that's honestly exactly the sort of thing I was asking for.

No problem. Hope its helpful.

I wrote this long message, very deep, yadda yadda yadda. But I generally agree with Togashi and everything s/he's said (and engine to a greater or lesser degree). But I think the most important point of this entire thread is:


I can't stress this enough.

So that brings up another related question for those who run freeform games.  How much pre-planning do you do with your players?  How much do you talk out behind the scenes?  What seems to work best for you in that respect?

My two games are historical, so players, as well as the GMs, can research most items of concern themselves. I make everyone aware of the few things in which there is an 'alternate reality'.

We have a GM Thread in which the GMs may present ideas for discussion, for immediate things as well as for things that may be needed/occur in the future. Each GM has an interest/expertise for certain areas, and who is mainly responsible for creating/posting for his/her own NPCs. GMs come (and go) from the established players.

A few of the circumstances/NPCs were established at the start of the game 7+ years ago, like ownership of land, certain buildings, and a modus operandi for the main NPCs. Some of these have undergone minor changes after GM and player discussions.

A few things require much pre-planning and talk behind the scenes among players and GMs, but many are left up to the players themselves- after an ok from the GM first, of course.

I think a fundamental point is that freeform games (like most others) are about something. The GM will only accept pitches that are in line with the proposed story arc - and yes, there is often a story arc in all but the most anarchic freeform games.

As pnvq12 says, if it’s a game about rookie werewolves, the PCs are rookie werewolves. If the game is about a group of apprentice wizards on their first quest, no PC will be allowed to pitch a wizard with reality-bending powers. The whole point of a freeform game is that nobody is significantly better than anyone else - particularly if PvP is allowed (this, itself, is something to be discussed (or laid down by the GM) in advance.

Pnvq12 also made some very good points about commonsense grading of characters. The best brigand is not going to defeat a knight unless some rationale is created in the story to say why he should.

As you said, in all games, there are people whose ideas don’t fit with the game, and they are either ejected or they eject themselves. Eventually, you end up with a group of players who can tell a story together, so your question of ‘what if they don’t’ is moot. Players who insist that their brigand can defeat a knight are not going to last long in the game, one way or the other.

You already know what works or doesn’t work in freeform, and how it's all figured out, from the freeform games you LARPed as a kid. When you played cops and robbers, how did you decide on the scale of the robbery? How did you decide what weapons the characters carried? What happened to the kid who insisted that his cop always knew where the robbers hideout was? Didn’t play with you for very long, did he? Or maybe he was given a ‘wedgie’ and learned how to co-operate...
End result was a group of kids who played nicely together and had fun, and a bunch of misfit loners who didn’t.

As with any Rpol game, the GM is in charge, and s/he decides who gets to play.

Virtually none. If the game pitch allows for players to pursue individual goals then I have them present those as a part of their RTJ and flesh out those as need be. I prefer short term goals over long term ones because they never see the light of day.



Most of GM-PC conversation occurs behind the scenes. I think OOC communication leads to two things if used for "talking": confusion/miscommunication & the sowing of discontent. I only publicly make announcements in OOC but have also used dedicated threads in larger games.

icosahderon made some good points in their response that I'll highlight again in brief with some considerations.



Always overshoot how many people you think you will need/maintain. I expect at least 2 RTJs to fall through before acceptance and 1-3 players to fall out at some point during play. Never put a plot point on a single character, they will fail you. Include a rule about inactivity and puppetting. I have a 21 day inactivity policy before removal and a statement that clarifies admittance into the game is your consent to removal and official notice.



If you have no other rules then have this one plain as day. Rule 0 is law. If you don't like what the GM is doing then send a PM. If it can't be corrected then remove them from the game. Be fair in your judgement though, power and responsibility and all that.

This is finally a conversation I can sink my teeth into.

In short, the answer is it requires people who really know their characters and what they can do, and how things will look when played out.

I see each free form game as part chess, part dance.  If I as a player can make an attack, my oppoent will have to react in some way as according to her abilities, if she can with those abilities figure out a way to dodge or block it, it will fail to hit, and then I must react to how they dodge blocked/countered it.

For example, say I am a fighter, and i swing a sword at someone's chest while kicking at their knee cap.

the other person would have to figure out a way to avoid the sword blow, and the knee attack, they could hop back, but that might leave them on shakey footing, they could spin out of the way and try to kick me as I extend myself into the attack, they could attempt a back flip timed to hit me as I come forward, hell instead of hoping they could Jump, (which is a bad move unless your in DBZ because once in the air changing direction is near impossible  without help.)

either way, however they react, I will need to figure out how to dodge/counter/block their reaction.  This will continue until one of us can't figure out how to D/C/B once that happens a Hit is scored, and damage is dealt.

This goes on until one person is to damaged to continue the fight.

The method requires A) People who know their characters abilities and Limits and B) People who are responsible and can visualize how things play out. C) Very descriptive people.  But it's my preferred way of RPing.


Edit: Just saw this:



This again comes to a chess battle/ dance, Just on a grander scale, each player making a move and counter move, to their goals, the story that plays out, is the one whose able to outwit and outplay the other.
This message was last edited by the user at 02:18, Thu 15 Feb 2018.

No.

If Freeform Games had all of these rules, they would not be freeform Games. If you want to do all of this stuff, use a rules system. There are plenty out there.

I find no system that doesn't rely on luck.. I kinda like the system I use, works well for me and my roommate, thanks for your opinion though.

If by "luck" one means the element of random chance usually injected by dice in most systems, yeah, I get that.

The closest I've seen to an actual system that might work for freeform is FAE (Fate Accelerated Edition).  It gives a lot of structure, and even helps set up the game if you work through it.  It's a light enough rule system that the feel is very free, but there's enough crunch (barely) to define the limits of "let's pretend" for the game.

I might look into FAE, because you're right I do mean dice, i know the way I wrote it, it's based on Skill, which me and my roommate like.  We tend to try and figure out how things would realistically work out and use that in our games.