A very experienced GM and player of my acquaintance has a maxim when it comes to RPG mechanics - Don’t mechanise and mandate something that I want to do as a player or GM anyway. As applied to ‘reactions’ I’ve always misliked the ‘mechanising’ of social interactions through those ‘reaction tables’ because, as a GM and as a player, I’m going to want to play those interactions out and no amount of tables and modifiers can account for all of the variables that players and a GM can come up with. Provided that the GM and players have a shared handle on the fiction - how reactions play out when confronting a bugblatter beast under the Lost Temple of Bibble will be very different from a street encounter with a policeman in Edwardian London - then I don’t see any need for any explicitly social mechanic at all. Adhering to some very basic character stats and abilities and adjusting for circumstances in play is enough. But I do understand that, for some groups who are not so interested in RP, a mechanical table and ability check is a way to avoid what they find uninteresting and, from your description, the table(s) in this game are an improvement on the ‘roll X dice and compare result to derive a single emotional state’.
Thank you for sharing! Yes, I fully agree with you - I often don't need to roll a reaction check, because as a GM (and certainly as a player) I already know what the creature's disposition is, and can roleplay accordingly.
There are a significant number of times though where I don't know - and in that moment of not knowing, I want a mechanic that has a sort of feedback loop to the fiction, a sense that the mechanic and the fiction are dancing the same dance. The 2d6 reaction table gives me a randomly selected initial state, which feels arbitrary, and any attempt by the players of changing disposition from that initial state introduces a moment of uncertainty - if they are successful, how does it change?
Sometimes I know intuitively, so it's easy enough - but when it's not intuitive, a mechanic like the disposition chart in His Majesty The Worm does a fantastic job of harmonizing the mechanic and the narrative elements in a way that leaves me, in my GM role, feeling very supported.
So, here’s a question. In a situation where you, as the GM, are unsure of a reaction (or if it’s very finely balanced), you roll a dice to generate a reaction and one where you simply conjure one out of your brain. Both are ‘arbitrary’ or, at least, have the same capacity to be so. The only difference is that, in one case, you can point to a random number on a maths rock as the justification while in the other case you just say ‘I flipped a (multi-faceted) coin in my head, based on all the circumstances’. For what it’s worth, I don’t know what the difference is between these propositions, or even if there is one, which I suppose is the point.
I think if I conjure a reaction out of my brain, it's at least partially informed by the fiction, right? I'm conjuring a reaction based on my perception of the character and the environment that they are in and the circumstances of their meeting. By default, the brain does some of this work for me, so if I'm imagining a reaction, it's at least somewhat not-arbitrary.
But, if I'm being authentic at the table, I'm doing that consciously, deriving that information from what I know about the character. I either do it intentionally, or I subconsciously do it with at least a subconsciously informed bias (good thing!).
But the reaction table is always purely arbitrary and random. This can be a good thing, if you want to intentionally preclude the GM's bias. I don't mean to condescend upon the value of the reaction table, either. Sometimes, if I'm in a grumpy mood as the GM (cause I haven't had time to snack or this beer is too warm or my kids were unruly this morning or my boss is a jackass), I need to remove the GM bias from the interpretation of the character! =D
The ultimate goal, regardless of what mechanic you use, is to make it feel real, and in my experience, the best way to do that is for the mechanic to work with the fiction instead of outside of it. That's probably why I'm so drawn to story games and modern games more so than I am to very old school, authentic dungeon crawlers like B/X and it's spawn.
Yes, I think that’s all valid and yes, the consistency of the fiction is what I would always prioritise and use as the foundation for a reaction decision. But as GMs we have a unique advantage. Even when we objectively don’t know or haven’t decided in our own mind all the circumstances and influences at play in a scene, as long as we are not absurdly irrational and unfair and our players trust us not to be so, we can choose *almost anything* as a reaction no matter how random this appears to the characters (and players) and provided it stays within the fiction. To return to my earlier example of the encounter with a policeman on the streets of Edwardian London. Assuming it is just an encounter concocted on the fly, we can, as GMs, just decide that the constable attempts to detain a PC but, as soon as that decision is taken for some obscure quantum reason in our synapses, our conscious minds do the clever stuff and ret-con a reason. Perhaps the PC resembles a suspect or just reminds the officer of his brother in law with whom he had an argument about money earlier that day. But suppose you had made a roll on a reaction table and it came up with ‘Unfriendly’ or ‘Hostile’? Well, you’d still have to do the ret-conning of justification if only to yourself, if not the players/characters. So I do still wonder what the difference is. I think this discussion is possibly hindered by the fact that I don’t play many ‘dungeon crawls and monster hunts’, preferring quasi-real world games with a lot of PC/NPC interaction and these settings tend to be more easily analogous to real life and so provide a lore more of a solid foundation from which to derive a decision.
A very experienced GM and player of my acquaintance has a maxim when it comes to RPG mechanics - Don’t mechanise and mandate something that I want to do as a player or GM anyway. As applied to ‘reactions’ I’ve always misliked the ‘mechanising’ of social interactions through those ‘reaction tables’ because, as a GM and as a player, I’m going to want to play those interactions out and no amount of tables and modifiers can account for all of the variables that players and a GM can come up with. Provided that the GM and players have a shared handle on the fiction - how reactions play out when confronting a bugblatter beast under the Lost Temple of Bibble will be very different from a street encounter with a policeman in Edwardian London - then I don’t see any need for any explicitly social mechanic at all. Adhering to some very basic character stats and abilities and adjusting for circumstances in play is enough. But I do understand that, for some groups who are not so interested in RP, a mechanical table and ability check is a way to avoid what they find uninteresting and, from your description, the table(s) in this game are an improvement on the ‘roll X dice and compare result to derive a single emotional state’.
Thank you for sharing! Yes, I fully agree with you - I often don't need to roll a reaction check, because as a GM (and certainly as a player) I already know what the creature's disposition is, and can roleplay accordingly.
There are a significant number of times though where I don't know - and in that moment of not knowing, I want a mechanic that has a sort of feedback loop to the fiction, a sense that the mechanic and the fiction are dancing the same dance. The 2d6 reaction table gives me a randomly selected initial state, which feels arbitrary, and any attempt by the players of changing disposition from that initial state introduces a moment of uncertainty - if they are successful, how does it change?
Sometimes I know intuitively, so it's easy enough - but when it's not intuitive, a mechanic like the disposition chart in His Majesty The Worm does a fantastic job of harmonizing the mechanic and the narrative elements in a way that leaves me, in my GM role, feeling very supported.
Thanks for your comment!!
So, here’s a question. In a situation where you, as the GM, are unsure of a reaction (or if it’s very finely balanced), you roll a dice to generate a reaction and one where you simply conjure one out of your brain. Both are ‘arbitrary’ or, at least, have the same capacity to be so. The only difference is that, in one case, you can point to a random number on a maths rock as the justification while in the other case you just say ‘I flipped a (multi-faceted) coin in my head, based on all the circumstances’. For what it’s worth, I don’t know what the difference is between these propositions, or even if there is one, which I suppose is the point.
I think if I conjure a reaction out of my brain, it's at least partially informed by the fiction, right? I'm conjuring a reaction based on my perception of the character and the environment that they are in and the circumstances of their meeting. By default, the brain does some of this work for me, so if I'm imagining a reaction, it's at least somewhat not-arbitrary.
But, if I'm being authentic at the table, I'm doing that consciously, deriving that information from what I know about the character. I either do it intentionally, or I subconsciously do it with at least a subconsciously informed bias (good thing!).
But the reaction table is always purely arbitrary and random. This can be a good thing, if you want to intentionally preclude the GM's bias. I don't mean to condescend upon the value of the reaction table, either. Sometimes, if I'm in a grumpy mood as the GM (cause I haven't had time to snack or this beer is too warm or my kids were unruly this morning or my boss is a jackass), I need to remove the GM bias from the interpretation of the character! =D
The ultimate goal, regardless of what mechanic you use, is to make it feel real, and in my experience, the best way to do that is for the mechanic to work with the fiction instead of outside of it. That's probably why I'm so drawn to story games and modern games more so than I am to very old school, authentic dungeon crawlers like B/X and it's spawn.
Yes, I think that’s all valid and yes, the consistency of the fiction is what I would always prioritise and use as the foundation for a reaction decision. But as GMs we have a unique advantage. Even when we objectively don’t know or haven’t decided in our own mind all the circumstances and influences at play in a scene, as long as we are not absurdly irrational and unfair and our players trust us not to be so, we can choose *almost anything* as a reaction no matter how random this appears to the characters (and players) and provided it stays within the fiction. To return to my earlier example of the encounter with a policeman on the streets of Edwardian London. Assuming it is just an encounter concocted on the fly, we can, as GMs, just decide that the constable attempts to detain a PC but, as soon as that decision is taken for some obscure quantum reason in our synapses, our conscious minds do the clever stuff and ret-con a reason. Perhaps the PC resembles a suspect or just reminds the officer of his brother in law with whom he had an argument about money earlier that day. But suppose you had made a roll on a reaction table and it came up with ‘Unfriendly’ or ‘Hostile’? Well, you’d still have to do the ret-conning of justification if only to yourself, if not the players/characters. So I do still wonder what the difference is. I think this discussion is possibly hindered by the fact that I don’t play many ‘dungeon crawls and monster hunts’, preferring quasi-real world games with a lot of PC/NPC interaction and these settings tend to be more easily analogous to real life and so provide a lore more of a solid foundation from which to derive a decision.