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BatMUD Forums > Bs > The art of the yoink

 
 
#1
08 Dec 2018 18:34
 
 
(from the Gamma World gamemaster's guide)

The "Yoink Maneuver" is an old RPG tradition. You may not have heard it, or
you may not have thought of its full depths of application.

In its purest form, you give the PCs some mystery to figure out, some vague
clues, some puzzle to unravel... and the third guess is the correct answer. So
you provide them a murder victim. You give them several people with motive,
means and opportunity. Then you listen carefully. If first they suspect A,
provide some evidence clearing A's name. Then if they guess it was J, you
stick in something where the death penalizes J somehow. So when they settle on
K, you have evidence crop up that supports this theory, and then K flees, and
you get a chase scene, and K is cornered you have your climactic struggle and
justice is done.

If they'd guessed B, then D, then E, you could have just as well had E be the
killer. Instead of sculpting a solid mystery and letting them feel around it
until they correctly describe what they're touching, you give them a rope, a
tree trunk, and a leather sheet, then let them feel smart and capable when
they figure out it's an elephant. You've stolen their idea and sold it back to
them, pretending it was yours all along and they just now figured it out.
Yoink!

The essence of the Yoink Maneuver is this: You're privileging plot pace over
GM control and competitiveness. A sturdy Driver GM would never Yoink in a
million years because it means that you are, essentially, cheating on behalf
of the players. Or, if you look at it from another perspective, you're
cheating to make it harder for them, because they've guaranteed to fail the
first two times.

The rationale behind the Yoink is the assumption that RPGs are more about
creating a story than about setting up challenges that defeat the PCs unless
those challenges are "properly handled." A pure Yoinker never permanently
defeats the PCs, unless they want the characters defeated. In my mind, I
already hear the indignant whining that "It's not really a game if you can't
really lose; if there isn't a chance of failure you can never truly succeed."

If having fun telling a great story is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
If you think Yoinking is wrong, if your group loves adversarial play, do that
and God bless. Just don't snub the Yoinkers because their fun isn't yours.


 
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Sirdar
W i z a r d
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