Sometimes, disclaim decision-making

Sometimes, disclaim decision-making

Sometimes, disclaim decision-making

I’m reading this text in AW 2, and the principle is written to focus on what to do about someone dying. It’s all very instantaneous and focused on something very concrete about what will happen in the fiction. What will happen to this victim’s life. E.g.,

You can (2) put it in the players’ hands. For instance, “Dou’s been shot, yeah, she’s shuddering and going into shock. What do you do?” If the character helps her, she lives; if the character doesn’t or can’t, she dies. You could even create a custom move for it, if you wanted, to serve the exact circumstances. See the moves snowball chapter, page 126, and the advanced fuckery chapter, page 270.

My prior, hazy understanding of this principle was that sometimes, as an MC, if you have to make a decision about what’s true in the world or what someone thinks or even what someone would do, you can ask the protagonist players to answer it. That is, it’s not just about concretely, “What happens now in the fiction.”

Was my prior understanding wrong? Am I reading this too closely, and my prior reading was correct? Is it something else?

17 thoughts on “Sometimes, disclaim decision-making”

  2. Christopher Wargo – My current understand is I don’t have one locked down and I’m trying to clarify that.

    The way I read the piece I quoted, this principle is for “what to do about this fictional event right now.” I suspect that’s too narrow, but I’m not sure.

    I’m curious whether it still (or ever) also means “what is true about the world or people” rather than an immediate fictional question. I always thought it did, but reading this text makes me doubt that.

  4. Yeah, I’m counting “both” as “right” for the poll, because what I meant was “does it include both” even though I didn’t put that in there.

    Does that clarify things? 🙂

  5. The 1st edition text is nearly identical, as is the quoted example. I do feel like “put it in the players’ hands” is what might be tripping this up – it should probably say “put it in the PCs’ hands”.

    Your understanding of the principle seems to be closer to “Ask questions, build on the answers” or whatever.

    By way of contrasting, here’s the similar principle from Uncharted Worlds:

    https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/DtF7aMGA3nfXHvqX-d_5pLlYgwH5SAwQRmCh_Jl3C6WHrgJD_JYGe3lQxfO5euTA0DrSKCih28ICM9U=s0

  8. Robert Bohl, two things:

    1. “put it in the players’ hands” applies to the fictional event happening. Does this person die? Let the players’ actions decide. This is literally what the quoted passage says (on my reading).

    2. “what is true about the world or people” is captured by “turn their questions back on them” and other similar components in the system. “I don’t know, what DO the burn flats look like?” (again, my reading). So you’re not wrong.

  9. I don’t think I can authoritatively say what’s “right” and “wrong”, but what works for me is:

    1. If there’s some immediate narrative consequence that I don’t want to decide, I might ask the players through their characters in the way illustrated by your quoted example. Whatever their characters do decides the outcome. (I wouldn’t, though, just ask the players out-of-character what they think should happen – otherwise it feels a bit anticlimactic.)

    2. If there’s some feature of the world, that isn’t about immediate narrative consequence, that I don’t want to dictate, I might ask the players, out of character. “Hey so what do you use for currency?” “What’s life like outside the townships?” “Is Damien’s temple well defended, or what?” etc.

    3. If there’s some NPC behaviour (which is what I read from your “what someone thinks or even what someone would do”) that I don’t want to decide, I probably wouldn’t ask the players via either method. There’s not an obvious way for their characters to influence the answer (unless there is, in context) but also asking them out of character feels like they’re getting too much influence over the narrative and it gets anticlimactic, like in 1. If it’s not obvious from the NPC’s existing personality, I’d pick a single keyword / feature of how they tend to behave, and hope that answered my question – and/or look to the other principles to give me an appropriate answer.

    I’m not sure if that answers your question? But I hope it helps!

  10. Sometimes you ask the PCs what the Abondo Family’s thing is and they tell you “they run a cleanliness cult, systematically exterminating the diseased. They have the only medicine in the hold, but they refuse to circulate among the sick.” That’s you wanting to know what those NPCs — the world — is like, but its not really about making decisions, I would say.

    Disclaim Decision Making, to me, is specifically about when the players are expecting you to tell them what happens next. The NPC has been gut-stabbed. Someone tossed a diseased-corpse in the water supply. Someone just fucked the Hardholder’s psychic advisor. They want to know “hey, dude, what happens next? This is the part where we care about what happens, and you’re the guy who has to tell us.” And sometimes you tell them. You make a move, bam. You know exactly what goes down. But other times, no, you divorce yourself from it, for one reason or another. And that’s when the countdowns, using an NPC’s perspective, or inviting action from the PCs comes from.

  11. Alfred, it sounds like you’re saying I’m wrong. That DDM is not about what’s true in the world, but what happens right now in the fiction. Is that a correct read of what you’re saying?

  12. I meant to go back to the top of my thing and put “i had trouble parsing your question, so i’m going to type some stuff and hope it makes sense.”

    I would say “right now” might be too fine a point for me to agree on. I mean, sometimes you use DDM to make a countdown, right? And that’s got nothing to do with right now, it has to do with whenever that countdown fills up. You don’t have to go “do you save this NPC or do they die?” because sometimes you go “oh shit, they’re bleeding out and you’re in the middle of the Burn Flats with no supplies. You want to get them back to town, you say? Okay, well, the Diesel Death Dealers are between here and there… lets put a clock on this NPC’s gaping, bleeding, oozing wound and see if you can make it.”

    I guess I’m saying DDM is about the ramifications of the player’s actions. DDM is a reactionary principle. Its about the PCs do X and you have to do Y and how you get to Y. You don’t have to get to Y right this instant. You don’t have to get there in the next scene. But you’ll get there soon enough. I think that’s what I’m trying to say.

  14. Yes, I think so. Its not asking PCs what is true or real or whatever, its telling them what is true or real in a particular way.

    You as the GM don’t want to decide if ChumFucker dies from his oozing wound. You tell the PCs “he probably won’t die if someone helps him. What do you do?” Disclaimed decision making.

    You don’t want to decide if ChumFucker bleeds out in the back of the RV as it pulls a sick 360* spin going over HellGorge in the Burn Flats. You tell the PCs “this is a clock, and I’m filling it in whenever ChumFucker’s wounds get worse… that sick 360* definitely counts.” Disclaimed decision making.

    You don’t want to decide if, back in the infirmary, ChumFucker is killed by his enemies while he’s vulnerable. You ask yourself ‘could they get to him? could they pay off the doc? could they get the guard to go away?’ and you come up with an answer. You tell the PCs “the next day, you find ChumFucker with a scalpel driven through his eye. Bummer, y’all. The doc looks skittish and panicky and he won’t make eye contact with any of Dusk’s security force for the next week.”

    DDM is ways of telling the PCs what is going on, if you feel the need for authority outside of “I’m the MC and I say so.”

  15. When I think of the whole “disclaim decision making” it brings up a number of things: (in no particular order)

    1) If you don’t want to come up with info about something let the players do it for you. This is the whole:

    Player: Do the Elves have some kind of great library?

    MC: I don’t know, you’re playing an Elf, you tell me.

    2) As you noted – look at the situation at hand, and make a decision based entirely on the reality of the situation and the (in)action of the player characters involved.

    3) What Would Spike Do? If you have to make a decision involving an NPC, if you want to disclaim decision making, just ask what the NPC would don in the situation. Spike would try and rip the character’s throat out? Without thinking about the future repercussions? Then that’s what’s going to happen.

    tl;dr: If you don’t want to be the one making the decision at the moment, let the reality of the situation (likely by way of the mechanics), the personality of the NPC(s) involved, the (in)action of the PCs, or the creativity of the players do it for you.

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